Event: Axians Exchange – Beyond the backlog, 19/11, Ghent

New ideas, initiatives, and proof-of-concepts emerge faster than ever before. Yet this acceleration makes one question more important than ever: how do you determine where your time, budget, and capacity will create the greatest business value?

According to Walter Buggenhout, Senior Implementation Consultant at Axians and specialist in the Atlassian ecosystem, this has become one of the biggest challenges facing PMOs, product organizations, and IT leaders today.

“The challenge is shifting from delivery to decision-making. AI makes it easier than ever to build new ideas, prototypes, and solutions. But that makes it more important than ever to determine what you build, why you build it, and which initiatives truly create value.”

Caught between ambition and reality

Many organizations find themselves facing a familiar challenge.

On one hand, there is the ambition to grow, innovate, and take full advantage of emerging technologies such as AI. On the other, there are day-to-day operational demands, ongoing projects, limited capacity, and a constant stream of new business requests.

The result?

Project portfolios continue to expand. Priorities shift constantly. Teams work hard to keep up, yet often struggle to identify which initiatives will deliver the greatest impact and business value.

Do these challenges sound familiar?

Perhaps some of the following statements resonate with your organization:

• We are constantly firefighting.
• We have more projects than capacity.
• Everyone is busy, yet the most important outcomes remain elusive.
• Everything seems equally important.
• We don’t always know which initiatives create the most value.

While these challenges may manifest themselves differently across organizations, they often point to the same underlying question:  Are we making the right decisions?

More tools, less visibility?

Over the past few years, many organizations have made significant investments in technology.

Yet collaboration across teams remains a challenge. Information is often scattered across multiple systems, departments, and processes, causing valuable time to be lost in information gathering, stakeholder alignment, and manual follow-up.

That is why more and more organizations are embracing integrated platforms such as Atlassian Cloud, bringing strategy, portfolio management, project execution, and teams closer together in a single connected environment.

Not because technology solves every challenge, but because visibility, transparency, and context have become critical when organizations need to make faster and better-informed decisions.

AI changes the rules of the game

Artificial intelligence enables organizations to analyze, create, and innovate faster than ever before. The opportunities are enormous, but this acceleration also comes with a risk.

“AI allows us to build new solutions faster than ever. The real danger is that it also enables us to build the wrong things faster than ever.”

As a result, the focus is shifting from execution to decision-making.

Which initiatives deserve investment? Which projects should be accelerated? Which ones should be stopped? And how can organizations ensure that every decision remains aligned with strategic objectives?

According to Walter Buggenhout, meeting this challenge requires more than new technology. It demands greater transparency, stronger governance, and a clear connection between strategy and execution.

Why we want to have this conversation

At Axians, we see organizations across industries facing similar challenges around Project Portfolio Management, prioritization, governance, and strategic alignment.

That is why Axians and Atlassian are bringing together PMO leaders, product teams, and IT decision-makers for an exclusive roundtable discussion on portfolio management, capacity planning, decision-making, and the growing impact of AI.

Rather than offering one-size-fits-all answers, the session aims to share real-world experiences and fresh perspectives on the challenges shaping modern organizations today.

The value of peer-to-peer conversations

In a world where technologies, priorities, and business demands evolve faster than ever, taking the time to exchange ideas with peers facing similar challenges can be invaluable.

As Walter Buggenhout puts it: “The best ideas don’t always come from presentations. They often emerge from conversations between professionals tackling the same challenges.”

That is exactly what this roundtable is designed for: an open discussion where participants can share experiences, challenge assumptions, and gain fresh perspectives on Project Portfolio Management, prioritization, and the impact of AI.

One question to take home with you

If there is one question organizations should be asking today, it may be this:

“Now that AI makes it easier to build new things, how do we ensure we are building the right things?”

Or, in the words of Walter Buggenhout:

“AI doesn’t just require new technology. It requires better decisions.”

Curious to hear how other organizations are addressing this challenge? Join the conversation.