New customizable methodologies and enhanced analytics help organizations bring operational discipline to innovation portfolios.
PORTLAND, OR – 2/3/2026 – BRI Associates today announced a comprehensive update to Growth Forge, its innovation management and strategy modeling software platform, introducing advanced portfolio management capabilities designed to help enterprise innovation leaders optimize resource allocation and investment decisions across diverse project portfolios.
The update addresses a critical challenge facing corporate innovation organizations: how to manage portfolios of new products and business ventures with the same operational rigor applied to core business operations, while accommodating the inherent diversity of innovation initiatives at different maturity levels and risk profiles.
"Organizations recognize that strong innovation capabilities are more essential than ever, yet most struggle to bring disciplined portfolio management to their innovation efforts," said Stephen Rich, Managing Partner at BRI Associates. "We developed these capabilities in response to evolving client needs for systems that adapt to their specific governance requirements while providing the analytical consistency needed for portfolio optimization."
Customizable Methodologies Match Organizational Reality
At the core of the update is the ability for portfolio managers to define and customize complete methodologies on a per-portfolio basis. Organizations can now tailor pipeline stages, investment guidelines, and evaluation criteria to match their specific governance processes—whether managing early-stage customer discovery, growth initiatives, or mature business expansion.
Stage-specific evaluation criteria can build progressively in granularity and evidence requirements as projects mature through the pipeline, ensuring teams focus on the right questions at the right time while maintaining consistent methodology across the portfolio.
Enhanced Analytics Drive Better Investment Decisions
The redesigned portfolio dashboard provides comprehensive visibility into innovation investments. Portfolio leaders can visualize project distribution across pipeline stages, track resource allocation patterns, monitor actual investments against established guidelines, and assess project progress against stage-specific success criteria.
Growth Forge's comparative project evaluation capabilities leverage both the Desirability, Feasibility, Viability (DFV) framework and BRI's Strategy Framework, enabling portfolio managers to perform true "apples to apples" analysis across diverse initiatives and make evidence-based investment decisions.
Designed for Complex Organizations
For enterprises managing innovation across business units or strategic themes, customizable dashboard configurations enable analysis of specific project subsets. Sub-portfolios can be organized by department, strategy theme, market, or any relevant dimension, then aggregated into enterprise-wide views that support both operational management and executive visibility.
The update also introduces support for external project tracking, allowing portfolio managers to include initiatives developed outside the Growth Forge platform in portfolio dashboards and analytics—providing a single, comprehensive view of the entire innovation portfolio.
Reducing Administrative Overhead
Recognizing that data collection overhead often undermines effective portfolio governance, the update streamlines status management. Portfolio managers can view the status of all projects from a single interface, send targeted update requests to project owners, and track responses—eliminating the spreadsheet chasing and email follow-ups that consume valuable time.
"The administrative burden of keeping portfolio data current actively undermines innovation governance," Rich noted. "By streamlining communication and status tracking, we're helping innovation leaders spend less time on data wrangling and more time on strategic guidance."
Availability
The portfolio management update is available immediately to all Growth Forge subscribers. Organizations interested in learning more can request a demonstration or start a free trial at https://www.bri-associates.com/growth-forge/growth-forge-home.
About BRI Associates
BRI Associates is a professional consulting firm specializing in corporate innovation, new business growth, and business strategy development. The company helps medium and large organizations grow beyond their core through expert consulting, skills training, and the Growth Forge software platform. With decades of practitioner experience in corporate innovation and new business incubation, BRI Associates brings proven frameworks and tools to help companies manage innovation with the same discipline as established operations.
Media Contact:
Jim Bodio, Managing Partner
BRI Associates
(503) 621-8453
