AGILE PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

Maarit Laanti, 18-January-2016

Team level agile vs. e2e flow

2

1.Water 2.Scrum 3.Fall

Forrester,2011,Water-Scrum-FallIsTheRealityOfAgileForMostOrganizaAonsToday

Different Aspects of Agile

1.  Strategic Agility2.  Business Agility 3.  Agile Organization4.  People5.  Agile tools6.  Organization culture 7.  Agility of the product to be built8.  Agility of payoff functions

Scope of influence

Enterprise

Team

Program

Adaptive Organization

FieldstudiesMetrics

MarketinfoCrowdsourcing

Releasetrials

Adap

8veloop

Teams

Program

Por+olio

Rela8vemetricsCDFAdap8veplanning

Goals/rela8vetargetse>ng Balancinginvestment

Progressvelocitycycle8me

Reward/investment

Howtodo/Whattodo

Double-looplearning

Con8nuousimprovement

Streamingproblemsolving

CONFIDENTAL

TRADITIONAL SERVICE DEVELOPMENT IS NOT ENOUGH TODAY’S PROBLEMS CANNOT BE SOLVED BY YESTERDAYS SOLUTIONS

Lean flow in software development!

Epics Features Stories Tasks

•  Refuse to specify in detail until the right time; use higher abstraction while talking long-term

•  How many requirements get out-dated before the work is started•  Fast enough do not need a Change Request process

•  If you are fast enough, there is no need for “fast track” of error corrections either

Epics, Features and Stories get Done in Increments or Trains and in Sprints

Story

Epic

SprintTask

Feature

ProgramEpicProduct / service

Program Increment

Sprint

Why Epics?

1.  Epics are refined gradually–  Get rid of the requirements inventory waste–  Adjust the investment based on epic–  Ability enhance the original vision–  Work in pull-mode–  Gradual refinement expects increased communication and co-

operation between ICT and business2.  Epics communicate the customer vision

–  Holistic approach to requirements: customer understanding and delivery of complete user experiences as a key driver

–  Nitty-gritty technical details always linked to bigger context–  Prioritization guarantees the least valuable parts are scoped out

3.  Enabling agile organization–  Agile enterprise is able to rapidly realign itself like a swarm

Scaling

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Different ways to manage a portfolio of Epics/ExperiencesEpic

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

Epic Epic

experience

experience

experience

Epic

experience

experience

experience

Epic OpCon1:- Manyepics- ShallowimplementaCon- Typicalgoal:catchup(metooorCck-in-boxproductsforreviews)

Epic

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

Epic

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

experience

OpCon2:- Fewepics- DeepimplementaCon- Typicalgoal:Heroproducts,uniqueexperiences,Niche-focusedproducts

Scoping: Managing content with Epics and Experiences

Epic Epic Epic Epic Epic

BreadthoftheporUolioHowmanyfeaturesdoweofferourcustomers?

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature

Depthofth

epo

rUolio

Whatisthe

ambiCo

nlevel?

Find optimum batch size

Holdingcost

Cost

Itemsperbatch

TransacConcost

OpCmumbatchsize

Totalcost

Developing products on Internet-time: How the software is sold?

Internet Cloud

80’s ~mid90’s 2010’s

Boxes

Software distribution is moving from box business to virtual distribution. Transaction cost disappears.Driving factors:•  Distribution cost•  Faster cash-to-concept cycle time, faster return of investment

AGILE PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

Traditionally the portfolio level is mixed by

overlapping projects and

competing priorities.

CONFIDENTIAL

Agile Portfolio Management

Fieldstudies

Rela8vetargetse>ng(compe8torcomparison)

Fastcustomerfeedback

Crowdsourcing/ideas

PorDoliomanagement

ImplementaAonFastfeedback

Gradualspecifica8ons

Priori8esandgoals

Transparency

Quickreleasing

Taming uncertainty with:•  Adaptive decision making•  Gradual commitments•  Fast feedback

Agile portfolio management ensures that we do not start more work (projects) than what we can complete with the available

capacity.

CONFIDENTIAL

Agile portfolio management:

• Approved work is prioritized based on execution order, i.e. What is started now and what will be done later.

• Concurrent amount of work is limited, i.e. the work is matched with the available capacity.

• New development initiatives and maintenance work is prioritized holistically in the value chain.

