Most organisations don't fail because they build bad products — they fail because they keep investing in too many mediocre ones while starving the few that could actually drive growth. Product Portfolio Management is the discipline that forces that decision into the open: which products deserve investment, which deserve to be sustained as-is, and which deserve to be phased out before they quietly drain resources from everything else. The Product Portfolio Management Training Course, delivered by The British Academy for Training and Development, is built for professionals who own that decision-making process across an entire product portfolio, not just a single product line.

This course treats portfolio management as a strategic governance function, not a spreadsheet exercise. Participants work through structured portfolio analysis techniques that reveal which products are genuinely earning their place, how to weigh investment decisions against real business strategy rather than internal politics or sentiment, and how to build a prioritization framework that holds up when resources are limited and every product manager believes their product deserves more funding. The course also addresses governance directly: who should make portfolio decisions, how often they should be revisited, and how to keep the process disciplined enough to survive contact with a real budget cycle. Participants leave with a practical framework for managing a product portfolio strategically, rather than reactively chasing whichever product is loudest in the room.

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Apply Product Portfolio Management principles to evaluate products against strategic business goals

• Conduct structured portfolio analysis to identify which products merit continued investment

• Build prioritization frameworks that allocate resources based on strategy, not internal pressure

• Establish clear governance structures for making and revisiting portfolio decisions

• Balance investment across new, growing, mature, and declining products within the same portfolio

• Identify underperforming products before they consume disproportionate resources

• Align portfolio decisions with broader business growth and sustainability objectives

• Communicate portfolio trade-offs confidently to stakeholders and leadership

Who Should Attend

• Portfolio managers and product portfolio leads

• Heads of product and senior product managers overseeing multiple products

• Business leaders responsible for investment and resource allocation decisions

• Strategy and planning professionals working closely with product teams

• Innovation and R&D leaders managing a pipeline of products or initiatives

• Professionals establishing or improving portfolio governance processes

• The Case for Strategic Portfolio Management

• Why treating each product in isolation leads to poor resource decisions

• Connecting Product Portfolio Management to overall business strategy

• Conducting Meaningful Portfolio Analysis

• Techniques for assessing product performance, potential, and strategic fit

• Avoiding vanity metrics that obscure real portfolio health

• Building a Prioritization Framework

• Structuring criteria that make prioritization decisions consistent, not arbitrary

• Applying the framework under pressure, when resources fall short of demand

• Investment Decisions Across the Portfolio

• Balancing investment across new, growing, mature, and declining products

• Making a credible case for funding, sustaining, or cutting a product

• Governance Structures That Hold Up

• Defining who owns portfolio decisions and how often they're revisited

• Building governance that survives real budget cycles and internal pushback

• Managing Underperforming Products

• Identifying products quietly draining resources from stronger performers

• Structuring exit or phase-out decisions without unnecessary disruption

• Aligning Portfolio Strategy with Business Growth

• Connecting portfolio decisions directly to sustainable growth objectives

• Adjusting the portfolio proactively as strategy and market conditions shift

• Communicating Portfolio Decisions to Stakeholders

• Presenting trade-offs and prioritization decisions with clarity and confidence

• Managing pushback from stakeholders whose products didn't make the cut

• Sustaining Portfolio Discipline Over Time

• Embedding regular portfolio review into organisational rhythm

• Preventing governance processes from eroding under day-to-day pressure