Weekly online
Each four-month module includes 14 interactive two-hour classes and one reading week, following an optional full-day London masterclass. Read selected material, practise between sessions and bring your questions back to the group.
Professional learning · Project Controls & Management
Managing Portfolios.
Choose the work that deserves your organisation’s limited capacity.
A busy portfolio can consume resources without making enough progress towards strategy. Managing Portfolios examines the decisions behind the work: what to start, sequence, change or stop. This course takes Stephen Jenner’s official guide as its qualification reference, supported by his study guide and supplementary PMI reading in KBC’s collection. Through proposed investment and governance cases, you will connect strategic objectives with selection, capacity, risk and benefits. The aim is transparent portfolio conversations: leaders should see the consequences of their choices, understand the limits of the evidence and recognise when the investment case needs to change.
Weekly route4 months
Live online2 hours a week
Module startsOctober · February · June
Learning structure1 module
The professional challenge
Make the next decision with more confidence.
Every sponsor calls their initiative essential, several teams depend on the same specialists, and the annual plan assumes everything can start immediately. You need to create a defensible recommendation that recognises strategic value, delivery capacity and uncertainty, then show how the portfolio should respond when priorities or evidence change.
Who will benefit
For portfolio managers, PMO leaders and analysts, sponsors, senior managers and strategic planners involved in deciding which initiatives receive attention and resources. It is also relevant to programme and project managers who need to explain their work’s contribution to wider priorities and understand why a successful project may still lose priority.
What you take back to work
Practical capability, built through learning.
- Link portfolio choices to clear strategic objectives.
- Compare initiatives using explicit, challengeable criteria.
- Balance demand, capability, risk and expected value.
- Design governance and reporting that support timely decisions.
Inside the course
A connected learning journey.
The proposed KBC four-month module uses 14 sessions: 1–2 strategic purpose; 3–5 selection; 6–8 capacity and sequencing; 9–11 governance; 12–14 value, risk and an integrated review. These are KBC learning blocks, not reproduced guide chapters or a prescribed APMG timetable. Independent reading supports each decision exercise.
01Clarify what the portfolio exists to achieve
Reading connection: Jenner study guide: overview, mapped to guidebook chapters 1–2; design, mapped to chapters 3–5.
Explore the relationship between organisational purpose, strategic objectives and the collection of initiatives selected to pursue them. KBC’s proposed case starts with an ambitious strategy and an inconsistent project list. You will decide which outcomes need clearer definition, identify assumptions hidden in the investment story and explain the boundary between portfolio decisions and the delivery responsibilities of individual programmes and projects.
Apply it at work: Draft a portfolio purpose statement and strategic-contribution map.
02Compare opportunities and make priorities explicit
Reading connection: Jenner study guide: portfolio design, mapped to guidebook chapters 3–5; prioritisation, appraisal and optimisation.
Consider how selection criteria, evidence quality and investment drivers affect a proposal’s attractiveness. In a board simulation, a growth proposal competes with a necessary service improvement. You will test the criteria, compare financial and non-financial reasoning and challenge uncertain forecasts. The exercise develops a recommendation that makes both expected contribution and achievability visible to the decision-makers.
Apply it at work: Create a prioritisation approach and a short investment recommendation.
03Balance the portfolio against real capacity
Reading connection: Jenner study guide: design chapters 3–5 and delivery chapters 6–8, constrained resources and dependencies; supplementary PMI standard section 5.
Translate initiative demand into a conversation about people, skills, funding and timing. The proposed scenario has several individually affordable projects that cannot all use the same team simultaneously. You will explore sequencing, capability gaps and the consequences of adding another priority. The focus is on presenting choices to decision-makers, including the work that must move when a new commitment is accepted.
Apply it at work: Produce a capacity view and two alternative portfolio sequences.
04Make governance useful to delivery
Reading connection: Jenner study guide: governance, mapped to guidebook chapter 9; investment and delivery committees, roles and four core documents.
Examine decision rights, governance bodies, portfolio roles and the information they need. KBC’s case asks you to redesign a meeting that gathers updates but rarely decides anything. You will distinguish investment authority from delivery oversight, specify the evidence required and clarify escalation. The proposed arrangements should reflect the organisation’s scale while making accountability understandable to those delivering the work.
