EKSAMEN

IT UNIVERSITET

FORÅR 2016

IT PROJEKT OG PROGRAMSTYRING

MODULE 3

SCALING AGILE PPM IN REAL LIFE

ORGANIZATIONS

V/LARS KRISTIAN HANSEN

ASSUMTION

• Agility outside of individual projects will help larger organizations to compete with small entrepreneurial companies

• Agility at projects level has a spilling effect on the neighboring domains

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

STETTINA AND HÖRZ (2015)

• Their 2015 article is entitled: Agile portfolio management: An empirical perspective on the practice in use (30 Google Scholar citations)

• Most PPPM contributions originate in consulting literature only a few limited single-case studies exist

• What are the characteristics of agile portfolio management in use?

THE EMPIRICAL RESEARCH

Method: • 30 interviews • Interview: senior management, portfolio management and

project management • Bottom up coding of data

Cases• 14 large European organizations, as management of portfolios

are common in these organizations. • Insurance, media government • Non of the organizations uses frameworks for scaled agile • Both organizations with little experience and recent adoption of

agile methods, and 10 years experience• Placed in Sweden, Holland, and Germany

THEORETICAL LENS

They use insights from three frameworks:• Leffingwell (2007; 2010) (331 Google Citations)• Krebs (2008) (36* Google Citations)• Vähäniitty (2012) (7 Google Citation

KREBS (2008)

• Proposes a dynamically managed portfolio based upon agile principles with flexible financial models. He

• Divides portfolio management into:• Projects,• Resource (e.g. personnel) • Asset (e.g. systems, applications, materialized project

• Portfolio management conducted via dashboard to assess:• The situation as a whole and adopting progress • Quality • Team morale as key metrics for the individual projects.

KREBS (2008)

Challenges across portfolio domains are:• Project portfolio: too many active projects and incorrect mix of

projects. • Resource portfolio: lack of vision, too many projects while not

enough (right) resources, and lack of feedback. • Asset portfolio: legacy systems as roadblocks and

underestimation of total cost of ownership.

Solution • Implementation of a project management office (PMO) • Transparency of resources

VÄHÄNIITTY (2012)

Proposes a framework for connecting business and development decision making through three key processes:• Development portfolio management • Product roadmapping• Release planning

Connecting three groups of actors:• Top management • Strategic release management • Software development management

VÄHÄNIITTY (2012)

According to him the key steps in establishing agileportfolio management are:

• Establishing public prioritized list of all ongoing activities • Making sure incentive systems do not encourage local

optimization• Appointing a steering group to meet and regularly decide on

priorities and resourcing.

NOTE: agile product and portfolio managementin the context of small software organizations.

LEFFINGWELL (2007; 2010)

Three levels • Portfolio, • Program • Team

Four core values of the frameworks:1. Alignment (of strategy from portfolio backlog

down to the respective team backlogs)2. Code quality (ensured by number of practices) 3. Transparency (to build trust end enable better

decision making) 4. Program execution (successful execution of

the entire program).

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

LEFFINGWELL (2007)

Seven agile practices that scale:

1. Define/Build/Test Component Team2. Two Levels of Planning and Tracking3. Mastering the Iteration4. Smaller, More Frequent Releases5. Concurrent Testing6. Continuous Integration7. Regular Reflection and Adaptation

LEFFINGWELL (2007; 2010)

Portfolio levelOn portfolio level the portfolio management team maintains the portfolio vision, allocates resources to value streams through investment themes and defines and prioritizes a portfolio backlog, the highest-level mechanism and artifact holding business and technology development initiatives.

Program levelA product manager or comparable “chief content authority” constantly interacts with the portfolio management team andparticipates in decision-making on priorities of the programbacklog.

Team level5–10 agile teams are responsible for implementing and executing the projects following agile project management practices, such as those provided by Scrum.

LEFFINGWELL (2007; 2010)

STETTINA AND HÖRZ (2015): THEORETICAL LENS

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

QUESTIONS

1. What formal frameworks has your organization considered and/or applied?

• What are the pro and cons of these?

2. In your organization - what agile practices are the most desirable to scale to program- and/or portfolio level? (Consider the seven scalable practices by Lefingwell 2009)

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RESEARCH RESULTS STRUCTRED IN THREE LEVELS

DOMAINS OF PORTFOLIO PRACTICE IDENTIFIED IN CASE

ORGANIZATIONS

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

BENEFITS

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

CHALLENGES

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Responsibility for project success:• Product Owner, a formal project manager representing business• The team, represented by the ScumMaster. • Projects pull tasks from program/portfolio back log

Dedicated software development teams:• Members one (or two) projects (9/14 cases) • Stable teams - we assign work to teams and not teams to work,

• Members prefer • Less switching costs and complexity • Higher quality in work • Members still “own” code • Creates a more steady flow

• Frequent switching between projects (determined by management) creates unrest.

