By prioritizing practices that drive organizational agility and value creation, IT can build and deploy software and services that are tightly aligned with the ever-changing business requirements of the dynamic digital marketplace.
Enterprise Agility with Jira Align Part 2: Planning for Value
Planning is a critical activity and a unique moment in time where your organization can set common business goals, identify dependencies, foster cross-team and cross-train collaboration, manage risks, and set timed objectives. This planning should match demand to capacity, eliminate excess WIP, and lead to fast decision-making.
Whatever name we give to our planning initiative (PI Planning, Big Room Planning, etc.), Jira Align can help navigate the complexity of large-scale technology initiatives by unifying and synchronizing the work happening across programs and portfolios for a clear executive-level view.
You will learn about:
- Why planning is critical to an organization’s success
- How data drives proper “Pivot” or “Persevere” decisioning
- How Jira Align helps drive predictability and offers to identify and manage Impediments, Risks, Dependencies, and Objectives
How to Define your Strategy for Enterprise Alignment with Atlassian Jira Align
Are you starting your strategic planning for 2020 and beyond? How did your team meet their 2019 objectives? How many of the strategic initiatives for 2019 are "done" Reached Market potential? Are you still relying on subjective inputs to know these answers?
If so, join us for a webinar on how Jira Align can help you plan, manage and connect your strategy to execution and provide real time updates on the progress of each effort.
You'll learn:
*How to define your strategy for Enterprise alignment
*How communicating the strategic plan impacts delivery
*How to use OKRs to measure the success of your strategic planning
Pink Elephant is proud to offer the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of IT and business programmes, including ITIL, BRMP, COBIT, Lean IT, Organisational Change Management and other Best Practices.
Pink Elephant is internationally accredited with PEOPLECERT, APMG, EXIN and BRMI, which are independent examination institutes that manage the Intentional Certification programmes. The Project Management Institute (PMI) also recognizes Pink as a Registered Education Provider (REP).
Agile practices continue to improve as organizations move forward with adoption and adaption. However, as they move forward, they often run into daunting challenges—coordinating projects with highly complex requirements and interdependencies; navigating highly political environments; and finding ways to fund, report, and integrate agile project work into existing organizational processes. Jamie Mades has found that the Lean Agile Portfolio bridges these gaps, applying lean product development flow principles to identify high-value initiatives and speed completion of work. It reduces risk and uncertainty using agile development practices to realize those initiatives. Jamie discusses how to break down silos across all areas, reduce the divide between agile practices and senior executive requirements, and improve collaboration. Using a $500M portfolio at a Fortune 100 company as an example, he reviews how they seamlessly integrated agile planning into the annual funding cycle and coordinated highly complex work across the organization. Join Jamie to learn where you need to drive changes and where you can adapt agile practices to meet organizational needs.
This webinar will provide guidance on effective ways to conduct Portfolio Management, using our concepts of Agile Governance to simplify and expedite the key decisions. These techniques can applied for Agile, hybrid, and classic plan-driven processes.
Session will have different aspects of the Agile Portfolio Management.
Session is for Lean Agile Leaders which will help them manage portfolio Agile way. Lean Agile principles when applied to portfolio management, will help you keep pace with fast changing business by giving you a disciplined approach to implementing you strategic vision as realistic work plan.
Keeping up with the new pace of change requires light weight processes and an adaptive mindset. It will cover the following main pillars of Agile Portfolio Management:
Work Management
Capacity Management
Financial Management
Value Management
Continuous planning
Continuous Visibility
APM session will help you look at the portfolio in different way; and help you outpace changing business.
Portfolio prioritization with lean canvas and value game for PMI Buffalo NY C...Mike Caspar
Summary:
Projects are too often prioritized based on opinions and politics. Use the Lean Canvas, a one-page business plan, and the Business Value Game for rigorous prioritization.
Learning Objectives:
How to use the Lean Canvas to articulate critical project parameters
How to use the Business Value Game to prioritize different projects
Enterprise Agility with Jira Align Part 2: Planning for ValueCprime
Planning is a critical activity and a unique moment in time where your organization can set common business goals, identify dependencies, foster cross-team and cross-train collaboration, manage risks, and set timed objectives. This planning should match demand to capacity, eliminate excess WIP, and lead to fast decision-making.
Whatever name we give to our planning initiative (PI Planning, Big Room Planning, etc.), Jira Align can help navigate the complexity of large-scale technology initiatives by unifying and synchronizing the work happening across programs and portfolios for a clear executive-level view.
You will learn about:
- Why planning is critical to an organization’s success
- How data drives proper “Pivot” or “Persevere” decisioning
- How Jira Align helps drive predictability and offers to identify and manage Impediments, Risks, Dependencies, and Objectives
How to Define your Strategy for Enterprise Alignment with Atlassian Jira AlignCprime
Are you starting your strategic planning for 2020 and beyond? How did your team meet their 2019 objectives? How many of the strategic initiatives for 2019 are "done" Reached Market potential? Are you still relying on subjective inputs to know these answers?
If so, join us for a webinar on how Jira Align can help you plan, manage and connect your strategy to execution and provide real time updates on the progress of each effort.
You'll learn:
*How to define your strategy for Enterprise alignment
*How communicating the strategic plan impacts delivery
*How to use OKRs to measure the success of your strategic planning
Pink Elephant is proud to offer the industry’s most comprehensive portfolio of IT and business programmes, including ITIL, BRMP, COBIT, Lean IT, Organisational Change Management and other Best Practices.
Pink Elephant is internationally accredited with PEOPLECERT, APMG, EXIN and BRMI, which are independent examination institutes that manage the Intentional Certification programmes. The Project Management Institute (PMI) also recognizes Pink as a Registered Education Provider (REP).
Agile practices continue to improve as organizations move forward with adoption and adaption. However, as they move forward, they often run into daunting challenges—coordinating projects with highly complex requirements and interdependencies; navigating highly political environments; and finding ways to fund, report, and integrate agile project work into existing organizational processes. Jamie Mades has found that the Lean Agile Portfolio bridges these gaps, applying lean product development flow principles to identify high-value initiatives and speed completion of work. It reduces risk and uncertainty using agile development practices to realize those initiatives. Jamie discusses how to break down silos across all areas, reduce the divide between agile practices and senior executive requirements, and improve collaboration. Using a $500M portfolio at a Fortune 100 company as an example, he reviews how they seamlessly integrated agile planning into the annual funding cycle and coordinated highly complex work across the organization. Join Jamie to learn where you need to drive changes and where you can adapt agile practices to meet organizational needs.