Apply it at work: Design a decision calendar, escalation route and concise board pack.
05Review value, risk and the case for continuing
Reading connection: Jenner study guide: delivery, mapped to guidebook chapters 6–8; implementation and sustaining progress, mapped to chapter 10.
Consider how to respond when benefits, strategic priorities or risks change. The final simulation presents an initiative whose expected contribution has weakened. You will compare continuing, modifying and stopping it, then explain the recommendation. A closing review asks which portfolio practice should improve next and how leadership, stakeholder involvement and meaningful measures can sustain that improvement.
Apply it at work: Prepare a portfolio review and a justified continuation decision.
Learn around your working life
Time to understand. Space to apply.
Online or in a city near you
Face-to-face delivery can be arranged in London, Maidstone, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Liverpool. Your course offer confirms the venue and teaching dates.
A London masterclass to start your module
Meet your tutors and fellow professionals at an optional full-day London event. KBC covers the event, agreed transportation, refreshments and an open buffet dinner. Confirm arrangements with the team before booking travel.
Support between sessions
Return to class recordings and learning resources, bring questions to your tutor and use free one-to-one tutoring and coaching support. Your course plan sets out the guided reading and practice needed alongside live teaching.
Your route to recognition
Know what the assessment involves.
KBC proposes a portfolio recommendation, a governance exercise and an integrated decision simulation to consolidate learning. The external APMG route is Managing Portfolios Professional; the current scheme page describes a two-hour examination and provides a sample-exam route. Confirm the detailed current format, entry conditions and exam inclusion when selecting your course package. Neither attendance nor use of PMI’s supplementary standard grants an external credential. This course should not be described as the separate Management of Portfolios qualification without an explicitly verified offer.
Your written offer records the award or course completion requirements, any examination fees included, and the relevant eligibility checks.
The professional knowledge behind the course
Explore the books and standards.
The learning themes above bring together the relevant guide, syllabus and workplace practice. KBC’s teaching sequence connects these ideas through discussion and application.
- Managing Portfolios: Optimizing Strategic Contribution — Stephen Jenner ↗TSO · 30 October 2024; ISBN 9780117094772
Official Managing Portfolios guide, confirmed by APMG. Selection, strategic contribution, implementation and oversight of the live portfolio.
- Managing Portfolios Study Guide — Stephen JennerStephen Jenner; KBC-held course resource · 2025; supplied file version V0.2
Author's guide explicitly maps overview to guidebook chapters 1–2; portfolio design to 3–5; delivery to 6–8; governance to 9; implementation and sustaining progress to 10.
- The Standard for Portfolio ManagementProject Management Institute · 4th edition, 2017; ISBN 9781628251975
Supplementary original text: sections 2 life cycle, 3 strategic management, 4 governance, 5 capacity/capability, 6 stakeholders, 7 value, 8 risk.
- Managing Portfolios certification ↗APMG International · Current scheme checked 10 September 2026
Managing Portfolios Professional qualification and official guide; public page identifies a two-hour exam.
Your investment
Get a course offer that fits your route.
Request the standalone fee for your chosen format, including the teaching, reading materials, assessment and membership arrangements relevant to this course.
Exploring the full PCP apprenticeship?
£27,000 apprenticeship funding + £7,000 additional IPC support. The IPC package covers professional examinations, memberships, graduation, Benenden Health membership, London masterclasses and agreed transport.
These figures relate to the complete Project Controls Professional apprenticeship. Standalone course fees are separate. The team confirms eligibility, any employer contribution and the contents of your written offer.
Explore the PCP pathway →Your questions, answered.
Is this about financial investment portfolios?
It focuses on portfolios of projects, programmes and organisational change.
Is it the same as Management of Portfolios?
The reading and qualification reference here is APMG Managing Portfolios Professional and Jenner’s 2024 guide.
Will the approach fit our delivery method?
The course examines strategic choices and governance across a portfolio; individual initiatives may use different delivery approaches.
What would this help you achieve?
Talk to KBC about your experience, your goals and the right learning route for you.