Portfolio Backlog
Innovation comes from the producer, not the customer.
- W. Edwards Deming, Praphrased from Out of the Crisis [1]
Definition: The Portfolio Backlog is a Kanban system that is used to capture and manage the business and enabler epics intended to create and evolve the portfolio’s products, services, and solutions.
Summary
Portfolio Leadership is responsible for developing, maintaining, and prioritizing the Portfolio backlog. They actively collaborate with all the other stakeholders, to identify the epics needed to advance the portfolio’s products and solutions. Portfolio epics are large (and typically cross-cutting initiatives) managed through the portfolio Kanban. Since more effort and capacity are required as the epic travels from the left to the right of the Kanban, Portfolio Leadership carefully decides which will proceed to each subsequent step or be removed altogether. The goal is to determine which portfolio items have the most business value to move on to development.
How is the portfolio backlog built and refined?
The portfolio backlog is essential to Lean Portfolio Management (LPM). Portfolio Leadership, the Value Management Office(VMO), and other key stakeholders across the organization work together to manage this backlog, helping identify and prioritize the most valuable epics for the organization’s goals.
To build and refine the backlog, LPM applies a flow-based approach to ensure portfolio epics have the appropriate levels of discovery and risk and are ready for implementation. Backlog refinement activities often occur during the Portfolio Sync and the Strategic Portfolio Review events. Portfolio Leadership and its stakeholders add new backlog items, update priorities, and remove less valuable epics. A well-maintained backlog is essential to manage the portfolio successfully.
Last Update: 11 March 2025