Intro to Agile Portfolio Governance Presentation Cprime
This webinar will provide guidance on effective ways to conduct Portfolio Management, using our concepts of Agile Governance to simplify and expedite the key decisions. These techniques can applied for Agile, hybrid, and classic plan-driven processes.
Discover Jira Align - Realignment to the EnterpriseCprime
Atlassian Jira Align enables organizations to connect and align around common goals and objectives while providing actionable views and metrics to everyone touching the technology product lifecycle. With the ability to support a number of scaling frameworks, Jira Align helps navigate the complexity of large-scale technology initiatives by unifying and synchronizing the work happening across programs and portfolios for a clear executive-level view. At the same time, agile teams can continue to use their preferred tools, like Jira, to move quickly and deliver the best customer outcomes. With Jira Align, program managers, product managers, and release train engineers get the information they need to empower their teams to deliver the right things quickly and respond to market change.
Join us as we highlight critical features of Jira Align.
In this webinar, you'll learn how to:
- Define and track the work of teams as it relates to enterprise strategy
- Provide visibility and alignment across the entire enterprise
- Use the connectivity of work to measure outcomes and drive better value to your customers
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles: Learnings from Ken France’s Personal Agility...Cprime
Download and watch the associated Webinar on Demand:
https://www.cprime.com/resource/webinars/planes-trains-and-automobiles-learnings-from-ken-frances-personal-agility-journey/
In celebration of the 20th year of the signing of the Agile Manifesto, Ken France, Agility Practice Leader and SAFe Fellow at Cprime, shares his professional journey which has been centered around application development and agility. He explains how planes, trains, and automobiles are directly tied to the long and winding road he traveled from being an application developer with a computer science degree to becoming the Agility Practice Leader at Cprime and SAFe Fellow.
This session highlights things he has learned and done along the way and he shares experiences and insights that may benefit others in their professional journey. This talk also features some “cameo” appearances from well-known industry icons who have influenced and supported him, specifically Grady Booch, Dr. Ivar Jacobson, and Dean Leffingwell.
This event was part of Agile 20 Reflect Festival, a global community-led agile event.
How to Leverage SAFe 5.0 for Your Enterprise Cloud StrategyCprime
Webinar on Demand: https://www.cprime.com/resource/webinars/how-to-leverage-safe-5-0-for-your-enterprise-cloud-strategy/
Check out Cprime's Cloud Strategy offerings: https://www.cprime.com/cloud/cloud-adoption-and-roadmapping/
Have you incorporated Cloud strategy into your SAFe transformation yet? Does your organization truly have a strategy to integrate Cloud Technologies with your Agile and DevSecOps approach? How about your data? Do you have a solid plan for how to access, govern, and monetize it?
This session will explore key aspects of Cloud, DevSecOps, and Data Strategy and cover how SAFe 5.0 helps organizations combine them into a centralized and coherent strategy, while decentralizing the execution and successful implementation of these strategic initiatives.
Join Ken France, VP, Scaled Agility at Cprime, and Sanjeev Sharma, Analyst and Consultant (sdarchitectconsulting.com) and author of "The DevOps Adoption Playbook," as we:
*Explore key components of Cloud, DevSecOps and Data Strategies.
*Illustrate how to leverage SAFe 5.0 to develop coherent enterprise strategy that’s effectively implemented.
*Examine key technical practices, across the SAFe 5.0 framework, that allow you to effectively execute your strategy.
Дмитро Горін “From project to product” Kharkiv Project Management DayLviv Startup Club
This document discusses the role of a product manager. It begins by defining what a product is in a modern economy. It then explains that a product manager's role is to ensure the development of the right product at the right time to ensure the product's success. The document outlines how a product manager's responsibilities differ from a project manager by focusing more on strategy, market research, the product vision and roadmap rather than just project delivery. It provides an overview of the key skills a product manager should have, including user experience design, business/financial knowledge, collaboration, and stakeholder management. It emphasizes the importance of proactivity, selling solutions, and advocating for the customer.
1. Defining a project backlog is easy, but prioritizing projects is difficult when an organization has multiple initiatives. Managing demand and ensuring the right resources are available is also challenging.
2. The document discusses using Lean planning methodology and tools to define a portfolio strategy, allocate resources to investment categories, and create a portfolio roadmap to prioritize projects.
3. The goal is to make data-driven decisions when prioritizing projects even if stakeholders value different outcomes, and to engage development teams in delivering outcomes, not just software.
The document discusses metrics that matter for product management in the boardroom. It covers why metrics matter for alignment, accountability, and decision making. It then discusses different types of metrics to implement like product performance, demand generation, adoption, and quality. It emphasizes that the right metrics must be selected based on the business model and product lifecycle stage. The right metrics can identify portfolio strengths and drive organizational behavior change when shared appropriately.
Do you find yourself inundated with product requests coming from all over the place? Are they coming in through email, Slack, text, chat, phone calls and who knows what else? Are the front lines capturing the needs of your customers but you are left wanting as to the importance or the why? Do you struggle to know the true value of the requests?
Managing the unlimited number of requests from internal and external customers results in either being too responsive and tactical trying to please everyone or the requests are disregarded as you focus on the “strategic”.
This webinar will share some tips and tricks that will enable you to create and implement a solution that provides the conduit for product requests in one place and allows your “community” to help surface the one that matter the most, all while they have visibility into the status and progress. Sure, saying no is better than not saying anything at all, but it is even better to root out what the market needs and let them know it is coming.
From Product Strategy to Backlog: Best Practices for Integrating Aha! Roadmap...Cprime
More than 5,000 companies choose Aha! Roadmaps for setting brilliant strategy, prioritizing features, and sharing visual plans. Product teams rely on robust integrations with leading development tools like Jira. They use these to share prioritized work with engineering and track progress against their roadmap in real-time.
Aha! expert Shawn Zenz and Cprime product coach Chris Poole will discuss product management best practices and demonstrate the most effective integration configurations.
You will learn how to:
- Set product strategy, plan releases, and prioritize features in Aha! Roadmaps
- Send features to your development team in Jira for implementation
- Monitor progress and track value creation
Download the associated webinar here: https://www.cprime.com/resource/webinars/from-product-strategy-to-backlog-best-practices-for-integrating-aha-roadmaps-with-jira/
Enterprise Agility with Jira Align Part 1: Facing the Challenges Head OnCprime
High performance organizations compete and thrive by responding to market changes and emerging opportunities with innovative and modern business solutions. In order to achieve Enterprise Agility, data has to flow seamlessly, starting at the top with strategy and goals set by leadership, all the way through execution to the delivery of value. This journey, however, is fraught with business challenges.
