New Problems, New Solutions: Making Portfolio Management More Effective There are two ways for a business to succeed at new products: doing projects right, and doing the right projects. Most new product prescriptions focus on the first route – for example on effective project management, using cross-functional teams, and building in the voice of the customer. Portfolio management, the topic of this article, focuses on the second route, namely on doing the right projects. In spite of all the hype around the topic of portfolio management, and the myriad portfolio methods proposed, managers have identified major problems and have raised serious concerns about the effectiveness of portfolio techniques. This article reports the results of continuing research into portfolio management practices and results: it highlights some of the problems, and offers some tentative solutions – solutions that have been witnessed in typical firms as they try to address the issue of picking the right projects (see box insert). Portfolio Management is Vital, But Flawed Portfolio management is fundamental to successful new product development. Portfolio management is about resource allocation - how your business spends its capital and people resources, and which development projects it invests in. Portfolio