Management of Portfolios MoP for Executive Investment Governance Training Course
| Course code | SD-EM-041 |
|---|---|
| Duration | 5 days |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Category | Executive Management |
| Delivery | Classroom or live online |
| Language | English |
| Certificate | Certificate of completion |
Course overview
Executive teams often approve initiatives one business case at a time, only to find that the combined change load exceeds available funding, leadership attention, delivery capacity, or organisational appetite. This creates portfolios with duplicated investments, unclear strategic contribution, unrealised benefits, and difficult stop-or-continue decisions. Management of Portfolios (MoP) provides a disciplined governance method for choosing, sequencing, funding, and controlling the right mix of programmes, projects, and business-as-usual change.
This five-day course equips participants to apply MoP principles, practices, and portfolio management cycles to executive investment governance. Participants learn to establish portfolio governance, define portfolio categories, assess strategic alignment, evaluate and prioritise initiatives, balance risk and return, manage resource constraints, and track benefits. The course also addresses portfolio financial management, stakeholder engagement, risk escalation, portfolio delivery, and the executive reporting needed to support defensible investment decisions.
Teaching combines instructor-led MoP guidance with realistic portfolio scenarios, facilitated governance discussions, decision workshops, and practical templates. Participants work through a portfolio case from initial demand assessment to investment authorisation, rebalancing, and performance review. They leave with an executive portfolio governance pack containing a portfolio definition model, scoring criteria, prioritisation approach, portfolio dashboard design, benefits measures, and a 90-day implementation plan for applying MoP within their own organisation.
The course is particularly valuable for leaders responsible for investment governance, enterprise change, transformation delivery, PMO direction, and strategic resource allocation. It is designed for professionals who need to move beyond project-level reporting and make transparent, evidence-based choices across competing initiatives.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Establish a MoP-aligned portfolio governance model with defined decision rights, escalation routes, and review forums
- Classify initiatives using portfolio categories, strategic themes, and investment types
- Evaluate proposed investments using strategic alignment, benefits, cost, risk, and deliverability criteria
- Build a weighted prioritisation scoring model for comparing competing programmes and projects
- Balance a portfolio against funding limits, resource capacity, risk exposure, and change absorption constraints
- Develop a portfolio roadmap that sequences authorised initiatives and identifies dependencies
- Design executive portfolio dashboards covering investment performance, benefits realisation, risks, and delivery health
- Produce a portfolio governance implementation plan using MoP principles, practices, and management cycles
Benefits of attending
For you
- Gain a repeatable method for explaining why initiatives should be approved, deferred, reshaped, or stopped
- Build credibility with executives by presenting investment choices through strategic value, risk, capacity, and benefits evidence
- Learn to create portfolio-level governance artefacts rather than relying solely on project status reports
- Strengthen readiness for Portfolio Manager, Head of PMO, Transformation Director, and investment governance roles
- Develop a practical MoP implementation plan that can be used to improve governance in a current portfolio
For your organisation
- Creates clearer executive decision rights and more consistent investment approval criteria
- Reduces spend on low-value or weakly aligned initiatives through structured portfolio evaluation and reprioritisation
- Improves visibility of cumulative resource demand, delivery dependencies, and organisational change saturation
- Links investment decisions to measurable benefits and stronger accountability for realisation
- Provides a common MoP-based language for strategy, finance, PMO, programme, and operational leaders
Target competencies
Who should attend
- Portfolio Directors — who must govern enterprise investments and recommend portfolio decisions to executive boards
- Transformation Directors — who need to coordinate strategic change across multiple programmes and initiatives
- PMO Directors and Heads of EPMO — who design portfolio controls, reporting, assurance, and decision-support services
- Senior Programme Managers — who must position programme outcomes within wider investment and capacity decisions
- Strategy and Corporate Planning Managers — who translate strategic priorities into an affordable, balanced change portfolio
- Finance Business Partners and Investment Managers — who assess funding choices, benefits forecasts, and investment risk
Requirements and prerequisites
Participants should have practical exposure to projects, programmes, transformation initiatives, investment cases, or governance reporting. They should understand basic concepts such as business cases, benefits, risks, budgets, dependencies, and senior stakeholder decision-making. Familiarity with a PMO, programme board, investment committee, or annual planning cycle is useful because exercises use these contexts. Participants should be comfortable interpreting simple portfolio data in spreadsheets and dashboards. No prior MoP qualification is required, and no advanced financial modelling, specialist portfolio software, or project management certification is needed.
