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# How to manage core business and innovation projects in the same portfolio?
- URL: https://www.pesec.no/how-to-manage-core-business-and-innovation-projects-in-the-same-portfolio/
- Published: 2022-12-22T08:00:17.000Z
- Updated: 2022-12-22T08:00:16.000Z
- Description: Showing isn’t the same as managing.
- Author: Bruno Pešec
- Tags: Innovation, Strategy, Leadership

Allow me to start by questioning the *"manage"* part of the question.

It certainly is possible to show both core business and innovation projects in the same portfolio by having your [maturity](https://www.pesec.no/create-your-own-innovation-portfolio-in-three-simple-steps/) axis cover everything from inception to decline.

But showing/presenting them isn’t the same as managing them.

In fact, core business and innovation projects shouldn’t be managed the same way at all.

Although they might have overlapping processes—e.g. [lean experimentation](https://www.pesec.no/step-by-step-guide-for-designing-lean-experiments/) to reduce uncertainty and improve the odds—they most certainly won’t have the same governance.

These projects will be funded, measured, and supported differently.

It is possible to manage core business projects *as* innovation projects, while they are in early maturity stages (i.e. from exploration to growth).

Just don’t pretend that you don’t know what you know, nor tell your people “you are a startup now, no more resources for you.”

On the other hand, managing innovation projects as if they were a mature, core business, from the get-go will most likely result in a frustrating failure.

Going back to the question:

- You can show both core business and innovation projects in the same portfolio.
- Don’t manage them the same way since they require different governance to be successful.
- Keep the governance lightweight. [Innovation board](https://www.pesec.no/getting-started-with-an-innovation-board/) with proper mandate and tight innovation portfolio can do wonders.