Jira Align allows organizations to connect and align around common goals and objectives while providing actionable views and metrics to all stakeholders involved in the technology product lifecycle.
Download Part 1 of our 3-part webinar series on achieving Enterprise Agility with Jira Align. Jesse Pearlman and Alan Furlong will provide insights and best practices on how to face common enterprise agility challenges and pitfalls head on.
You will learn about:
- What a connected enterprise is and how that drives agility
- How businesses can refine product understanding, align corporate to product strategy, and optimize product roadmapping and planning
- How to communicate a strategic plan to positively impact delivery
Nine Novel Tactics for Software Product Managment in the New Digital AgeCognizant
High-tech companies looking to develop innovative solutions in this digital era can employ these powerful techniques based on Agile software development, user-centricity, data analysis, social media networks, KPIs, cohort analyses and more.
Making the Shift to the Next-Generation EnterpriseCognizant
It's crucial for organizations to assess their next-generation strengths and weaknesses in light of their strategic priorities and then focus on the enablers that will prepare them for the future of work.
Beyond Portfolio: The Agile transformation of a multinational financial insti...Unai Roldán
Beyond Portfolio
The Agile transformation of a multinational financial institution
Esta charla refleja nuestra experiencia como agentes de cambio respecto a la transformación de una multinacional financiera que engloba 7 países simultáneamente: México, Colombia, Perú, Chile, Argentina, España y Turquía.
En ella presentamos la involucración de los coaches en cada uno de estos países, así como la coordinación global, alineamiento de cada portfolio local con la estrategia global.
Desde eventos de alineamiento de 700 personas hasta reeducación de presupuestación y toma de decisiones. Caso de estudio respecto agile a nivel empresarial.
Esta charla está enfocada en modo caso de estudio. En ella, guiamos a la audiencia a través del impacto de agile a escala, Desde el enfoque contractual hasta la actualidad.
Como resultado de esta transformación en esta multinacional financiera, hubo una evolución (según Gartner) que les situó en 1 año como el banco más innovador mundialmente.
Hemos tenido acceso al CEO, a su comité ejecutivo así como a los presidentes de varios de los países en los que participamos. El impacto causado es muy significativo.
El público objetivo incluye todos aquellos que estén interesados en transformaciones a gran escala, business agility a todos los niveles de una empresa, no solo a nivel equipo.
Unai Roldán
Jordi Falguera
UST Global
Agile portfolio administration helps groups and directors to understand the actual potential to subsequently perform their tasks successfully. Today with the accessibility of coordinated administration preparing suppliers on the web, you can undoubtedly take up far reaching dexterous preparing according to your need and accessibility of time.
The document discusses agile portfolio management practices at an oil company. It provides an overview of the company's context and challenges it faced that led it to adopt agile practices. It then describes the framework used, including a strategic, tactical and operational view. Key aspects of the framework include prioritization of initiatives, portfolio planning and execution. Metrics, reporting and governance structures are also discussed. Benefits realized included agreed priorities, improved communication and increased flexibility to adapt to changes.
Herding cats or flocking birds - agile portfolio managementDave Sharrock
Managing the evolution of a single product working with a small number of teams is somewhat straightforward. Working from a single backlog, once the teams have established a predictable velocity, the product roadmap becomes relatively easy to visualize, whether by timeframe or feature set. As we increase the complexity of the product, things become harder. Different teams require different backlogs. Different products require work from different teams. Before you know it, there are lots of independent moving parts, with the risk that the coordination cost becomes higher and efficiency falls. In this talk, we consider some ground rules for visualizing work across multiple teams and discuss how dependencies are coordinated across different teams and product lines.
Traditional vs Lean Portfolio Management, Agile PMO & OrganisationsBarry O'Reilly
This deck showcases how the future can look for organisations as they attempt to scale up agile and lean practices and principles across the entire organisation.
Regardless if we have entered to do project/programme/portfolio work, once onsite I find it is a great way to introduce the wider organisation to the ideas that we use to deliver and how they can support all areas and activities in the organisation.
Key concepts;
- How traditional PMO and organisation are setup
- Legacy mindset for are alive and still driving the majority of portfolio/organisation behaviours
- Comparisons of traditional and agile/lean mindsets
- Principles of agile/lean portfolio/organisation management
- Organisational structure
- Annual vs Incremental funding (Beyond Budgeting)
- Limiting Work in Progress i.e. its only matters how many projects you finish, not start.
- Managing and visualising capability
- Coping with portfolio complexity through experimentation and validated learning
- Removing the concept of projects and focusing on continuous delivery of value
- Benefits of agile/lean portfolio/organisation management
This deck was compiled using referenced materials and the support of David Joyce (@dpjoyce) and Ian Carroll (@caza_no7)
The document discusses agile program and portfolio management. It begins by stating that adopting agile practices requires organizational transformation, not just overlaying processes. It then covers topics like agile competencies across different levels (team, program, portfolio, enterprise), managing work across time horizons (continuous, daily, iteration, release, strategic), and using story maps to decompose work from epics to features to user stories. Finally, it discusses key aspects of agile such as sprinting, velocity, and prioritizing minimally marketable features.
Whitepaper - Connected Project Portfolio Management in the Oil & Gas IndustryAshwin Menon
One vital question often asked by executives dealing with an ever-changing market landscape is, “How should my company most effectively invest in in order to grow our revenue, capture market share, and increase profitability?"
To sustain long-term growth, companies must manage a number of projects at different stages of maturity. Many organizations struggle with capturing the voice of the customer, and translating that input into executable projects staffed with the right resources, while also ensuring adequate due diligence to make certain that projects align to corporate strategy and meet market expectations. Companies that more effectively manage this process position themselves for greater revenue realization, market share, and/or profitability.
Capital project portfolio management is all about making decisions about investment mix, matching investments to objectives and aligning them to strategy, allocating the right resources to the right projects, and balancing risk against performance.
This document offers our point of view on how capital project portfolio management must be implemented, how SAP can help, and some of the leading practices we have seen.
Key elements of it portfolio management Dipak PimpaleDipak Pimpale
An IT portfolio rationalises and organises IT applications to meet specific business purposes. By identifying the best combination of multiple applications and projects, you can enable and optimize business processes and accelerate decision making on an executive level. The analysis of current and future applications in the organization identifies gaps and shortcomings to improve the IT portfolio. This greater visibility to projects creates a single source for each IT portfolio, including potential investment.