Training methodology
The course uses short instructor-led MoP sessions to establish the method, followed by structured work on a multi-initiative transformation portfolio. Participants assess candidate investments, create evaluation criteria, score and rank initiatives, test capacity and funding scenarios, and prepare governance recommendations for an executive panel. Group discussions examine the trade-offs behind difficult stop, defer, accelerate, and re-scope decisions. Each participant finishes by adapting the course templates into a portfolio governance application plan for their own organisational setting.
Course outline
Day 1: MoP foundations and executive portfolio governance
- Management of Portfolios principles and their executive implications
- Portfolio management versus project, programme, and product management
- Strategic objectives, investment themes, and portfolio scope
- Portfolio governance bodies, decision rights, and delegated authority
- The portfolio office role in decision support and assurance
- Portfolio definition and portfolio delivery management cycles
- Portfolio maturity assessment and governance operating models
Workshop: Participants diagnose a case organisation’s investment governance weaknesses and produce a draft portfolio governance structure with decision forums and accountabilities.
Day 2: Defining and evaluating investment demand
- Demand intake processes and initiative qualification criteria
- Portfolio categorisation by strategic theme, investment type, and lifecycle
- Strategic alignment assessment using objectives and contribution mapping
- Business case quality tests for portfolio-level decision-making
- Benefits profiles, disbenefits, assumptions, and benefit ownership
- Portfolio risk assessment and aggregation of systemic risk
- Data requirements for an investment pipeline and portfolio register
Workshop: Using a portfolio intake pack, participants categorise candidate initiatives and create an evidence-based evaluation profile for each proposal.
Day 3: Prioritisation, balancing, and authorisation
- Weighted scoring models and criteria calibration
- Financial appraisal inputs including cost, affordability, and funding sources
- Risk-adjusted evaluation and confidence assessment
- Portfolio balancing across value, risk, time horizon, and strategic themes
- Resource capacity analysis and organisational change absorption limits
- Dependency mapping and portfolio sequencing decisions
- Investment authorisation, deferral, conditional approval, and termination decisions
Workshop: Participants build a weighted prioritisation matrix, compare investment scenarios, and present a recommended authorisation decision to a simulated investment board.
Day 4: Portfolio delivery, benefits, and performance control
- Portfolio roadmaps, tranches, and delivery sequencing
- Portfolio-level financial management and forecast control
- Benefits management frameworks and realisation tracking
- Portfolio risk management, escalation thresholds, and contingency actions
- Resource management across programmes, projects, and operational teams
- Portfolio performance indicators and executive dashboard design
- Portfolio reviews, rebalancing triggers, and intervention options
Workshop: Participants create a portfolio dashboard and rebalancing recommendation in response to benefit shortfalls, budget pressure, and capacity constraints.
Day 5: Embedding MoP in the organisation
- Stakeholder engagement for portfolio governance adoption
- Energised change culture and executive sponsorship behaviours
- Integrating MoP with strategy, budgeting, PMO, and assurance cycles
- Portfolio reporting packs for executive committees and boards
- Portfolio management roles, capability requirements, and operating cadence
- Portfolio maturity improvement priorities and implementation risks
- Ninety-day MoP adoption planning and success measures
Workshop: Participants assemble and peer-review an executive portfolio governance pack and produce a 90-day plan for introducing or strengthening MoP practices.
Tools & standards covered
AXELOS Management of Portfolios (MoP) guidance, The Standard for Portfolio Management (PMI), Microsoft Project Online, 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+?
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