When I talk about multi product portfolio governance, I am referring to the discipline of guiding several products that coexist within the same organisation. These products may share customers, technology, infrastructure, or strategic goals. The governance challenge is to ensure that each product contributes to the wider direction while still retaining the focus needed to grow. A simple example would be a company that offers a core platform and several satellite products that rely on it. In this situation, portfolio governance becomes the structure through which we coordinate investment, address dependencies, and maintain alignment.
When I look at how my clients handle multi-product portfolio governance, I often notice how simple it appears in theory. It starts with a nice, structured diagram that someone draws on a whiteboard, followed by a discussion on clean decision paths, requirements funnels, strong strategic visions, increased headcount etc. For anyone who has experienced an overly simplified transformation, it can feel very much like that famous scene in The Simpsons’ Movie where the President is making a decision…
Credit: The Simpsons' Movie
Multi-product governance is not simply a matter of technique but of processes shaped by personal history, local pressures, beliefs about what is important, and the big one…trust. I have learned that the hardest part is not selecting a governance method. It is creating an environment where people can understand each other well enough to make meaningful decisions.
The Distance
In theory, a portfolio is a system with boundaries. In reality, I often work with products that carry old long-standing expectations and assumptions that have survived several reorganisations. When a strategic direction is provided, I see teams aligning with it only through the lens of their own product and this is where a distance is created between your target and their ability to achieve it. It is not resistance. It is the natural consequence of work shaped by context. This creates a gap between the governance structure and the environment it is meant to guide. When I enter these situations, I do not see a lack of effort but a lack of shared understanding.
A pattern I notice in these moments is the belief that work means building. Delivery becomes the dominant measure but the most important activities in a multi-product environment involve thinking, aligning, and understanding how each effort contributes to the wider portfolio. When teams are held to a view of work that focuses only on output, they lose the space needed to coordinate with others. People may be at full capacity, the organisation still needs hours of discussion, review, and adjustment to maintain coherence. It is simply the cost of trying to govern complexity without acknowledging the time required to make sense of it.
Once these difficulties are recognised, the question becomes how to address them in practice. The following tools and approaches are how I try to establish the shared understanding and system-level awareness that portfolio work requires.
Techniques for Alignment
One of the most important lessons I have learned is that alignment is real work. You’re going to meet Agile Coaches and Product Coaches that say this stuff is easy – you should fire them. In a single product environment, a team can focus primarily on building. In a multi-product environment, that is not enough. When teams are pushed to operate at full capacity, the organisation still ends up spending multiples of that effort across clarification meetings, escalations, and rework caused by decisions made in isolation. Alignment protects the portfolio from these costs.
Portfolio Intent Canvas - A simple tool that captures the shared purpose, outcomes, and constraints of the entire portfolio. Completing it together creates early alignment before teams begin planning. It prevents products from interpreting strategy in isolation.
Product Relationship Map - A visual map that shows how products connect through dependencies, shared users, or shared technology. It helps teams see the wider system they operate within. This awareness improves the quality of cross-product decisions. Note - this is not a technical map.
Alignment Workshop - A structured session where representatives from each product explore how their goals support the wider direction. The focus is on understanding, not delivery.
Evidence Review - A regular forum where teams bring customer insight, behavioural trends, and qualitative data to guide decisions. Evidence replaces assumption and reduces emotional tension.
Scenario Planning Canvas (Continuity Canvas) - A simple canvas used to explore how the portfolio may need to adapt under different future conditions. It strengthens resilience by helping teams consider several possibilities.
Role Clarification Exercise - A guided discussion to define decision boundaries across teams and leadership. It removes ambiguity that slows progress. Clear authority improves flow and reduces friction.
The Cost of Competing Priorities
I couldn’t write this blog without discussing the elephant - multi-product environments create the perfect environment for competing product priorities. Each product believes its work is essential (why wouldn’t they?), and in isolation that is usually true. The trouble begins when all these priorities reach the portfolio at the same time needing more funding in the next cycle. Leaders often expect the governance structure to resolve these conflicts quickly, but the underlying tension is more than a simple ordering of work. Teams do not only bring ideas; they bring commitments to customers, promises made months earlier, and the pressure of stakeholders who expect progress. When these pressures collide, governance becomes the place where the conflict becomes visible.
I have learned that the toughest part is not the disagreement itself but the emotional weight it carries. When a decision is made to de-fund, it feels personal and a comment on your team’s value. These reactions are entirely human, and they make portfolio governance feel heavier than it should. Instead of thinking about Rob’s team, Susan’s team, or Hannah’s team, think about payments processing, email notifications, and security. What helps is acknowledging that prioritisation is not an evaluation of people’s worth but a response to limited capacity. When this understanding becomes shared, teams participate with more openness and less hesitation. It may sound blunt, but in my opinion multi-product portfolio governance needs to be more cutthroat.
The hidden cost of competing priorities is not only the delay in decision making though. It is the erosion of trust that accumulates when people feel unheard and undervalued. Without active effort to manage these tensions, even the most sophisticated governance model will struggle to produce timely, coherent outcomes. Strong portfolio governance requires leaders who can recognise this emotional load and guide the conversation with empathy, clarity, and patience. When people feel respected and informed, they can engage with difficult trade-offs without fearing the consequences. That shift alone improves the portfolio’s ability to move with intention rather than conflict.
Closing Reflection
As my experience in multi-product portfolio governance has grown, I have learned that success depends on deliberate practices rather than structural control. Also, and I hope this is obvious, governance leadership is a full-time role i.e. these people are not line managers, board chairs, initiative captains, or whatever you want to call them – they are sponsors of change. Slightly tangentially, they should also be people who are respected and liked, because people are much more likely to follow someone who they trust.