Evil Interstellar Empire Portfolio Management Trial Mini-Mission
Welcome to the trial mini-mission. #
In this mission, you will assume the role of the senior portfolio manager. We at Evil Interstellar Empire employ only the best of the best. To help our professionals grow, we encourage everyone to share their knowledge with others.
Your goal in this mini-mission is to participate in our management community and help your colleagues to solve their issues by pointing them in the right direction. You do not have to find a solution for them. It is enough to hint at the root cause of their problem.
Below you will find their requests.
Almost forgot. Failure to participate in our friendly community will cause disciplinary action. You will be required to serve an extra turn in the star base kitchen, and depending on the severity of the delay, you may also be executed. The extra kitchen time will definitely include cleaning and dishwashing, so be careful if you don’t like to clean!
Good luck with your assignment.
Based on these emails, what are your suggestions?
Trial mini-mission answers #
Amara’s case #
The root cause of Amara’s issue is likely the lack of a systematic approach to how she adds work to her portfolio and how she prioritizes existing work.
When Yoko asked Amara to fit a new project in, Amara’s first reaction should not have been to look for options to fit the project. Instead she should have focused on understanding the underlying reasons.
- What is the project?
- Does it add value / why?
- Is it urgent / why?
- Yoko says it takes priority over all existing projects. What is the objective reason for that?
Understanding the above is the key to determining a correct priority. Once it’s certain that it makes sense to do the project and it’s of a high enough priority, the next step would be to look for options.
The answer to Amara’s case is Take-in and prioritization.
Barry’s case #
The issue with Barry’s situation is that he failed to identify or involve the decision-making person as a stakeholder. Ziggy is likely translating the messages back and forth, but does not have the authority to make decisions himself.
The answer to Barry’s case is Stakeholder management.
Cindy’s case #
No matter how hard the team tries, sometimes projects go wrong. Unexpected changes happen, delays occur, and so forth. Cindy should have foreseen this turn of events and had a plan B if this happened. Thinking ahead about what could go wrong, developing emergency plans, and mitigation measures are collectively called risk management.
The answer to Cindy’s case is Risk management.
What do I do next?
🎉 Congratulations on completing a trial mission! Here are a few things that you can do next:
- Complete another one. We have two trial missions - a short mini-mission and a bit longer maxi-mission. You can access both from the menu at the top of the page.
- Learn how the future missions will work (the full experience is going to be a bit more interactive, click to learn how exactly 😉)
- Give us feedback in the form below. We love hearing from you 🥰 - both words of appreciation and constructive criticism. Hearing from you is what keeps us going.
- Join the waiting list. We'll notify you when we launch more content!