9. Fund Like a Portfolio

In Chapter 3 I said perpetual beta has a financial expression, and that most organisations betray the idea at exactly that point. You can have the right culture, sound governance, and a genuinely adaptive process, and still strangle innovation through the budget — because the budget is where good intentions meet the annual plan and quietly lose.

The shift is from funding projects to funding a portfolio. A project is a commitment: a plan, a number, a date, defended for a year because the spreadsheet says so. A portfolio is a set of bets, most of which you expect to be wrong, managed so the winners more than pay for the losers. The first model assumes you can pick correctly up front. The second assumes you cannot — which, in a changequake, is the only honest assumption.