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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic overview of approaches to project portfolio selection in continuous improvement and to identify opportunities for future research. Design/methodology/approach -This paper reviews the extant literature on the theory and application of project portfolio selection in continuous improvement. Findings -Manufacturing organisations must routinely deliver efficiencies in order to compete, but their ability to realise sustainable competitive advantage from these improvements is hampered by the lack of objective approaches for targeting their improvement efforts. In this paper a normative framework for linking strategy to process improvement implementation is presented. The paper then examines the literature on portfolio and project selection in continuous improvement and presents a descriptive framework that represents the current state. Three gaps are highlighted: optimisation of the future state, portfolio generation, and the appropriate measurement to judge outcomes. Research limitations/implications -As a review, this work relies on the use of secondary sources. Some of these sources were published in publications that are not peer-reviewed. Practical implications -There are significant limitations to the approaches used by industry for project selection but the methods described in the literature do not offer an adequate solution to this problem. Practitioners must be aware of the benefits and shortcomings of the methods and recognise that they assist with choice not design. Originality/value -This review fills a gap in the literature by providing researchers and practitioners with an overview of approaches, a better understanding of the shortcomings of current approaches and a normative model that highlights areas for further research.

Purpose -Although there is a considerable body of literature regarding the selection of improvement projects, little of it reveals what actually occurs in industry. To answer this question the authors aimed to determine how industry selects Lean and Six Sigma projects in practice. Design/methodology/approach -Practitioners of Lean and Six Sigma were surveyed to ascertain the methods and criteria that are used to select projects as well as their attitudes towards these approaches. Findings -This paper reveals: significant practitioner dissatisfaction with the approaches used; a gap between strategy formulation and portfolio generation; and that organizations generally use subjective or unstructured approaches and seldom apply the approaches that are advocated in the literature. Practical implications -Improved linkage from strategy to portfolio ought to lead to better project outcomes and longevity of the methodology. There are opportunities for better translation of the state of the art to industrial application. Originality/value -This paper presents a relatively large sample set (n ¼ 74) that reflects practitioner views on the state of practice in selecting Lean and Six Sigma projects and portfolios.

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