transparent decisions: managing the project portfolio

Transparent Decisions:Managing the Project Portfolio

Johanna RothmanNew: Hiring Geeks That Fit

@johannarothmanwww.jrothman.com

[email protected]

© 2013 Johanna Rothman

What Do Your Customers Care About?

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Products That Work

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Products are comprised of

running, tested features that

are put together into a

whole


What Do We Do in Organizations?

A little of this

A little of that

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What Are You Supposed to Do First?

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What’s the Problem?

Too many simultaneous

projects

Too much interrupting

work

Technical work and

multitasking is invisible

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What Some Project Portfolios Look Like

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What These Portfolios Are Missing

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Combination View: Low and Mid Level

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What is the Project Portfolio?

Organization of all the projects (and all the work) the

organization is attempting to manage

When they start

When they end

Which one is #1

Decide when projects are done--or done enough

Decide when to stop, kill, or cancel projects

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So What?

The portfolio of work-in-

progress tells you what is

happening and when you can

change it

Similar to a product

backlog

Requires cross-

organizational commitment11


Use the Portfolio to Make Decisions, Tradeoffs, and Assignments

Move between the strategic

view to the tactical view

Create a rolling wave plan

Provide transparency into

the organization’s work

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Consider Lean

Iterate on value, redefining

it over and over...

You have more choices if

you can see demos as the

projects proceed

If you can see the work in

progress, you can manage it

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Project Portfolio Flow

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Can You Use Cost?

Maybe. How long and big is

your project?

You know about the Cone of

Uncertainty in phased projects.

That says the longer and bigger,

the harder it is to predict.

I’m from Boston, the home of

the Big Dig...

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Can You Use ROI?

Now you need cost and

return

Don’t get me started...

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When Matters Most

Estimation is tempting: Cost and

Date are two sides of the same

coin

Both are tempered by the

business value of when you

deliver the feature

Features lose/gain value

depending on when you deliver

them

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Rank by Business Value

Business value is key

It is influenced by cost and

return and size

Biggest influence is the

zeroth question

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Zeroth Question:

Should We Do This Project At All?

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Let’s Take a Step Back

What projects are you comparing?

Are they comparable or are

they across the organization?

First, bucket so they are

comparable

Frogs with frogs

Apples with apples

IT with IT

Engineering with Engineering

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What Can This Project do for Your Organization?

Transform the business

Grow the business

Keep the lights on

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How to Make Decisions

Qualitative questions

Quantitative questions

Only do work that’s currently valuable

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Qualitative Questions

Should we do this project at all?

How does this project fit in with all the others?

What is the strategic reason for this project?

Is there a tactical gain from completing this project?

To make this project successful, are we ready to adequately fund it?

To make this project successful, are we ready to adequately staff it?

Do we know what success looks like for this project?

Is there waste associated with the lack of this project?

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Quantitative Questions

When will we see any monetary return from this project?

What's the expected revenue curve for this project?

What's the expected customer acquisition curve for this project?

When will we see retention of current customers from this project?

What's the expected customer growth curve?

When will we see reduction in operating costs from this project?

What's the expected operating cost curve?

How will this project move the organization forward?

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Your Project Portfolio is Where Your Strategy Meets Your

Execution

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Techniques You May Find Useful

Rank with business value points

Waste

Single and double elimination

All of these approaches

facilitate the conversation,

which is the most important

part

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Rank with Points

Start with many many

points. Each person assigns

each project a unique

number of points. Now

discuss.

The conversation is key

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When You Cannot Agree

You have two #1 projects and only

one project team

Flip a coin, start them in 1- or 2-

week iterations

Alternate iterations

They must achieve done

OR

Forget iterations and use kanban

Now you only have to fight about

which feature is next

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What Will the Lack of This Project Do?

If you don’t do this project, what

will happen?

Will it prevent you from being able

to undertake certain types of

projects?

For those of you transitioning to

agile, don’t underestimate paying

down technical debt projects.

Agile makes many things

transparent

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Waste

Who has waste based on not having

this project?

Qualitative questions you might ask:

What kinds of workarounds are

you using now?

After this project is complete,

what changes?

Do we know what success looks

like for this project?

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Take a Systems-Thinking Approach

Project portfolio

management is about the

organization’s well-being, not

a project’s winning or a

manager’s winning

This is why I have these

guidelines for the project

portfolio decisions31


Guidelines for PPM Decisions

PPM decisions reflect the

organization’s strategy, so make

sure the people making the

decisions know the strategy

Make sure a small (3-5 people)

cross-functional team decides

When in doubt, optimize up at

the organizational level

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Why Does Agile/Lean Work?

Agile helps:

Finishing running, tested features

Have release-able product

periodically (every timebox)

Lean helps

Creating a culture of not having

a lot of work in process

Instead, finish things and move

on to the next one

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Why Manage the Project Portfolio?

People can only work on one

project at a time

Know what people work on

Makes it possible for the

organization to optimize at the

organization level

Staff the most important work

Flow work through teams

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100% Utilization is for Machines

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It does not matter how many projects you start.

It matters how many projects you finish.

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References and Resources

Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and

Finish More Projects, Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2009.

Tons more on jrothman.com

Let’s stay in touch: The Pragmatic Manager, jrothman.com/

pragmaticmanager/

LinkedIn group: Agile Project and Program Management

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