How do you leverage portfolio stakeholder feedback and insights to drive continuous improvement and learning?

1 Define your feedback goals and metrics

Before you solicit feedback and insights from your portfolio stakeholders, you need to define what you want to achieve and how you will measure it. For example, you may want to evaluate the strategic fit, business value, customer satisfaction, or risk level of your portfolio. You may also want to identify gaps, issues, or trends that affect your portfolio performance or direction. Based on your goals, you can select the appropriate metrics and indicators that will help you quantify and analyze the feedback and insights.

3 Collect and analyze feedback and insights

Once you have defined your feedback goals and metrics, and identified and segmented your stakeholders, you can start collecting and analyzing feedback and insights. You should use a variety of methods and sources to gather qualitative and quantitative data from your stakeholders. For example, you may use project reports, dashboards, reviews, audits, or lessons learned to obtain objective data. You may also use stakeholder feedback forms, surveys, interviews, focus groups, or workshops to obtain subjective data. You should analyze the data using appropriate tools and techniques, such as data visualization, statistical analysis, sentiment analysis, or thematic analysis, to identify patterns, trends, gaps, issues, or opportunities.

4 Communicate and act on feedback and insights

Collecting and analyzing feedback and insights is not enough. You also need to communicate and act on them to drive continuous improvement and learning in your project portfolio management. You should share the feedback and insights with your stakeholders in a clear, concise, and timely manner. You should also acknowledge their contributions, address their concerns, and show how their feedback and insights have influenced your portfolio decisions and actions. You should also implement changes, improvements, or innovations based on the feedback and insights, and monitor and evaluate their impact and effectiveness.

5 Foster a feedback culture and mindset

Leveraging portfolio stakeholder feedback and insights is not a one-time activity. It is an ongoing process that requires a feedback culture and mindset. You should foster a feedback culture and mindset among your portfolio team and stakeholders by encouraging openness, transparency, collaboration, and learning. You should also provide regular opportunities and incentives for feedback and insights exchange, as well as feedback and insights training and support. You should also celebrate and reward feedback and insights achievements and successes.

6 Learn and improve from feedback and insights

Finally, you should learn and improve from feedback and insights to drive continuous improvement and learning in your project portfolio management. You should reflect on the feedback and insights you have collected and used, and identify what worked well, what did not work well, and what can be done better. You should also document and share your feedback and insights learnings and best practices with your portfolio team and stakeholders. You should also update and refine your feedback goals, metrics, methods, and processes based on your feedback and insights learnings and outcomes.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?