Lean  PMO  in  everyday  Agile  

Prashanth  Madhavan  Narasimhan  Lead  Consultant,  Agile  Coach,  

Product  Owner    

Lean  PMO  

•  Adap=ng  Lean  principles  to  tradi=onal  Project  Management  Office  – Work  only  on  value-­‐adding  work  – Keep  processes  simple  –  Increase  throughput  – Subordinate  to  the  boGleneck  (From  TOC)  For  more  details  view:hGp://www.slideshare.net/npm123/enterprise-­‐agile-­‐42978609  

Team  Organiza=on  

•  Organize  teams  around  streams  of  work  •  Value  adding  streams  of  work  •  Break  into  smaller  streams  of  work  

Benefits  •  BeGer  repor=ng  on  business  value  

•  Easier  priori=za=on  if  streams  are  broken  down  

Challenges  •  Teams  might  struggle  to  see  the  bigger  picture  

•  More  overhead  in  terms  of  team  communica=on  

Poly  skilling  

Team  member  rota*on  across  streams  •  Ge_ng  team  members  to  work  in  different  streams  

•  Helps  gain  context  on  other  streams  

•  Helps  during  integra=on  tes=ng  and  socware  design  

Team  member  rota*on  across  func*ons  •  Ge_ng  team  members  to  work  in  different  func=onal  roles  like  Dev,  QA  etc  

•  Helps  in  diagnosing  problems  beGer  

•  Helps  in  throughput  since  work  is  not  dependent  on  a  specific  perso  

Throughput  

Design  team  processes  for  maximum  throughput  •  Limit  work  that  can  be  taken  in  a  sprint  •  Visually  radiate  informa=on  on  boGlenecks  to  the  team  

•  Poly-­‐skilled  teams  can  work  to  complete  the  commiGed  work  before  signing  up  for  more  work  

Quality  

•  Constantly  regressing  for  quality  to  maintain  socware  quality  – Raise  early  alarms  if  things  don’t  work  well  – Stop  future  work  to  ensure  quality  is  good  – Make  sure  that  the  socware  is  working  and  maintainable  before  signing  up  for  new  work  

– Design  team  processes  like  retrospec=ves  or  bug  triages  to  understand  how  to  uphold  quality  standards  

Architecture  

•  Based  on  the  complexity  of  the  program  and  the  stream,  we  could  go  with  Big  upfront  design  versus  Itera=ve  design  – Design  team  processes  like  dev  huddles  to  work  on  issues  related  to  integra=on  

– Have  the  safety  net  of  end  to  end  integra=on  tes=ng  to  validate  any  architectural  assump=ons  

Conclusion  

•  Lean  PMO  is  a  structured  and  disciplined  approach  for  large  enterprises  to  manage  programs  

•  They  can  be  broken  down  into  specific  prac=ces  for  teams  

•  The  essence  is  to  stay  simple  and  relevant  to  the  program  goal  and  for  streams  to  figure  out  which  team  prac=ce  suits  them  

About  Me  

•  The  author  is  a  lead  consultant  /  agile  coach  at  Thoughtworks  and  has  10  years  of  experience  in  so:ware  delivery  –  5  of  which  has  been  with  enabling  enterprise  adapt  agile.    

•  The  author  regularly  writes  at  www.madhavanwrites.blogspot.com