The Most Valuable Portfolio Management Skill They Never Taught You

Speakers

Mike Hannan is a thought leader, best-selling author, and speaker on Project Portfolio Performance Improvement. With 25+ years of experience, he helps organizations—from Fortune 500s to start-ups—boost project flow, ROI, and strategic impact through practical, engaging insights.

Stuart helps PMO and portfolio leaders build strategy-aligned portfolios and prove ROI. A guest lecturer on project prioritization at the University of Oxford, he speaks widely on killing pet projects, focusing investment on value, and using decision science (AHP) to make clear, defensible choices.
About this webinar
Most PMOs work hard, but still struggle to deliver consistent value. Why? Because they get trapped in systemic “vicious cycles” — overloaded portfolios, firefighting, and KPIs that measure cost and compliance instead of business impact. In this provocative webinar, Michael Hannan takes a contrarian look at project and portfolio management and shows how to flip those cycles into virtuous ones.
Mike reframes how we define projects, portfolios, and PMOs — shifting from administrative oversight to engines of value creation. Using vivid analogies, from bottleneck physics to the 9/11 boatlift, he shows that with the right focus on flow and prioritization, organizations can dramatically increase throughput without overloading teams.
You’ll learn:
- Why most PMO KPIs are misaligned with business outcomes — and what to measure instead
- How to identify and address the true root causes of poor project flow
- Why staggering and sequencing projects boosts throughput more than “starting everything now”
- How small gains in flow speed can amplify ROI several times over
This session will challenge assumptions, inspire new thinking, and equip you with a practical, high-powered technique to maximize PMO impact.