SNB’s home page characterizes the organization as “market driven.”⁵ Being market driven allows SNB to change, expand, or retract its scope and priorities, based on the needs of their market – the citizens of NB. To ensure that changes are consistent with the needs of the market and with the goals of SNB all new business opportunities go through the Business Advisory Group’s “business casing” process. Decisions about projects are then made at the Board level. The Board is responsible for using public value as a threshold criterion for any investment or de-investment and for keeping a balance within the portfolio that ensures the financial sustainability of SNB. Project proposals must be accompanied by a detailed financial evaluation worksheet, somewhat standard in content. Information about level of effort and associated cost is required for planning and scoping, development, staffing and support, user support, equipment and installation, and marketing. A project summary sheet which includes information such as overall project costs, milestones and deliverables, known risks and resource requirements and implementation considerations must be included as well.

Project evaluations are framed in an ongoing consideration of the principle objectives of SNB by the use of a Project Proposal Evaluation process. Evaluators rate each project in terms of factors such as strategic value, service improvement, customer demand, staff capacity, risk and financial return. Proposal ratings are then used by the Board in their discussion and decision making process. The instruments support these discussions and in particular, they serve to formalize the goal of maintaining the balance between public value and financial sustainability.

SNB manages and expands its business portfolio in a number of different ways. The first, and the most public and familiar, is through the development of formal agreements to act as the service arm of other New Brunswick government agencies, the second is a formalized transfer of responsibility from other government agencies to SNB, the third is to seek out new lines of business that leverage current capabilities and investments. The following sections illustrate how the three different portfolio development approaches are used to maintain the balance between public value and entrepreneurialism in the SNB portfolio.