Lean Portfolio Management for Digital Transformation Training Course
| Course code | SD-DT-025 |
|---|---|
| Duration | 5 days |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Category | Digital Transformation |
| Delivery | Classroom or live online |
| Language | English |
| Certificate | Certificate of completion |
Course overview
Digital transformation portfolios often become a collection of disconnected cloud migrations, data-platform upgrades, automation pilots and customer-experience initiatives. Funding is commonly tied to annual project business cases, while technology teams work in shorter delivery cycles and executives need evidence that investment is improving measurable business outcomes. This course addresses the gap between strategy, investment governance and delivery by showing participants how to manage digital change as a portfolio of value streams rather than a queue of individually approved projects.
Participants learn Lean Portfolio Management practices for connecting strategic themes to investment choices, portfolio Kanban, lean business cases, participatory budgeting and outcome-based roadmaps. They practise defining portfolio hypotheses, setting guardrails, prioritising initiatives with weighted scoring, allocating capacity across value streams and using flow, outcome and financial measures to steer investment. The course also covers governance cadences, enterprise architecture collaboration, risk management and how to replace status-heavy portfolio reporting with decision-ready portfolio dashboards.
Teaching combines instructor-led explanation with a realistic digital transformation case involving legacy-system modernisation, data products and digital customer services. Teams work through investment trade-offs, create a portfolio Kanban, develop lean business cases and establish measures for benefits realisation. Each participant leaves with a practical Lean Portfolio Management implementation pack: a portfolio operating model, prioritisation approach, governance calendar, KPI set and a 90-day adoption plan tailored to their organisation.
The course is designed for professionals who already work with transformation initiatives, technology portfolios, agile delivery or investment governance and need a repeatable way to make digital investment decisions faster and more transparently.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Map strategic themes, value streams and digital transformation initiatives into a portfolio investment model
- Design a portfolio Kanban system with explicit intake, review, approval and implementation policies
- Create a lean business case using hypothesis statements, minimum viable scope, cost of delay and expected outcomes
- Apply weighted shortest job first and capacity allocation to prioritise competing digital initiatives
- Develop participatory budgeting scenarios that balance innovation, modernisation, regulatory and operational investment
- Define portfolio flow, outcome, financial and risk measures for an executive decision dashboard
- Establish Lean Portfolio Management governance cadences, decision rights and investment guardrails
- Produce a 90-day Lean Portfolio Management adoption roadmap for a digital transformation portfolio
Benefits of attending
For you
- Build a defensible method for prioritising digital investment beyond stakeholder influence or project urgency
- Gain practical experience creating lean business cases that link technology spend to measurable outcomes
- Strengthen credibility in portfolio, transformation and executive-governance discussions
- Learn to translate agile delivery data into portfolio-level investment and risk decisions
- Leave with an implementation pack that can support a portfolio-management or transformation-office mandate
For your organisation
- Improves alignment between digital strategy, funding decisions and delivery capacity
- Reduces investment in low-value initiatives through explicit prioritisation criteria and portfolio Kanban policies
- Creates more transparent trade-offs between innovation, technical debt, compliance and operational commitments
- Provides decision-makers with outcome, flow and financial measures instead of fragmented project status reports
- Establishes a practical governance model for shifting from annual project funding toward value-stream investment
Target competencies
Who should attend
- Digital Transformation Leaders — who must connect strategic ambitions to a governed pipeline of funded digital initiatives
- Portfolio Managers — who need to replace project-centric reporting with value-stream investment and flow management
- PMO and Transformation Office Leaders — who are redesigning portfolio governance for agile and product-based delivery
- Enterprise Architects — who need to influence investment choices, technology roadmaps and architectural guardrails
- Product Portfolio Managers — who balance product, platform, data and modernisation demand across limited capacity
- Technology Finance and IT Business Partners — who support funding decisions and need clearer links between spend, outcomes and risk
Requirements and prerequisites
Participants should have working experience of IT, data, digital product, programme, portfolio or transformation delivery. They should understand basic business cases, project or product funding, stakeholder governance and agile concepts such as backlogs, iterations and cross-functional teams. Familiarity with strategic planning, Jira, Azure DevOps or a portfolio reporting tool is helpful but not essential. Participants do not need prior SAFe certification, advanced finance qualifications, enterprise architecture certification or specialist data-analysis skills. The course assumes attendees can discuss real initiatives, investment constraints and organisational decision-making from their own context.