Goal-Driven
IT portfolio management is driven by clear visibility of demands. Portfolio management can improve performance through effective use of resources, funding, assets and processes to maximise business value. You can manage budgets and prioritize projects based on an overall budget. Much like a traditional stock portfolio, it requires a risk to reward analysis. Adopt a management system that allows you to alter or cancel projects that provide a lower ROI.
IT portfolio management emphasises a strategic focus on goals such as revenue growth, cost reduction, and business continuity, rather than operational objectives. It requires input from across the organization, from finance managers to IT managers. The goal is to maximize value through selection, optimization and monitoring.
Global Pharma CIO transforms IT into accountable, low risk business partnerUMT
A global pharmaceutical company hired a new CIO to restructure their IT organization after falling to seventh place. The CIO was tasked with aligning IT to the new strategy, restructuring divisions, reducing spend by 15%, and instilling a culture of accountability. UMT Consulting designed and implemented an enterprise portfolio management framework using Microsoft Project Portfolio Server to provide visibility, governance, and budget planning across the divisions. This allowed projects to be tracked and budgets to be managed more dynamically, providing executives greater confidence in budget numbers and identifying risks.
Outline of PPM, Project and Portfolio Management and it's use in Project Management disciplines
If you would like a copy of the slides, please email me
ProAction Case Studies - Diligence through Exit Q3 2015Tim Van Mieghem
ProAction Group provides operational expertise to private equity firms and their portfolio companies. They conducted due diligence for a packaging company acquisition and identified $1 million in potential EBITDA improvements. For a distribution company acquisition, they identified $2.7 million in EBITDA and $6.5 million in working capital improvements. For a heavy equipment manufacturer acquisition, they identified ways to increase EBITDA margins from 32% to 36% through consolidation, value engineering, and new product rollout processes.
There are three key takeaways from the document:
1. The three most important best practices areas in PPM/PMO are resource management, operations and metrics, and automation.
2. Strategic project categorization and selection is a hallmark of an effective PPM strategy.
3. The right technology solution can make a large difference in achieving solid ROI and meeting PPM and PMO objectives.
Creating Competitive Advantage with Strategic Execution Capability V1.0Jon Hughes
The document discusses the Strategic Execution Framework (SEF), which is a model that helps organizations align strategy creation with execution by assessing six key capabilities: Ideation, Nature, Vision, Engagement, Synthesis, and Transition (INVEST). Conducting a diagnostic using the SEF can identify strengths and weaknesses in these capabilities and their linkages. Addressing weaknesses through initiatives to develop capabilities can help organizations more effectively execute strategies and gain competitive advantage. Common weaknesses identified include a lack of understanding interrelationships between capabilities, poor synthesis of strategies into coordinated programs and projects, and an inability to transition projects to operations.
Portfolio management knowledge development event details are provided, including an agenda for presentations and discussions. Research was conducted to discover effective portfolio management practices, with findings around key process questions and problems organizations face. References are made to other sources that provide guidance on aligning delivery, measurement, and governance cycles, establishing a portfolio management office, and using standards to prioritize projects.
1. The document discusses how to effectively execute corporate strategy by optimizing processes across the strategic planning, portfolio management, project management, and operations lifecycles. It argues that weaknesses in any part of the lifecycle can undermine success.
2. It identifies common issues that arise in each part of the lifecycle like unclear objectives, lack of prioritization of investments, project misalignment, and resistance to change. Best practices are outlined to address these issues.
3. The document emphasizes analyzing relationships and information flow across the entire lifecycle. Mapping current processes and systems reveals gaps and duplication that improved coordination and integration can address for more efficient strategy achievement.
This document discusses how organizations can effectively execute their corporate strategies through optimizing processes across the strategic lifecycle. It identifies that sound strategic planning, portfolio management, project management, organizational change management, and operations are all critical to achieving business objectives. However, these functions are often disconnected, leading to obstacles. The key is understanding how to accomplish goals through clear processes and information flow between the strategic planning, execution, and benefits realization phases. Proper strategic alignment, best practices, performance management, and an adaptive organizational culture are necessary for successful strategy execution.
Ken Martin has extensive experience in business, IT, and project management across several large companies. He discusses the benefits of project portfolio management (PPM), which include improved alignment with business strategy, visibility and control, collaboration, pipeline and resource management, financial management, and risk management. Without effective PPM, organizations can experience issues like approving projects that don't meet strategic needs, not having clear priorities, and overallocating resources. Key actions for implementing PPM include gaining stakeholder alignment, obtaining management support, developing a framework, and deciding on tools and reporting. The PPM process involves gathering all project data, prioritizing projects, assigning resources, and ongoing monitoring.
This document discusses re-imagining finance for a post-COVID world. It begins with an agenda that covers how COVID has changed finance, defining finance excellence, priorities, finance technology, and how to start and expect results. The presentation discusses how finance has adapted to provide more real-time insights, balancing speed and control. It defines finance excellence across strategy, processes, talent, and technology. It discusses shifting priorities to decision support, standardized efficient processes, specialized talent, and integrated automated technology. It provides examples of how to start with an assessment and implement changes through alignment, design, testing, and ongoing improvement. The goal is to achieve more real-time insights, efficient processes, and data-driven decisions.
Optimizing Organizational Performance by Managing Project BenefitsUMT
Too many organizations today still measure the success of a project based only on the traditional project management standards of delivering On Time, On Budget and On Scope. While these criteria are valid measures of successful project management, they are less suitable when assessing a project’s true success: its contribution to the overall organization's performance. Indeed, the ulti-mate success of a project – whether cost savings, revenue increases or customer satisfaction improvements – may not be known until years after it has been successfully delivered.
Embracing Change - The Impact of Generative AI on Strategic Portfolio ManagementOnePlan Solutions
The rapid emergence of Generative AI (GenAI) presents a transformative challenge and opportunity for strategic portfolio leaders. This webinar delves into how GenAI is reshaping the landscape of strategic planning and execution. As GenAI technology infiltrates the workplace, it introduces substantial knowledge and skills gaps that can hinder the efficiency of strategic portfolio management (SPM) if not promptly addressed.
The document discusses the challenges organizations face in consistently applying project management and methodology. It proposes a managed service approach using experienced project managers and a single project management methodology and toolset. This approach provides rapid benefits through quick consolidation of existing project data and integration of industry processes. Key benefits include faster time to benefit, focus on core missions, improved planning and management, and ultimately improved project success rates.
