Streamlining Portfolio Management at Arbo Unie

Lonneke de Bree: “In the area of Portfolio Management. Arbo Unie was looking for a process whereby all major projects were mapped out and we could set them up and monitor them in a structured way.”

Lonneke de Bree: “A working Portfolio Management process. We now have monthly meetings on all major ongoing projects and have insight into what we are all working on within Arbo Unie. In addition, the project operation itself was also reviewed, allowing us to better assess whether projects we want to start support our strategy.”

Bas de Wit: “There used to be a lot of initiatives and trajectories. Everyone thought their own project was important but there was no uniformity and understanding whether those projects were actually contributing to the strategy. We are a company full of professionals who have chosen healthcare, for them helping people is most important and the process and administration will follow. By setting up a structure of process here, we can better check initiatives against our capacity and our strategy. In this way, approved projects can be better supported and there is a clear handle and framework for our employees. Among other things, this translates into the digital transformation we are setting up. We want to relieve our healthcare professionals of administrative tasks and give them more space to help people.”

Lonneke de Bree: “Very good: threon took it at our own pace which gave us the opportunity to think about the process carefully. At the time itself it felt very calm but in retrospect we got the process set up and working in a short period of time. What I also liked was that the choices were left up to us. Threon came up with proposals but we really had to make the choice.”

Bas de Wit: “I wouldn’t describe it any other way. We took the time to implement project operation with a group of representatives from across the company. We really started with the basics, with things like “what exactly is a project?”, and then went on to build a structure on those foundations. This took quite some time but was necessary to think everything out properly, implement it and bring your employees into the whole project operation. All in all, we managed to make decisions fairly quickly and stay focused on the core of the assignment, the fundamentals.”

Lonneke de Bree: “Mainly through the knowledge and experience brought in by threon. Our staff believed in this expertise which made the adoption go smoothly. There were times when we looked to threon to make decisions and it was rightly said that Arbo Unie itself had to decide how we wanted to do it. It was good that decisions were placed with us and that it did not become an imposed narrative from an external partner.”

Bas de Wit: “For me it was mainly the way threon kept it manageable for us. Threon sensed what Arbo Unie needed and helped us implement it. There was no overly complex framework set up to take into account all possible exceptions but a tailor-made structure. We noticed the power of repetition in the speed of adoption and the focus on the core of the task was not lost.”

Bas de Wit: “Yes, we really needed Threon’s approach to implement the structure at this level. At a certain point, we decided to manage portfolio management entirely on our own, and Threon supported us in this. Everything was tailored to fit Arbo Unie’s needs.”