Identifying enablers and inhibitors of agility within portfolio management.

Abstract

Nowadays, an increasing number of companies is implementing the agile way of working. Portfolio management often lags behind, as this usually involves long-term planning. Organizations are therefore agile in execution, but cannot prioritize and plan organizational goals in an agile way. Additionally, scientific literature is scarce in the field of agile portfolio management, in which only enablers can be found so far. Within this qualitative and explorative research, the literature was scrutinized in order to find factors that can serve as enablers and inhibitors for agility at portfolio level. Fifteen enablers were found, but surprisingly no inhibitors were found. Through a single-case study, seven interviewees from different layers and roles within the organization were interviewed in order to create a list of enablers and inhibitors. Subsequently, the identified enablers and inhibitors were categorized in five different dimensions in order to identify the areas on which the current literature focuses. During the research, the focus was on finding additional enablers, finding inhibitors and identifying missing dimensions. This way, the study provides a list of enabling and inhibiting factors which organizations can reflect on while transitioning towards agile portfolio management.

Date of Award	16 Jun 2023
Original language	English
Supervisor	Tim Huygh (Examiner) & Laury Bollen (Co-assessor)