Project 09 of 09 Professional chapter Business design · Portfolio management
From strategy to a shared direction
A chapter in Milan focused on business design and portfolio management. It adds a portfolio-level perspective to the customer and service work elsewhere in my career.
At a glance
Business Design & Portfolio Management Lead at Stratégique, July–October 2020, Milan. The discussion below is an illustrative strategic lens, not a reconstruction of a specific client engagement.
- Role
- Business Design & Portfolio Management Lead
- Period
- Jul – Oct 2020
- Base
- Milan, Italy
- Focus
- Business design & portfolio management
The chapter
Business design at the portfolio level
From July to October 2020, I worked in business design and portfolio management at Stratégique in Milan. It was a chapter at the intersection of new ideas, strategic direction and the choices that shape a portfolio.
The following discussion explains a strategic lens relevant to that discipline. It is illustrative rather than a claim about a named client project or a reconstruction of undocumented deliverables.
Illustrative lens
Look at the opportunity and the wider set of choices
Business design asks how customer needs, an operating model and commercial ambition could work together. Portfolio thinking adds a second question: how should that opportunity be considered alongside the other possibilities a team could pursue?
A useful discussion therefore moves between the individual proposition and the wider pattern of investment, capability and attention. A compelling idea can still depend on resources or conditions that the organisation does not yet have.
Illustrative approach
Make assumptions available for discussion
One possible approach is to describe each opportunity through the same set of questions: who it serves, what problem it addresses, how value could be created, and what would need to be true for it to work.
That shared structure makes differences easier to discuss. It also separates what is known from what still needs evidence, giving a team a clearer basis for deciding what to explore next.
- Customer need and proposition
- Operating requirements and dependencies
- Commercial assumptions
- Evidence needed for the next decision
Reflection
Connect the idea to the decision it needs
A strategy artifact is most useful when it improves a decision. An opportunity map might clarify the choices; a service sketch might expose dependencies; an early prototype might make one uncertain assumption testable.
These examples describe the practice, not completed Stratégique client work. The verified record establishes the professional role and period; it does not establish specific engagements, outputs or measured outcomes.
A professional chapter in business design. The strategic lens is an illustrative exploration.