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

“Try to make a good tandem ofproject manager and Scrum Master”

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

One or more portfolio(s) for the organization

• 6/14 cases have one central portfolio,• 8/14 cases have no shared view on allocated resources• Other initiatives grouped within the portfolio

Transparency enhanced by strategic portfolio backlogs • Lists of prioritized high-level work packages (back logs)• Provides traceability throughout the domains of practice • Transparency can help in improving trust and collaboration.

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT

Close collaboration across the domains• Use of direct communication. • Stimulate collaboration through recurring routines on strategic,

tactical, and operational levels. • Documented knowledge may necessary, e.g. use of artifacts and

templates.

Sufficiently frequent portfolio reviews.• If project teams can deliver intermediate results more

frequently, they need to receive more frequent feedback• Monthly reviews often appropriate (2week-1 year)

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

“we have limited impact on which and

how many projects are started from the

three ‘businesses”

SENIOR MANAGEMENT:

Top management commitment • Should have explicit and important roles in PPPM• Only seen in three cases

Management commitment to strategically portfolios• Not aware of the possibilities this offers • Top management acknowledges the success of agile, but… . • Almost all interviewees are not satisfied with the exchange.• Stuck on management• Agile methods were implemented by individual teams without

little or passive notice of senior management• Executives should sponsoring the adoption

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

”there is a point at which the organization cannot be effective without executive leadership taking a role.”,

RESEARCH RESULTS STRUCTRED IN THREE LEVELS

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

QUESTIONS

1. What challenges has your organization experienced on project-, portfolio-, senior management level related to scaling agile methodologies?

2. In your view, how can these challenges by addressed?

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VIRUS CYCLE OF LACK OF CONTROL

Hansen and Kræmmergaard (2013)

IMPLICATIONS OF AGILE METHODS ON PPPM PRACTICES

Routines:The frequent interaction based on routines in projects (e.g. reviews, standup meetings) stimulates the need for an appropriately frequent interaction in neighboring domains of practice (e.g. in PPPM).

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

IMPLICATIONS OF AGILE METHODS ON PPPM PRACTICES

Structures:Due to the self-managing nature, agile teams take over aspects of traditional project management. This has implications on the role of project and portfolio management.Further, work in stable teams is preferred in caseorganizations.

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

IMPLICATIONS OF AGILE METHODS ON PPPM PRACTICES

Values:In order to support a closer interaction across domains of practice, a shared understanding how such a closer interaction could look like needs to be in place.

Stettina and Hörz (2015)

QUESTIONS

1. Do you agree with Stettina and Hörtz (2015) regarding the implications on excising PPPM practices? (Routines, structures, values)

2. How do these implications challenge current practices in your organization?

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RECAP

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KARLSTROM AND RUNESON (2005)

Case:

The manager enters the room where the pilot agile development team sits. “We have to add a new feature to our next release,” he says. “Can you please put it on the list?” “Yes, of course,” a team member replies. “Just let us know which feature you want us to postpone in its place.”

The manager gets confused and a little annoyed. “What’s happening? When we used our traditional development methodology, you could squeeze in all the new features we needed. I feel as though I’m no longer in control here.”

KARLSTROM AND RUNESON (2005)

Case:

The manager enters the room where the pilot agile development team sits. “We have to add a new feature to our next release,” he says. “Can you please put it on the list?” “Yes, of course,” a team member replies. “Just let us know which feature you want us to postpone in its place.”

The manager gets confused and a little annoyed. “What’s happening? When we used our traditional development methodology, you could squeeze in all the new features we needed. I feel as though I’m no longer in control here.”

KARLSTROM AND RUNESON (2006) STAGE-GATE/XP HYBRID

PPM ROLES

NEW COMPETENCIES NEEDED

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Encore

KARLSTROM AND RUNESON (2005) STAGE-GATE/XP HYBRID

KARLSTROM AND RUNESON (2005) STAGE-GATE/XP HYBRID:

POSITIVE/NEGATIVE EFFECTS

REFERENCES

REFERENCES

Hansen, Lars Kristian, and Pernille Kræmmergaard. "Transforminglocal government by project portfolio management: Identifying and overcoming control problems."Transforming Government: People, Process and Policy 7.1 (2013): 50-75.

Karlstrom, Daniel, and Per Runeson. "Combining agile methods withstage-gate project management." IEEE software 22.3 (2005): 43-49.

Karlström, Daniel, and Per Runeson. "Integrating agile softwaredevelopment into stage-gate managed product development."Empirical Software Engineering 11.2 (2006): 203-225.

Krebs, J., 2008. Agile Portfolio Management. Microsoft Press

Leffingwell, D., 2007. Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises. Addison-Wesley Professional

REFERENCES

Leffingwell, D., 2010. Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise. Addison-Wesley Professional

Stettina, Christoph Johann, and Jeannette Hörz. "Agile portfolio management: An empirical perspective on the practice in use." International Journal of Project Management 33.1 (2015): 140-152.

SAFe: http://www.scaledagileframework.com/Vähäniitty, J., et al., 2012. Towards agile product and portfolio management

BREAKE

NEW COMPETENCIES NEEDED

CONTACT INFOMATION

https://dk.linkedin.com/in/larskristianhansenppm

THE END