DIA 2026 Global Annual Meeting

What if every investment were assessed for impact - before committing resources? As portfolio decisions in R&D and Medical Affairs are becoming increasingly complex, leadership teams often struggle to link individual projects to overall portfolio performance. This makes it difficult to clearly articulate portfolio potential, compare alternative portfolio configurations, or understand the portfolio-level impact of adding, re-prioritizing, or stopping initiatives. This interactive workshop explores whether and how an impact-driven portfolio approach, using the efficient frontier as a practical example, can help bridge this gap and support more effective management decision-making. Through hands-on exercises and facilitated discussion, participants will work with realistic portfolio scenarios to visualize portfolio performance and examine how individual initiatives contribute to overall portfolio value. Participants will test different portfolio scenarios, discuss trade-offs, and explore how project-level decisions shift portfolio-level performance. Rather than optimizing projects in isolation, the workshop focuses on using the efficient frontier to enable management-ready conversations that explicitly connect project choices to portfolio impact, risk, and strategic alignment. The workshop also examines the evolving role of project and portfolio managers as strategic impact managers, supporting leadership teams by creating portfolio transparency, enabling informed trade-offs, and driving value realization across R&D and Medical portfolios. The session is designed for Medical and R&D leaders seeking to strengthen strategic decision-making, improve transparency, and elevate portfolio management to impact stewardship.