Turning Project Chaos into Strategic Focus with Product Portfolio Thinking

How do you manage a large portfolio of initiatives while driving real business value?

In this episode of the Scrum.org Community Podcast, Dave West talks with Nabila Sattar Safdar about her experience leading the transition from a project-based to a product-based portfolio. Nabila shares how she reduced a backlog of over 100 projects to 30 strategic initiatives, aligned teams around value streams, and created a culture of learning and continuous improvement.

Listeners will hear practical strategies for:

• Partnering with leadership and steering committees to prioritize initiatives
• Using data to inform decisions while balancing learning with delivery
• Investing in team capability and training to close gaps
• Taking a holistic view of people, technology, and customer outcomes

Whether you’re a product leader, Scrum Master, or portfolio manager, this episode offers insights on how to make portfolio management more agile, strategic, and value-focused.