Managing the New Product Portfolio. Towards an end-to-end approach

Product development companies are increasingly confronted with an unforgiving global marketplace, which urges the top management to pursue every product development opportunity that appears on the road. This situation incurs an important question: Which product development opportunities should a company choose to pursue in order to maximize the business results? Portfolio management is an essential means to accommodate this paradox. The three major contributions documented in this dissertation are a reference model for portfolio management, and a mindset together with three supporting tools. The research project has partially been carried out at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The results of the dissertation build on research literature and empirical studies. All contributions have been confronted with industrial portfolio management practices or industry professional’s judgement. The contributions encourage an improved understanding of the portfolio management concept and support industry professionals in their efforts to compose and continuously maintain a commercially strong product development portfolio.