Pyramid Consulting International provides strategy, capability, and execution consulting services to help clients translate their strategy into successfully executed programs and projects. Their service lines include strategic alignment, resource management, portfolio optimization, financial performance, infrastructure development, process improvement, organizational change management, and project monitoring and control. They have helped clients realize benefits such as increased capital project throughput, cost savings, process efficiencies, and standardized project management processes. Representative case studies described include developing project lifecycle management processes, establishing a portfolio management office, conducting a capital project management assessment, performing a process compliance audit, facilitating strategic planning, prioritizing capital projects, and developing a risk management plan.
The document discusses project management services provided by LiquidHub. It outlines common challenges organizations face with project execution and the need for tight collaboration between business and IT. LiquidHub's project management services can help manage individual projects and programs to ensure success through governance, clear methodologies, collaboration, communication and risk management. An example case study is provided of a project LiquidHub led for a national insurance client to replace their legacy claims processing systems using agile techniques.
Presentation delivered by Luis E. Taveras, PhD, Former Senior Vice President, Office of Integration, RWJ Barnabas Health at the marcus evans National Healthcare CIO Summit held in Pasadena CA, March 13-14 2017
Revolutionizing the Digital Transformation Office - Leveraging OnePlan’s AI a...OnePlan Solutions
In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, digital transformation is not just an option; it’s a necessity for staying competitive. However, managing a Digital Transformation Office (DTO) presents unique challenges, from aligning strategic goals to efficiently allocating resources. OnePlan’s Strategic Portfolio Management Platform, powered by advanced AI, offers a comprehensive solution to these challenges, enabling managers to excel in their roles and drive successful digital transformation. Join us in this enlightening webinar to discover how OnePlan can revolutionize your management approach.
Key Takeaways:
Strategic Alignment and Decision Making: Learn how OnePlan’s platform facilitates the alignment of digital transformation initiatives with business objectives, ensuring that every project contributes to the overarching strategy.
Resource Optimization and Forecasting: Discover the tools and methodologies OnePlan offers for optimal resource allocation and forecasting, maximizing efficiency, and minimizing waste.
Risk Management and Adaptability: Understand how OnePlan’s AI capabilities can help your DTO navigate uncertainties and adapt to changes swiftly and effectively.
Enhancing Collaboration and Transparency: Explore how OnePlan promotes a culture of collaboration and transparency across departments, crucial for the success of digital transformation efforts.
Driving Innovation and Competitive Advantage: See how integrating OnePlan’s Strategic Portfolio Management Platform and AI into your management practices can not only streamline operations but also foster innovation and create a sustainable competitive advantage.
This webinar is for managers, leaders, and anyone involved in driving digital transformation within their organizations. Whether you’re just starting your digital transformation journey or looking to enhance your current strategies, OnePlan’s platform offers the tools, insights, and support needed to achieve success in the digital era.
This was my dream assignment. I set up and built capabilities for a Project Management Office for a new technology division. I worked with my leadership, within the team, across with key stakeholders to design and implement a standardized Project Management approach for the team. The capstone of this experience, however, was working on the next phase of the PMO office. This presentation is what we shared with our division leadership to document our growth and map out ways to strengthen our capabilities.
Read more at leadanddeliver.com.
Similar to Making Lean the Dean of IT Portfolio Management (20)
Using Adaptive Scrum to Tame Process Reverse Engineering in Data Analytics Pr...Cognizant
Organizations rely on analytics to make intelligent decisions and improve business performance, which sometimes requires reproducing business processes from a legacy application to a digital-native state to reduce the functional, technical and operational debts. Adaptive Scrum can reduce the complexity of the reproduction process iteratively as well as provide transparency in data analytics porojects.
Data Modernization: Breaking the AI Vicious Cycle for Superior Decision-makingCognizant
The document discusses how most companies are not fully leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and data for decision-making. It finds that only 20% of companies are "leaders" in using AI for decisions, while the remaining 80% are stuck in a "vicious cycle" of not understanding AI's potential, having low trust in AI, and limited adoption. Leaders use more sophisticated verification of AI decisions and a wider range of AI technologies beyond chatbots. The document provides recommendations for breaking the vicious cycle, including appointing AI champions, starting with specific high-impact decisions, and institutionalizing continuous learning about AI advances.
It Takes an Ecosystem: How Technology Companies Deliver Exceptional ExperiencesCognizant
Experience is becoming a key strategy for technology companies as they shift to cloud-based subscription models. This requires building an "experience ecosystem" that breaks down silos and involves partners. Building such an ecosystem involves adopting a cross-functional approach to experience, making experience data-driven to generate insights, and creating platforms to enable connected selling between companies and partners.
Intuition is not a mystery but rather a mechanistic process based on accumulated experience. Leading businesses are engineering intuition into their organizations by harnessing machine learning software, massive cloud processing power, huge amounts of data, and design thinking in experiences. This allows them to anticipate and act with speed and insight, improving decision making through data-driven insights and acting as if on intuition.
The Work Ahead: Transportation and Logistics Delivering on the Digital-Physic...Cognizant
The T&L industry appears poised to accelerate its long-overdue modernization drive, as the pandemic spurs an increased need for agility and resilience, according to our study.
Enhancing Desirability: Five Considerations for Winning Digital InitiativesCognizant
To be a modern digital business in the post-COVID era, organizations must be fanatical about the experiences they deliver to an increasingly savvy and expectant user community. Getting there requires a mastery of human-design thinking, compelling user interface and interaction design, and a focus on functional and nonfunctional capabilities that drive business differentiation and results.
The Work Ahead in Manufacturing: Fulfilling the Agility MandateCognizant
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Making Lean the Dean of IT Portfolio Management
1. Making Lean the Dean of IT Portfolio
Management
By prioritizing practices that drive organizational agility and value
creation, IT can build and deploy software and services that are more
tightly aligned with the ever-changing business requirements of today’s
dynamic digital marketplace.
Executive Summary
Amid the hypercompetitive global economy, Agile
software development has emerged as a proven
way to rapidly launch business-aligned software
and services. Despite considerable momentum,
however, we still find that organizational decision-
making and governance methods have remained
rooted in old practices tied to traditional design,
funding and execution models.
Customer-centric organizations recognize that
in today’s fast-changing business environment,
Agile project methods and delivery are not
sufficient. To enable market differentiation, it is
time to turn the emphasis to scaling agility within
strategic- and portfolio-planning processes.
