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Agile Portfolio Planning for Agile PMI CoPTRANSCRIPT
Agile Portfolio Planning:Managing Your Project Portfolio
Presented by - Johanna Rothman, Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.
Hosted by Ram Srinivasan - Agile Coach at InRhythm.com
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Agile Portfolio Planning:Managing Your Project
Portfolio
Johanna RothmanManage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects
@johannarothmanwww.jrothman.com
© 2012 Johanna Rothman5
How Many of You Like Multitasking Among Several
Projects?
© 2012 Johanna Rothman6
What Are You Supposed to Do First?
© 2012 Johanna Rothman7
© 2012 Johanna Rothman8
What’s the Problem?
Too many simultaneous projects
Too much interrupting work
Technical work and multitasking is invisible
© 2012 Johanna Rothman9
What Some Project Portfolios Look Like
© 2012 Johanna Rothman10
What These Portfolios Are Missing
© 2012 Johanna Rothman11
Combination View: Low and Mid Level
© 2012 Johanna Rothman12
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
© 2012 Johanna Rothman13
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 commitment
© 2012 Johanna Rothman14
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
© 2012 Johanna Rothman15
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
© 2012 Johanna Rothman16
Project Portfolio Flow
© 2012 Johanna Rothman17
When to Make Decisions
When some feature or iteration finishes--project
cycles
Concept of a MMF, Minimum Marketable Feature
When you have enough information about the
next version of a product--planning cycles
When it's time to allocate budget and people to a
new project--business cycles
© 2012 Johanna Rothman18
How to Make Decisions
Qualitative questions
Quantitative questions
Only do work that’s currently valuable
© 2012 Johanna Rothman19
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?
© 2012 Johanna Rothman20
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?
© 2012 Johanna Rothman21
Doing Work that’s Currently Valuable
Rank the products
Rank the features for a product
Requires market knowledge to know when the
team has done enough
© 2012 Johanna Rothman22
Three Kinds of Projects
Projects that keep the lights on--that support
the organization
Projects that grow the business
Projects that create new opportunities
© 2012 Johanna Rothman23
Why Manage the Project Portfolio?
People can only work on one project at a time
Project portfolio makes it clear where the time is
being allocated—and where the time is not
allocated
Makes it possible for the organization to optimize at
the organization level, not at the person level
Staff the most important work
Not staff the least important work
© 2012 Johanna Rothman24
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
© 2012 Johanna Rothman25
100% Utilization is for Machines
© 2012 Johanna Rothman26
It doesn’t matter how many projects you start.
What does matter is how many projects you finish.
And when.
© 2012 Johanna Rothman27
References and Resources
Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your
Capacity and Finish More Projects, Pragmatic
Bookshelf, 2009.
Tons more on jrothman.com and on my blog
If you want to me to stay in touch with you,
sign up for my email newsletter, The Pragmatic
Manager, jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager/
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Upcoming Webinar
Collaboration...The Killer App For Agile Frameworks by Janet Danforth
When - 30 July 2012, 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM ET (UTC-0400)
URL - http://goo.gl/MTFgY
About Janet Danforth
• Internationally acclaimed facilitator, one of the first five IAF CPF Assessors in North America
• Mentor and teacher to Agile luminaries including Alistair Cockburn and Jean Tabaka
• Facilitate the Agile Manifesto Ten-year Celebration at Snowbird, a gathering of global Agile leaders