CONFIDENTIAL

Portfolio process overview

Execu8oncontrol

Teams

Por+olio

ProgressandvaluemetricsAdap8veplanning

Investmentdecisions

Cycle8mes

Investment

Whattodo/howtodo

Organiza8onalLearning

Solu0on

EpicsValueStatements Pulledto

development

8

12

9

10

Lightweightbusinesscases

3

2

DetailedspecificaConofanEpic,idenCfyingmainFeatures

1

PorUolioMeeCngwithacadenceof2weeksto3months

65

4 11

7ValueStream

Funnel

idea

ideaidea

EpicCandidates

13

25

28

20

13 28

ValueStreamOwners

Example: Development roadmap

Quickwins OperaConalEfficiency UserExperience Growth

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Archite

cturalEpics

Busin

essE

pics

Value

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The key is to move faster than the market

•  At what rate the market is moving? At what rate the technology is developing?

•  How we are positioned compared to competitors?•  What is the measured impact of actions? How do the results look like? •  Vision à action, not Vision à projects à action

Vision

DirecCon

Timebox,3monthsResources/costs

PrioriCzedlistofalldoings

Decision:WhatiscriCcal,Whatisdonebyourselves?

Dialog:Whatisthebestpossibleoutcome?

Adaptive organization/ leadership

1.  Goals should be visible to everyone, from top to bottom2.  Based on fast (and continuous) feedback3.  Do more what creates good results

Portfolio Process overview - Roles

•  Portfolio Management–  A group of people that can evaluate the proposed

Epics (Value Statements) against the strategic and Value Stream goals

–  Responsible for the Governance of the portfolio, execution and follow-up

–  Includes: Business owners, Business Analysts, PMO and other necessary stakeholders

•  Epic Owner–  Responsible for the execution of the Epic, end-to-end–  Responsible for the evaluation of the business and

technology impact for each assigned Epic

What is an Epic Value Statement?

Epic Value Statement template is used to capture, organize and

communicate key information about an epic.

It is intended to provide just enough information to have a meaningful

discussion about the proposed initiative.

Source:www.scaledagileframework.com©ScaledAgile,Inc.

[EpicName][StrategicTheme]

For <customer,asspecificaspossible>

Who <customerproblemorneed>

The <soluCon,whatbusinessdeliverabledoesthisEpiccreate>

Isa <“how”,e.g.CRM,processimprovement,newprocess,etc.>

That <whatisthevaluethatitprovidestothecustomer?>

Unlike <compeCtor,currentsoluCon,lackofsoluCon>

OurSoluCon <doessomethingbener-the“why”>

Scope

InScope <Whatisexplicitlyincluded>

OutofScope <Whatisexplicitlyexcluded>

Successcriteria: <Howwemeasure/definesuccess?>

Non-funcConal: <Security,availability,usability,robustness,load…>

Adaptivity enables growth

•  Traditional systems measure difference between plan and execution. This is a negative feedback loop, and can never produce more than planned.

•  Adaptive systems measure progress and direction. This is a positive feedback system, that enables growth.

123456gap

The difference between new and traditional leadership

Traditional leadership looks for conformance•  Make a plan and measure the gap

between plan & current state•  Define projects accurately to drive

away the uncertainty•  Max outcome == plan is

implemented as such

Adaptive leadership is looking for retention of users•  Set vision and measure for speed

& direction •  Rolling forecasting•  Start more quicker, but take

immediate feedback and make corrections

•  Max outcome == not limited

Definition of Ready

Trash-bin

BacktopreparaCon

B2

B1

Ideas POP-UPANALYSIS

ANALYSIS ImplementaCon

A1

B1

B2

A1

DONE

Epic A

Epic B

Roadmap:ConCnuusplanning

Architecture

A1

A2

A3

Architectureswimlane

Example of a client portfolio kanban wall

Because the whole is more than the sum of its parts!

Aristotle

Co-evoluCon

UX

Focus-group

Feedback

Arch

•  SynergisCc!•  Feedbackisimmediateandaccurate!

Benefits of Agile Portfolio Management

1.  “Lean” portfolio – more standard solutions, less “half-baked” solutions with the help of joined backlog–  Simple but working solutions that meet the need

2.  Alignment–  Backlog structure creates better alignment and supports fast

decision-making3.  Options thinking: systematically nurture successes

–  Visibility enables more nimble steering–  Start easier; prove concept to get more funding

4.  Better control on spends–  Control spends from first cent

Questions, comments & discussionthank you

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Questions? Thank You