In our engagements assessing enterprise project
and portfolio management (PPM) capabilities,
we have found numerous instances of organi-
zations applying a legacy mindset to portfolio
management, using waterfall-based, phased
budgeting and planning cycles. This creates a
drag on Agile teams, many of whom are trained
to deliver quicker, better and less expensive
products to keep their organizations viable in
today’s dynamic digital marketplace.
Lean-Agile portfolio (LeAP) management
introduces techniques for organizing work in Agile
organizations from portfolios to teams, providing
the visibility needed to ensure alignment and
success with future initiatives. The goal of this
approach is to demystify what happens in large
enterprises in which various interdependencies
can derail success with Agile.
This white paper reveals how Lean practices,
applied to portfolio management, can help bridge
the gap between Agile teams and management
and create a winning digital enterprise. It also
highlights the drawbacks of traditional portfolio
management, and discusses how Lean values
and principles can be applied to design a LeAP
program management framework for prioritizing
organizational thinking. We also identify practices
that drive organizational agility and value
creation using portfolio, programs and teams in a
change-driven world.
cognizant 20-20 insights | december 2016
• Cognizant 20-20 Insights
2. cognizant 20-20 insights 2
But First, Some Definitions
According to the Project Management Institute,
a portfolio is a collection of programs, projects
or operations that are managed as a group
to achieve strategic objectives.2
Portfolio
management is the coordinated management of
one or more portfolios to achieve organizational
strategies and objectives. Management processes
include evaluation, selection, prioritization and
allocation of limited resources to best accomplish
the strategic intent of the enterprise.
As portfolio management practices take hold,
they generate crucial contextual information
that feeds back to enterprise strategic planning,
altering current and future investment decisions.
A portfolio management capability3
answers the
following key questions:
• Are our prioritizations in line with our company
targets and capitalization goals?
• Are we working on the right things?
• What work should we plan to do?
• What expertise would we need to deliver our
plans?
• Where are we spending our capacity?
• What work is in process?
• How much value are we planning to deliver?
• When and how much value are we actually
delivering?
• What work should we kill, and where do we
re-direct our funds?
We have found that Agile teams and executive
management have different answers to these
questions due to their different focus areas (see
Figure 1) and are evaluated on different measure-
ment parameters.
To address these mismatches, IT organiza-
tions must shift from a traditional portfolio
management approach that is administration-
focused to a value-driven portfolio management
operating model that is inclusive, lean and geared
toward leveraging decentralized decision-making.
A Review of Traditional Portfolio
Management
As depicted in Figure 2, traditional portfolio
management follows a rigid, phased approach
that moves from opportunity search to project
realization. This often results in delays and long
lead and cycle times. In addition, project selection
and fund allocation follow an annual cycle, with
resources and funds locked for the remainder of
the year.
Mismatch between Teams and Executives1
Figure 1
Topic Agile Teams Executive Management
Execution Style Focus is on “how” to do it. Focus is on “what” to do.
Objective Quick response to market
requirements.
Strategic alignment and meeting business needs.
Planning Iterative and incremental. Predictive and prescriptive.
Roadmap &
Release Visibility
Two sprints (approximately four
weeks out).
Two to four quarters (about six to 12 months out).
Key Practices
and Artifacts
User stories, epics, velocity, story
points, tasks and sprints.
Timelines, roadmaps, priorities, releases, strategy
and alignment.
Desires Accelerated time to market, reduced cost, higher quality.
Opportunity
identification,
categorization
and elaboration
using enterprise
PPM tool.
Evaluation of
current opportu-
nities based on
strategic
alignment.
Opportunity
selection based on
feasibility studies
and traditional
evaluation process
and models.
Prioritization
based on the
long-term horizon
plans, capacity
and available
funding.
Detailed business
case prepared
with cost, output
and milestone
commitments for
sponsor approval.
BUSINESS CASE/
PROJECT CHARTER
OPPORTUNITY
PRIORITIZATION
OPPORTUNITY
SELECTION
OPPORTUNITY
VALIDATION
TRADITIONAL
TYPICAL
ANNUALCYCLES
OPPORTUNITY
SEARCH
Figure 2
Traditional Portfolio Management4
3. cognizant 20-20 insights 3
This model leads to practices depicted in Figure 3,
which can undermine an enterprise’s ability to
quickly respond to change. The results: missed
revenue opportunities and delayed ROI on
software development initiatives.
As a result, IT organizations need a new style
of portfolio management that incorporates the
following functions:6
• An objective, balanced and accepted process
to evaluate ideas and produce the next set of
prioritized initiatives.
• Capacity management, which in the new model
takes into account the demand, supply and
resource constraints that impact portfolio
delivery.
• Financial management, which now explores the
funding, investment opportunities and financial
returns from the overall portfolio.
• Performance management, which continuous-
ly tracks progress against pre-defined metrics.
• Governance, which ensures required gates and
processes are in place for effective decision-
making, work allocation and on-demand perfor-
mance reporting, with traceability from strategic
objectives to real value delivered by teams.
These capabilities, reinforced with best
practices, must be injected into existing portfolio
management, which leads to the creation of a
LeAP program management framework. In the
next section, we will more deeply explore LeAP
and what it entails.
Lean-Agile Portfolio Program
Management
First, let us consider the LeAP Manifesto7
(see
Figure 4, next page) that will drive the proposed
LeAP framework. The primary focus of LeAP is
to empower enterprise agility by limiting work
in process (WIP), prioritizing economic value
and promoting continuous delivery through
localized content authority and decision-mak-
ing.8
In addition, it is critical to incorporate
continuous feedback and improvement, using
fact-based lifecycle governance.
By following the LeAP manifesto, IT organiza-
tions can keep pace with the speed of digital
business, and adapt to changing internal and
external business requirements. Using LeAP, IT
can prioritize activities with the highest impact,
and allocate the right “resources” to getting work
done. LeAP also helps direct incremental funds to
where they would be most effective, with frequent
re-balancing across portfolios. A LeAP approach
also helps coordinate incremental delivery of pri-
• Key resources dedicated to multiple projects.
• No flexibility for changing priorities.
• Big upfront design, analysis paralysis.
• Fixed schedule & functionality planning;
difficult to change.
• False agreement, no buy-in.
• Misses IT innovation contribution.
• No empowerment, lower motivation.
• Fine-grain reporting slows value delivery.
• Metrics do not reflect actual progress.
• Milestones report on intermediate artifacts.
