Methodology

Each initiative is scored on four strategic dimensions: Value & Scale, Feasibility & Explainability, Governance & Risk, and Strategic Impact. Every dimension contains 7–8 subcomponents scored from 0 to 100.

DimensionScore = round( clamp01( mean(subcomponents) ) × 100 )

Subcomponents are weighted equally within their dimension. There are no learned weights — boards can therefore challenge any single subcomponent input and immediately see its impact. Any subcomponent switched off in Settings → Slider configuration is hidden on the Evaluation page and excluded from its dimension's average, so the score reflects only the sliders your board chose to keep.

Each dimension also carries an assessor confidence label (Low / Medium / High) which the memo and prioritisation views surface alongside the score.

Each portfolio mode can carry an optional annual capacity envelope: a budget cap (in the active currency) plus a free-text narrative. A per-mode Skill Catalogue in Settings lists skills with individual FTE caps. When at least a budget cap is set, the Prioritisation page ranks active initiatives along a single greedy queue and computes a cut-line: every initiative whose cumulative budget stays within the cap and whose required skills do not push any per-skill FTE cap is funded; the rest is parked.

Within each category the queue is ordered by the deterministic ranking rule described in § 6 (Prioritisation Logic); the cut-line is then applied to that ranked queue from top to bottom.

The scenario bundles eight knobs: budget basis (forward-looking vs. total), the budget trade-off % on the capacity cap, per-skill FTE deltas, Make-it-fit promotions, manual excludes (park with an optional reason), the queue-status filters, the include-In-Production toggle and the Include FTE in Skill Utilisation switch on the Committed panel (run-team FTE occupies the skill caps without competing for budget or rank). The cut-line (§ 7) is recomputed from these inputs on every change — nothing is stored on the initiatives themselves.

The scenario is saved per user and per portfolio mode and survives navigation and reload until Reset to baseline. Editing (and applying) it requires the Can edit Prioritisation member right — admins always have it; without it the page shows the committed baseline read-only and any previously saved scenario is ignored everywhere.

Where it shows up: the Prioritisation page, the Board Memo, both board-pack exports and the Capacity vs budget KPI reflect the full scenario (the memo and both board-pack exports carry a what-if provenance note, the KPI a what-if marker); the Board Actions budget checks use its budget basis and trade-off-adjusted cap only. Every other view stays on the committed baseline.

While an initiative is being scoped and built, every economic figure comes from its business case — the P10/P50/P90 estimates you entered on Evaluate. Once an initiative reaches “In Production” and you start recording actuals — the real annual operating cost and the benefit actually delivered — the app steers on those realised numbers instead. Initiatives that are not in production, or that are On Hold or Retired, always keep their business-case figures byte-for-byte.

effEcon(i) =
  actuals        if status = "In Production"  AND  actuals recorded
  business case  otherwise

Under actuals, the recorded operating cost becomes a recurring annual cost and the realised benefit range (with its ramp) replaces the business-case benefit — but only once a benefit actual is recorded. A cost-only actual keeps the business-case benefit forecast and applies the measured operating cost on top, so partial data never zeroes out the expected upside. Every derived figure — NPV, risk-adjusted NPV and payback — is then recomputed from these inputs, so the whole portfolio reflects what production is actually delivering.

Status changes advance through three checkpoints: Idea → Pilot, Pilot → Scaling, Scaling → In Production. Each gate carries a short evidence checklist tuned to the active portfolio mode. On Hold and Retired sit outside this ladder — they are reached from any status and are not gated — but they are not merely labels: each changes where the initiative is counted, as set out below.

Bypass — if an initiative is advanced up the ladder manually without completing that gate's checklist, it is stamped as gate-bypassed and an explicit entry is written to the decision log. By default the bypass never blocks the change but is surfaced as a red flag in the inventory, in steering KPIs and in the board pack. Parking (On Hold), retiring and moving back down the ladder are not gated transitions, so they are recorded in the decision log without a bypass stamp. If the "Enforce stage gates" setting is turned on (Settings › Stage Gate), forward status advancements are instead locked until the active gate checklist is complete.

Stale — evidence older than the review interval (180 days, set in Settings › Stage-gate evidence) is treated as stale and surfaces an amber flag — deliberately distinct from the red bypass flag, so an aged review never looks like a skipped one. Open that gate on Evaluate and set a new As-of date on the item to refresh it — passed gates stay editable.

The Operating Model Impact page translates the portfolio into seven readings, each on a 0–100 scale over the initiatives currently in scope. Every one is a plain mean of its own subscores or a share of statuses — there are no weighted composites, so there is no weighting to defend. They also share no input: no subscore feeds two readings, which is what makes two of them differing mean that two things differ. Two readings may draw on the same evaluation dimension — Oversight & Compliance Load and Operational Dependence both come from Governance & Risk — but never on the same subscore within it.

One band applies throughout: Low 0–33, Medium 34–66, High 67–100. The same band drives the level chip, the bar and the takeaway sentence, so a card cannot label itself one way and advise the other. Colour follows attention, not magnitude: for the four load readings a high index is flagged, for the three readiness readings a low one is.

The indices follow the active filter and cover live initiatives only (archived and retired are excluded). Subscores switched off for the portfolio mode are excluded as well: a reading is the plain mean of whichever of its subscores remain, and one with no enabled input reports “not measured” instead of a stale number.

Each dimension also carries a confidence rating from whoever evaluated the initiative. Where initiatives were rated low confidence on the evaluation dimension a reading draws from, the card says how many. The rating is per dimension, so two cards fed by the same dimension always show the same count — one signal, shown twice, not two. It is reported, never weighted — a low-confidence score is not a smaller score, and folding it in would invent another coefficient. It changes how you read the number, not the number.

Each input tile is rounded to a whole number for display, while the index is computed from the unrounded values — so averaging the tiles by hand can land one point away from the index shown. The index is the accurate figure; the tiles are rounded so the card stays readable.

When a portfolio is shared by a team (cloud mode), the platform records who did what, and when, so governance decisions and compliance-relevant edits are traceable — without anyone having to keep a manual log.