🚦 If everything is Priority 1, Nothing Will Get Done

Most portfolios I see look like a buffet plate at a hungry conference. Twelve must-wins. Four quick wins. Three experiments.

Same headcount. Same calendar. The result is oxygen starvation. Context switching. Slow decisions. Value later, if ever.

Here is the fix: start with Strategic Diagnosis and prune.

Run the Oxygen Test

1. List every live initiative. One line each.
2. Tag it Oxygen or Optional. Oxygen keeps customers safe, protects revenue, meets regulatory duty, or unblocks near-term growth.
3. Cap Oxygen to what your capacity can actually feed. Everything else pauses or merges.
4. Assign one accountable owner per Oxygen item with a clear stop rule.

What happens next?

– Delivery Planning and Design becomes real because the team finally has air.

– Implementation and Control gets cleaner because decisions have somewhere to land.

– Transition and Benefits Realisation starts earlier because fewer things compete for attention.

Hard truth: portfolios do not fail from a lack of ideas. They fail from a lack of oxygen.

❓ If you had to free up breathing room tomorrow, which initiative would you stop first?