Perfect moment to improve your portfolio
Just a small thought during one of the famous Dutch traffic jams. Many companies are suffering (or just think they are suffering) from the current economic situation – just read the newspaper and you’ll find proof there. Something that does not appear in the paper is the changing focus of employees. Whereas they used to be too occupied externally, they now start to have some margin. By default, these people start working on topics they’ve been wanting to work on for some time, they get engaged in projects because they think it is worthwhile and have time anyway, or they start looking at internal situations. Some just look at their screen with glassy eyes – those will need some more guidance and motivation.
Why not make use of that situation and try to steer people in three ways; encourage them to work on those pet-projects and check those for quick wins, encourage them to review or look beyond their usual business for improvement opportunities or radical new potential sources of revenue (guess it will not be a surprise where the quick wins are) and finally use their time wisely to review your current portfolio of projects.
In sum: look for bottom-line improvements and tap into the unique experience and intelligence of your employees, add new potential sources of revenue to your portfolio of projects and finally review your current set of portfolio. Attention and resources may be scattered, you may have a lack of focus, your portfolio may be imbalanced and some projects may even be cannibalizing others!
If such an overview does not yet exist, make sure to bring in an external facilitator as comparing projects internally will result in a arm wrestling contest. Reviewing your current portfolio with a number of trends in mind will allow you to motivate and steer your employees to fill in the blanks.
Your future depends on it!