Named bottlenecks the organisation has chosen to fix in order to reach its Key Results.
An intent is a bottleneck the organisation has chosen to fix in order to reach its Key Results. Intents are the unit of investment in the portfolio: each one gets capacity, evidence, and a Continue/Pivot/Stop verdict at every decision ritual.
An Intent is not a project or a feature request. It is a problem statement with a measurable signal.
It specifies the bottleneck (the named constraint), an intent signal (a local metric with baseline and target), constraints, out-of-scope boundaries, and a timebox. At the end of the timebox, the Portfolio Decision Forum makes a forced decision: Continue (extend and invest more), Pivot (keep the intent but change approach), or Stop (reallocate capacity elsewhere).
This forced decision cadence is what prevents intents from drifting into zombie projects.
Key principles
- An Intent names a bottleneck the org commits to fix.
- Unit of investment in the portfolio.
- Continue / Pivot / Stop at the Forum.
- Re-stated only when evidence forces it.