GE-McKinsey Matrix: Board-Level Portfolio Strategy, Not Feature Prioritisation
When Nine Boxes Beat Four—And When They Don't
This is one of RoadmapOne ’s articles on Objective Prioritisation frameworks .
GE-McKinsey was designed for corporate portfolio decisions in the 1970s—which business units should General Electric invest in, hold, or divest? It maps Industry Attractiveness against Competitive Strength on a 9-box grid, producing investment recommendations that shaped billions in capital allocation.
Decades later, product organisations reach for the same framework. The question is whether it translates.
GE-McKinsey works at the product line level—should we invest more in Product A or sunset Product B? It’s more nuanced than BCG’s 4-box matrix, letting you weight multiple factors into “Industry Attractiveness” and “Competitive Strength.” But that nuance comes with complexity that can devolve into weighted scoring theatre. Use GE-McKinsey for annual portfolio reviews with the board. Use RICE or BRICE for prioritising objectives within a product.
The 9-Box Grid
GE-McKinsey plots business units (or products) on two dimensions:
Industry Attractiveness (Y-axis): How desirable is this market? Factors include market size, growth rate, competitive intensity, profitability, regulatory environment, and cyclicality.
Competitive Strength (X-axis): How well-positioned are we to win? Factors include market share, brand strength, production capacity, profit margins relative to competitors, and technological capability.
Each dimension is rated High, Medium, or Low, producing nine cells:
| High Competitive Strength | Medium | Low | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High Attractiveness | Invest/Grow | Invest/Grow | Selective |
| Medium Attractiveness | Invest/Grow | Selective | Harvest/Divest |
| Low Attractiveness | Selective | Harvest/Divest | Harvest/Divest |
Products in the top-left deserve aggressive investment. Products in the bottom-right are divestment candidates. Products in the middle require selective, case-by-case decisions.
From Business Units to Product Lines
The framework translates reasonably well to product portfolio decisions:
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Industry Attractiveness becomes Market Opportunity: How large and growing is the market this product serves? How intense is competition? What’s the regulatory trajectory?
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Competitive Strength becomes Our Ability to Win: What’s our market share? How strong is our product’s differentiation? Do we have the capabilities to compete effectively?
Plot your product lines on the grid, and you get a visual that boards understand instantly. “Product A is in the Invest quadrant—we should allocate more capacity. Product B is Selective—maintain but don’t expand. Product C is a divestment candidate—sunset over 18 months.”
GE-McKinsey vs BCG Matrix
You might already have the BCG Matrix in your strategic toolkit—Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks, Dogs. How does GE-McKinsey compare?
| Dimension | BCG Matrix | GE-McKinsey |
|---|---|---|
| Grid size | 2×2 (4 quadrants) | 3×3 (9 boxes) |
| X-axis | Relative Market Share (single metric) | Competitive Strength (multiple factors) |
| Y-axis | Market Growth Rate (single metric) | Industry Attractiveness (multiple factors) |
| Complexity | Low—quick to plot | Higher—requires weighting factors |
| Nuance | Limited | More granular recommendations |
BCG is simpler—two single metrics producing four quadrants. GE-McKinsey is more nuanced—multiple factors roll up into each dimension, producing nine boxes with more granular guidance.
When the Extra Complexity Is Worth It
BCG’s “Relative Market Share” is a single metric that can mislead. You might have high share in a declining market (BCG says “Cash Cow,” but you’re milking a dying business). Or low share in a market where you have unique differentiation (BCG says “Question Mark,” but you have a defensible niche).
GE-McKinsey lets you weight multiple factors: market size, growth rate, competitive intensity, regulatory environment, your capabilities, brand strength, cost position. That nuance can reveal opportunities BCG misses.
Use BCG for quick board conversations where you need an instant visual. “Here’s our portfolio—two Stars, one Cash Cow, one Dog we need to discuss.”
Use GE-McKinsey for annual strategic planning where you want a more rigorous assessment of where to place bets. The extra time investment produces more defensible recommendations.
When the Extra Complexity Becomes Theatre
The danger with GE-McKinsey is the same as weighted scoring generally—the multiple factors invite gaming and false precision.
If you’re not careful, you spend three weeks debating whether “regulatory environment” should be 15% or 20% of Industry Attractiveness. Teams reverse-engineer the weights to get their preferred product into the Invest quadrant. The output becomes whatever people wanted it to be anyway.