• Milestones do not reflect actual progress.
• Project difficult to execute.
• Long-term program commitments to justify
team members are a year out.
Maximize
Utilization
Widget
Engineering
Order Taker
Mentality
Control through
Data
Control through
Milestones
Annual Plan for
Projects
Practices
Problems
Figure 3
Where Traditional Portfolio Management Practices Fail5
IT organizations must shift from a
traditional portfolio management
approach that is administration-focused
to a value-driven portfolio management
operating model that is inclusive,
lean and geared toward leveraging
decentralized decision-making.
The primary focus of LeAP is to
empower enterprise agility by limiting
work in process, prioritizing economic
value and promoting continuous
delivery through localized content
authority and decision-making.
4. cognizant 20-20 insights 4
oritized work, with near-constant value reprioriti-
zation within an ever-changing portfolio context.
The LeAP manifesto’s value and principles help
generate improvements that align the business,
portfolio and delivery arms of an organization.
The goal, as depicted in Figure 5, is to optimize
business value delivery, working in unison with
business priorities and the delivery team’s
capacity for execution.
In essence, LeAP is like a train with containers
full of products running on an agreed-upon
schedule to deliver the materials to designated
train stations along the route. When the train’s
containers are empty, it expects goods to be
delivered on a schedule that aligns with the
needs of the recipients. In LeAP terms, the train
is the portfolio, the containers are the programs,
the products are the minimum viable products
(MVP) released incrementally, the train stations
are the business units or end users, and the train
schedule is the roadmap. Every “station” submits
its demand request and expected timeline, based
on the available containers and expected cargo;
the train schedule is adjusted and finalized as
Priorities Rationale
Creating smaller,
good-enough plans
frequently.
OVER
Creating large
and overly precise
plans upfront.
Helps the organization keep pace with the speed
of business, and adapt to internal and external
change.
Delivering value
through stable and
predictable teams.
OVER
Focusing
on resource
utilization and
efficiency.
Enables prioritization of the highest-impact
work, and allocation of the right resources.
Budgeting
dynamically, with
fiscal governance.
OVER
Funding projects
over longer
periods of time.
Helps the business direct incremental funds
where they have the most impact, with frequent
re-balancing across the portfolios.
Delivering
customer value fast
and frequently.
OVER
Delivering on-time
and on-budget.
Enables fast delivery of prioritized work, with
value reprioritization according to changing
portfolio context.
Delivering frequent,
incremental value. OVER
Minimizing risks
and forecasting
returns.
Enables delivery of incremental value in
timeboxes, with features allocated to teams for
delivery.
The LeAP Manifesto
Figure 4
Figure 5
BUSINESS
Sense and Respond to Change
PPM leaders provide portfolio context
during portfolio strategy formulation.
• Define strategic themes aligned with enterprise
strategy, technology and financial constraints.
• Determine value streams and allocate budgets to them.
DELIVERY
Deliver Value Faster
PPM function supports and guides successful
strategy execution using programs and teams.
• Institute decentralized, rolling wave
planning.
• Develop self-managed Agile release trains.
• Use cross-program epic prioritization.
• Create lifecycle governance.
PORTFOLIO
Optimize Business Value
PPM drives program management
and governance.
• Define and prioritize portfolio epics.
• Measure and report progress on investment
spend.
• Manage WIP using portfolio Kanban system.
• Enable continuous improvements.
How LeAP Connects Business to Delivery via Portfolio Management
5. cognizant 20-20 insights 5
the train travels through the stations and delivers
its products.
As Figure 6 illustrates, LeAP begins with a
portfolio backlog consisting of strategic themes
derived from the enterprise business strategy.
Each portfolio epic is decomposed into program-
specific, implementable epics that are reviewed
and approved in an agreed-upon cadence, typically
every month or less.
The program epics are grouped into an MVP
that achieves the desired value with the shortest
possible increment. Epic scheduling across
multiple programs should undergo global epic
prioritization using the weighted shortest job
first (WSJF) technique. The highest ranked
epics drive the resources needed for implemen-
tation, which must be closely managed using a
pull-based Kanban portfolio system.
Two-Part LeAP Framework
The LeAP framework has two parts (A and B) to
simplify and address specific goals and challenges
faced upstream (Part A) and downstream (Part B).
LeAP Part A, which is focused on connecting
enterprise strategy to portfolio strategic themes,
consists of three key components (see Figure 7):
• Formulate business strategy.
• Plan portfolio strategy.
• Execute business strategy.
How
should we
deliver it?
Program
Epics
Approval
Strategic
Theme
Review
Portfolio Backlog
What are the
strategic theme
epics out there?
When will we
deliver it?
Revert to PPM
leadership for
approval
P
Program
epics review
LEAN-AGILE
1
MVP
Definition Global Epic
Prioritization2
3
Epics grouped
by MVP
Engagement
review
Risk and issues
reported to
PPM leadership
Cross-program
epics prioritized
QUARTERLY
CYCLES
1
2
34
5
6
KANBAN PORTFOLIO
PULL
Figure 6
LeAP Engagement: A High-Level View
LeAP Part A Model (Enterprise to Portfolio Processes)
Figure 7
Portfolio B
Return on
Investment
Net
Promoter Score
Profit and
Cost
Revenue vs.
Target
Customer
Satisfaction
PortfolioB…NPortfolioAEnterprise
Formulate Business Strategy
(Rolling forecast: quarterly)
Portfolio Strategy Planning
(Should we work on it?)
Execute Business Strategy
(Program increments: 10 weeks)
Enterprise
Strategy
What opportunities
exist?
Review
Checkpoint
Constant
Feedback
Enterprise
Enterprise
Business DriversFinancial Goals
Mission and Vision
Competitive
Environment
Portfolio
Context
Portfolio
Context
Enterprise Budget Strategic Intent
Portfolio A
Budget
Portfolio B
Budget
Strategic
Themes
Strategic
Themes
Portfolio B
Strategic Theme
New Products
Fiscal Governance
and Dynamic Budgeting
Need to adjust
portfolio budgets?
Solution Demo
Prioritize
Epic
Investment Tracking
and Reporting
Portfolio
Context
Strategic Theme
New Products
Strategic Theme
Enhancements
Strategic Theme
Maintenance
Strategic Theme Epics Strategic Theme Epics Strategic Theme Epics
Strategic Theme Epics Strategic Theme Epics Strategic Theme Epics
Gates
Strategic Theme
Maintenance
Strategic Theme
Enhancements
1
1
1
3
3
3
5
4
4
Market
Share
2
Return on
Investment
Net
Promoter Score
Profit and
Cost
Revenue vs.
