Early warning signals are well developed for individual projects but absent at the portfolio level, where uncertainties are routinely flagged yet rarely linked to corrective control, a signal without response pathology. Through a 2-year embedded case study of a megaproject portfolio, this article extends early warning signal theory from project to portfolio, specifying three requirements that distinguish a portfolio signal: portfolio-native, mechanism traceable, and time-lagged to the horizon of portfolio-level levers. Six content-validated leading indicators operationalize the governance drivers of portfolio success; one indicator—proportion ahead of required date (PARD)—is operationally tested, bridging sensing capacity and corrective action in megaproject portfolios.
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Berge et al. (2026) studied this question.
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