Training methodology
The five-day programme uses short instructor-led sessions to introduce Lean Portfolio Management practices, followed by applied workshops using a single digital transformation portfolio case. Participants analyse strategic themes, map value streams, score initiatives, build a portfolio Kanban and test funding scenarios under constrained capacity. Small groups challenge assumptions through executive investment-review simulations and dashboard design exercises. Facilitated discussions compare the case with participants' own governance realities. The final day converts learning into an organisation-specific operating model, KPI set and sequenced 90-day implementation plan.
Course outline
Day 1: Digital strategy, value streams and portfolio intent
- Digital transformation portfolio failure patterns
- Lean Portfolio Management operating model
- Strategic themes and measurable business outcomes
- Development value stream identification
- Operational value stream mapping
- Portfolio vision and investment horizons
- Decision rights, guardrails and accountability
Workshop: Participants map a digital transformation scenario into strategic themes, value streams, investment horizons and initial portfolio decision rights.
Day 2: Portfolio flow and lean demand management
- Portfolio Kanban workflow states
- Funnel, reviewing, analysing and portfolio backlog policies
- Demand intake criteria and initiative classification
- Epic hypothesis statements and benefit hypotheses
- Minimum viable product and minimum viable scope
- Lean business case structure
- Portfolio flow metrics and work-in-process limits
Workshop: Teams build a portfolio Kanban and write a lean business case for a proposed data-platform or customer-service initiative.
Day 3: Investment prioritisation and funding choices
- Cost of delay calculation
- Weighted shortest job first prioritisation
- Relative estimation and job-size calibration
- Capacity allocation across investment themes
- Participatory budgeting practices
- Guardrails for value-stream funding
- Managing technical debt and mandatory investment
Workshop: Participants run a constrained-budget prioritisation workshop, score competing initiatives and produce a value-stream funding allocation.
Day 4: Governance, architecture and portfolio measurement
- Portfolio synchronisation cadences
- Lean governance and exception management
- Enterprise architecture runway and standards
- Dependency, risk and compliance management
- Outcome metrics and benefits realisation measures
- Flow metrics, throughput and time-to-market
- Executive portfolio dashboard design
Workshop: Teams conduct a portfolio review simulation and create an executive dashboard showing investment, flow, outcomes and material risks.
Day 5: Implementing Lean Portfolio Management
- Current-state portfolio maturity assessment
- Transition from project to product funding
- Stakeholder engagement and change strategy
- Portfolio role design and capability development
- Tooling integration with delivery systems
- Ninety-day implementation sequencing
- Portfolio operating-model review
Workshop: Each participant produces and peer-reviews a 90-day Lean Portfolio Management adoption plan with governance changes, metrics, owners and milestones.
Tools & standards covered
SAFe Lean Portfolio Management, Jira Align, Jira Software, Microsoft Power BI
A typical training day
| 08:30 – 10:30 | First session |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Refreshment break |
| 10:45 – 12:30 | Second session |
| 12:30 – 13:30 | Lunch and networking |
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Third session |
| 15:00 – 15:15 | Refreshment break |
| 15:15 – 16:30 | Workshop and daily review |
Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.
What the fee includes
- Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
- Full course workbook and materials
- Exercise files, templates and case studies
- Certificate of completion
- Refreshments and lunch (classroom deliveries)
- Post-course application plan
- Facilitator follow-up on request
- Group rates from five participants
How you can take this course
Classroom
Scheduled sessions in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Dubai and Cape Town.
Live online
The same facilitator and materials, delivered live for distributed teams and individuals.
In-house
Delivered privately for your team, at your offices or a venue of your choice, tailored to your context. Request a proposal.
Certification
Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.
Frequently asked questions
Upcoming sessions
New dates are being scheduled. Ask us about the next session or an in-house delivery for your team.
Ask about datesGroup of 5+?
Request in-house delivery or group rates →Related courses in Digital Transformation
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