Portfolio Management for New Products

Nice overview on Portfolio Management

I was skeptical about Portfolio Management for New Products, as I've not been a big fan of Coopers writing, but this book did surprise me and I have learned from it.

I'd say that the book consists of four different parts. The first two chapters are the introduction chapter where the authors go over their research on portfolio management and try to convince the reader that portfolio management is a really good idea. In the second chapter they define the three goals for portfolio management: maximizing value, link to strategy and balancing the portfolio.

The next three chapters three looks at different portfolio management techniques for the three different goals. Chapter three looks at the value side and draws some rather interesting conclusions. I liked the examples of how different companies work. The fourth chapter looks at the balancing part and spends most of its time on the bubble diagrams and how/why to make them. The fifth chapter then covers the link with strategy and how to make sure the products in your portfolio are aligned with the companies strategic goals. The sixth chapter was almost a summary of the previous three and looks at how to combine them and which methods are best.

Chapter 7 and 8 seems kind-of "in between chapters". Seven covers some of the challenges related to portfolio management and chapter Eight covers data integrity. Some points made related to the reliability of the data are good and valid, though the recommendations for increasing data validity were weak.

The last part talked about the actual portfolio management process. First it looks at the high level, the strategy level and how to make the decisions there. Next it looks on the business unit specific level and especially talks about the relationship between portfolio management and a stage-gate process. The last chapter of the book is the "change" chapter which gives hints about how to implement portfolio management in your organization.

The book surprised me, though I had low expectations, so it might have been easy. It was thorough on techniques and gave lots of case examples. It discussed several advantages and disadvantages, which I enjoyed.

Though! I do think there were also some serious problems with this book. First of all, its way too big. It repeats and repeats and requires too much words. The whole book could be 1/3rd of the current size and then it would still cover all the topics. I hate this since I rather read a tense 100 page book than a fluffy 350 page book. Next, I was extremely annoyed by the authors self-promotion for their services and their products. At times, I felt I was reading a Cooper marketing brochure instead of a book on portfolio management.

But, by far, the biggest problem is that I felt the books was very traditional. It talks about command-control hierarchical way of working in an organization. It makes lots of assumptions about the role of senior management, the role of strategy and budgeting. I know, this is a fact of life in most organizations, but still... some more insight in modern organizations would have been nice.

Overall... I enjoyed the book. I was thinking about a rating between three and four stars. It's definitively not a five-star book due to the mentioned drawbacks. I decided to go for four because, at this moment, I do not know a better book on this subject. Recommended to read for those who do not mind about the mentioned drawbacks.