The antidote is discipline:
- Limit Industry Attractiveness to 4-5 factors maximum
- Limit Competitive Strength to 4-5 factors maximum
- Use rough weightings (High/Medium/Low contribution) rather than precise percentages
- Timebox the assessment to prevent endless refinement
Where GE-McKinsey Adds Value
Annual Portfolio Reviews
The 9-box grid creates a visual that executives and board members understand immediately. Plotting your product lines shows the overall health of the portfolio at a glance.
“We have three products in Invest/Grow, two in Selective, and one in Harvest. Here’s how we’re allocating capacity across them.”
That visual anchors a strategic conversation about resource allocation. Do we agree that Product A deserves aggressive investment? Is Product C really a divestment candidate, or are we underweighting its strategic optionality?
Product Line Investment Decisions
When debating whether to increase or decrease investment in a product line, GE-McKinsey provides structured rigour. Instead of arguing from intuition, you assess:
- Is this market attractive? (Size, growth, competition, regulation)
- Can we win? (Share, differentiation, capabilities)
The framework forces explicit discussion of both dimensions. A product might be in an attractive market where you can’t win (high attractiveness, low strength)—that’s a different conversation than an unattractive market where you’re dominant (low attractiveness, high strength).
Comparing Acquisition Targets
GE-McKinsey is useful for M&A evaluation. Plot potential acquisitions on the grid alongside your existing portfolio. Does this acquisition put you in an attractive market where you can win? Or are you buying your way into a market where you’ll struggle?
Where GE-McKinsey Falls Down
Feature-Level Prioritisation
A feature doesn’t have “industry attractiveness”—it serves users within an existing product. Trying to plot individual features or objectives on a GE-McKinsey grid produces nonsense.
At feature granularity, use RICE or BRICE . These frameworks measure reach, impact, confidence, and effort—dimensions that make sense for prioritising work within a product.
GE-McKinsey operates at the portfolio level; RICE/BRICE operate at the objective level. They’re different altitudes solving different problems.
Fast-Moving Markets
GE-McKinsey assumes you can meaningfully assess “Industry Attractiveness” and “Competitive Strength.” In fast-moving markets where the landscape shifts quarterly, those assessments become stale before you finish the analysis.
For early-stage products or rapidly evolving markets, lighter-weight approaches like ICE or simple RGT tagging may be more appropriate. Save GE-McKinsey for mature portfolios where market dynamics are relatively stable.
Small Portfolios
If you have two products, GE-McKinsey is overkill. You don’t need a 9-box grid to decide between two options. The framework earns its complexity when you have 5+ product lines competing for investment and need a structured way to compare them.
Practical Implementation
If you’re adopting GE-McKinsey for product portfolio planning:
Define your factors explicitly. What goes into Industry Attractiveness for your context? Market size, growth rate, competitive intensity, regulatory environment, margin potential? Write them down before you start plotting.
Define Competitive Strength factors. Market share, product differentiation, brand recognition, technological capability, cost position, distribution strength? Be explicit about what you’re measuring.
Score each product honestly. Resist the temptation to inflate scores for favoured products. If possible, have multiple stakeholders score independently and compare.
Plot and discuss. The value isn’t the grid itself—it’s the conversation the grid enables. When a product lands in Selective, what does that mean for next year’s capacity allocation?
Connect to capacity planning. GE-McKinsey tells you where to invest. Capacity-based planning tells you how much you can invest. A product in the Invest quadrant still competes for finite squad-sprints with other Invest products.
The Bottom Line
GE-McKinsey is board-level portfolio strategy, not feature prioritisation. It helps answer “which product lines deserve investment?"—not “which features should we build next?”
Use it for annual strategic reviews when you need a rigorous, visual framework for portfolio investment decisions. The 9-box grid creates conversations that BCG’s simpler 4-box can’t support.
But don’t over-engineer it. The multiple factors invite weighted scoring theatre if you’re not disciplined. Keep the factor lists short, the weightings rough, and the timebox firm.
For prioritising objectives within a product, use RICE , BRICE , or ICE . Different altitudes, different tools.
References
- BCG Matrix — The simpler 4-quadrant alternative
- RICE Prioritisation — Objective-level prioritisation framework
- BRICE Prioritisation — RICE with strategic alignment
- Weighted Scoring — Why custom criteria often produce theatre
- Capacity-Based Planning — Connecting investment decisions to delivery reality
- Objective Prioritisation Frameworks — Complete guide to all frameworks