Strategy Execution Through Lean Portfolio Management

The Client

Our client is a prominent US charitable organisation with a long-standing reputation for impact at scale. Inside its digital and technology divisions, lean-agile ways of working were already well established, and teams were consistently delivering at 100% PI predictability — clear evidence that the practices worked when applied with discipline. The challenge sat at the enterprise level: outside digital, the organisation lacked the cadence, the structure, and the shared language to translate strategic priorities into reliable outcomes. The gap between how digital executed and how the rest of the enterprise executed was widening, and leadership wanted to close it.

The Challenge

The leadership team came to us with a clear ambition: take what was working inside digital and extend it across the enterprise, so that strategy and execution were genuinely connected end-to-end. In practical terms, that meant tackling several problems at once:

• An execution gap beyond digital. Software teams had a mature delivery cadence; other functions did not. Strategic priorities risked being interpreted differently in each part of the organisation.
• Unclear prioritisation across the portfolio. There was no shared method for deciding which initiatives mattered most, which left teams committing to far more than they could realistically deliver.
• Limited visibility of work in flight. Without a portfolio-level view, leaders could not see where bottlenecks were forming or where effort was being duplicated.
• Uneven lean-agile maturity. Capability varied widely across departments, and there was no consistent language for talking about flow, outcomes, or value.
• Change at scale. Rolling out a new operating approach across hundreds of people required more than training — it required deliberate change management.

The Approach

McKenna Consultants delivered this engagement as strategy execution consultancy and coaching, anchored in Lean Portfolio Management (LPM). The work was sequenced in phases — assess, prioritise, structure, train, embed — and supported throughout by hands-on coaching so leaders learned to run the new operating model as they used it, rather than after it was handed to them. Each phase was designed to build on the last and to make better strategy execution a permanent capability of the organisation, not a one-off intervention.

LPM Assessment and Initial Experiments

We began by reviewing the organisation's existing prioritisation models alongside its strategic objectives. A Portfolio Manager role was piloted to give the portfolio a single point of accountability, and Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) was selected as the prioritisation method so that decisions about what to do next were anchored in economic value rather than opinion.

Standing Up a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE)

The single most important structural decision was to give the transformation a permanent home. We kicked off a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) in person, using Team Canvas to agree purpose, roles, and ways of working, setting a working cadence, and putting a quarterly planning rhythm in place. The LACE became the body that owned the rollout and steered subsequent decisions — and, critically, it is what made the change sustainable. Rather than rely on a train-the-trainer hand-off, the organisation now had a standing function whose job was to keep strategy execution improving long after our engagement ended.

Certified SAFe® LPM Training

We delivered Certified SAFe® LPM training online to the LACE team, the executive sponsors, and the wider stakeholder group. A shared vocabulary across leadership and the implementation team was a prerequisite for everything that followed — without it, the same conversations were going to be held repeatedly in different forms.

Portfolio Kanban

We introduced a Portfolio Kanban that made every initiative visible in one place. The first run of the board exposed 79 simultaneous projects in flight — a level of concurrent work that explained the bottlenecks teams were experiencing day to day. With the work visible, leaders could finally have honest conversations about WIP limits, sequencing, and what to stop.

Value Stream Mapping

A value stream mapping workshop turned the focus from individual projects to end-to-end flow. By tracing how value moved through the organisation, the team identified concrete inefficiencies and a shortlist of workflow improvements that the LACE could prioritise immediately.

Change Management: ADKAR and SCARF

A transformation of this scale is, fundamentally, a change-of-behaviour problem. We layered Prosci's ADKAR model with David Rock's SCARF model to design a change strategy that addressed both the structural and the human sides of the rollout. Stakeholder messaging was tailored persona by persona, so that each audience heard the case for change in terms that mattered to them.

Strategy Execution Coaching

Alongside the structural work, we ran ongoing strategy execution coaching for the LACE, the executive sponsors, and the leaders responsible for portfolio decisions. Coaching focused on the day-to-day mechanics of executing strategy well — running WSJF discussions that produced real prioritisation, holding portfolio reviews that surfaced honest data, and using the kanban to drive decisions rather than report on them. The intent was practical: build the muscle to execute strategy consistently, not just the framework to describe it.

The Results

The combination of structure, prioritisation discipline, and a credible change strategy produced measurable change quickly:

• Portfolio performance increased by 9%. A material lift driven by better sequencing, clearer ownership, and reduced multi-tasking.
• WIP fell by 22% within three months. The Portfolio Kanban and WSJF gave leaders the evidence and the language to say no, and to stop initiatives that were not earning their place.
• 100% PI predictability was maintained across the digital ARTs. Throughout the programme, the existing delivery performance held — the changes added capability without disrupting what was already working.
• Adoption spread beyond digital. Other departments picked up the practices, with the LACE acting as the standing home for lean-agile and strategy execution capability across the enterprise.

“McKenna Consultants are exceptional consultants and leaders who excel in aligning organizations towards shared objectives. With a remarkable talent for grasping intricate environments, detailed tech setups, and understanding individual roles, they have successfully guided and united diverse groups to accomplish numerous projects and initiatives.

By fostering a culture of collaboration and respect, McKenna Consultants not only enhance morale but also drive innovation and productivity. Whether steering a company through transformation or navigating challenging projects, McKenna Consultants’ strategic foresight and unwavering commitment prove them to be an invaluable asset. Their unmatched ability to inspire and motivate others leaves a lasting impact on both individuals and organizations they engage with.”

Director of Digital Services

What We Took Away

Four lessons stand out from this engagement — lessons that travel well to any organisation trying to close the gap between strategy and execution.

1. A clear vision and a compelling narrative come first

Stakeholders do not align to a framework; they align to a story they can repeat. Investing time in articulating why the change matters, in language each audience recognises, paid back many times over.

2. Structured change management is non-negotiable at scale

Sprint reviews work for a team; they do not work for a thousand-person rollout. Treating change management as a workstream in its own right — with models, owners, and outputs — is what allowed the new ways of working to stick.

3. Transparency changes the conversation

The single act of visualising portfolio work on a kanban changed how leaders made decisions. When work in flight is visible, the questions improve — and so do the answers.

4. People come before process and tools

Frameworks are only as good as the behaviours they unlock. Tailoring coaching and communication to the people doing the work, rather than asking the people to bend to the framework, was the single biggest determinant of whether the change endured.

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