Most enterprises are pretty familiar with project portfolio management, which always include a risk rating attached to each project. What happens if we turn the notion around, and consider the portfolio from the perspective of the risk profile of the whole portfolio, not just by the risk rating of the individual projects that happen to inhabit it.
Depending on many factors, everybody reacts to risk differently, most however, accept that a portfolio of projects is better than a one-at-a-time approach.
Why not a portfolio of risk whose profile is aligned with the strategic priorities?
The question that therefore needs to be asked is how that portfolio will be structured.
At one end you have a portfolio of incremental projects, essentially short term, low risk adaptations of existing technology or market positions. At the other, there is a portfolio of longer term, more challenging projects that seek to disrupt markets, and redefine the existing mind. In the middle can be a whole range of projects with differing risk profiles that together create a risk portfolio.
In my experience, little long term value is created by low risk projects, the real value comes when the status quo is overturned in some way, and having a balanced portfolio the captures the strategic priorities of the enterprise seems to make sense.