Target
Customer
Satisfaction
Constant
Feedback
Market
Share
6. cognizant 20-20 insights 6
Formulate Business Strategy
9
Based on available opportunities, executives and
fiduciaries with direct accountability of business
performance centrally formulate the enterprise
business strategy. Each enterprise will have
multiple portfolios with their own budget and
strategic themes, which in turn reflect that unit’s
portion of the business strategy.
A key input into the business strategy is the
portfolio context in which it operates, reflected
in performance measures such as ROI, customer
satisfaction, net promoter score, profit and cost,
revenue vs. target, and market share. Every
portfolio context is different and has a different
impact on the business strategy.
Plan Portfolio Strategy
The input to this cadence-based crucial planning
exercise is the available enterprise budget;
enterprise business drivers and financial goals;
competitive environment, mission and core
values; and, most important, the portfolio context.
The output of this exercise is a breakdown of the
portfolio budget and a set of strategic themes.
Figure 8 reflects an example scenario.
Execute Business Strategy
Based on the prioritized strategic themes and
budget allocation from the aforementioned
process, the strategic theme epics are handed
over to the related programs. There, they are
decomposed into program-specific epics that
Figure 8
A Portfolio Strategy Planning Approach10
• Lead market through
innovation
• Drive growth through
new product streams
• Reduce investment in
custom projects
• Maintain share in
customer segments
45%
25%
15%
Strategic Theme Description FY
Workshop-Driven Approach Investments
Code refactoring to improve
software robustness.
New features development
that drive new sources of
revenue.
Required customizations to
protect existing customer
revenues.
Bug fixes and features to
improve product quality.
Technology Debt Reduction
New Product Development
Custom Projects
Sustaining
Portfolio stakeholders collaborating with executive leadership decision makers should
create a structured, repeatable process to drive strategic themes.
Strategic Intent
55%
5%
15%
FY + 1
15% 25%
Figure 9
The Epic Lead
Synchronize
strategic
themes
Split portfolio
epics,
prioritize features
Ensure runway readiness
Initiate
development,
report progress
Establish dynamic
budgeting across epics
PRODUCT
MANAGEMENT
AGILE
TEAMS
ENTERPRISE
ARCHITECT
BUDGET GOVERNANCE
LEAD
ENTERPRISE
PPM
EPIC LEAD
Synchronize
portfolio
priorities
7. cognizant 20-20 insights 7
can be implemented by delivery teams within
the programs.
As we see in Figure 9, each strategic theme epic
has an epic lead who drives it from identification
through portfolio prioritization and approval,
initiates epic development based on available
program capacities, and provides continuous
feedback on its progress to the portfolio
leadership.
LeAP Part B
Figure 10 illustrates LeAP Part B,11
which focuses
on connecting portfolio programs to the delivery
teams. The strategic theme epics queued in
the portfolio backlog are reviewed by portfolio
leadership and prioritized. The output is a
sequence of program epics based on priority and
grouped into MVPs.
During global epic prioritization, the high-level
scheduling of MVPs is conducted based on the
capacity of available teams within the chartered
programs. During program increment planning,
the teams decompose the epics into team-spe-
cific user stories that are sized and slotted into
upcoming iterations, which take into account the
inter-dependencies of the team.
Theseuserstoriesareimplementedandintegrated
across teams by the system team at the program
level, and the integrated system is demonstrated
to stakeholders at higher pre-production environ-
ments. The feedback is looped back through the
programs into the portfolio strategy formulation
and planning process.
Looking Forward
To meet today’s demand for faster and more busi-
ness-aligned delivery of software and services,
enterprises must define and institute LeAP
program management practices that are built
on continuous planning cycles and data-driven
feedback. In our experience, this can help enter-
prises achieve greater visibility into the impact of
changing demands on operational performance
and keep pace with today’s dynamic digital
economy.
Our proposed LeAP framework promotes best
practices and helps portfolio management teams
build the right product features, reduce in-flight
project activities, and more effectively prioritize
opportunities and capacity allocation.
Figure 10
LeAP Part B Model (Portfolio to Programs Stage)
Operational
Retrospective
Operational
Review
Shared
Services
ScrumTeamsProgramPortfolio
Portfolio Program Planning Value Delivery
Strategic
Theme
Review
Program Epics
Approval
Global Epic
Prioritization
Epic
Decomposition
&
User Story
Elaboration
Release
Certification
Deploy and
Launch
Portfolio Epics
Epics Grouped
By MVP
Cross-program
epics prioritized
System
Demo Day
Delivery
Sprints
MVP
Definition
User story
backlog
Release
queue
Cross team sprint
dependencies
Escalated
impediments
What are the
strategic theme
epics out there?
How should
we deliver
it?
How will be
the work be
done?
How will we
coordinate across
teams and
resolve
impediments?
Are we
ready to
deliver?
Engagement
Review
When will we
deliver it?
Continuous
Integration
Testing
Cross Scrum
Sprint
Impediment
Removal
Scrum of Scrums
Risk and Issues
reported to PPM
leadership
Revert to PPM
leadership for
approval
Program
epics review
UAT
How can we
improve as
an Agile
organization?
How are we
doing as an
organization?
Are we
improving?
Design (As
Needed)
User Story
Review
(PBR)
Launch Gate
Review
Checkpoint
Gates
5
6
7
8
10
11
12
Sea-level
stories for
scrum team
9
During program increment planning,
the teams decompose the epics into
team-specific user stories that are sized
and slotted into upcoming iterations,
which take into account the inter-
dependencies of the team.
8. cognizant 20-20 insights 8
In addition, the LeAP framework helps IT organiza-
tions achieve rolling-wave planning at appropriate
levels, from enterprise-level strategy planning to
team-level daily planning. This requires a unified
PPM and lifecycle management tool as a single
source of truth to achieve full transparency within
and outside the portfolio to every stakeholder.
The LeAP framework is a disciplined approach
for translating strategic aspirational goals into
realistic execution plans that can be implement-
ed as a set of best practices (see Figure 11).
Companies can begin the transition to LeAP
program management by focusing on the four
quadrants depicted in Figure 11 and following
them clockwise, beginning with portfolio pri-
oritization and alignment with value streams;
moving to building a portfolio Kanban system
for complete transparency and tracking; then on
to integrating vision and ownership; and finally
to establishing KPIs that report results against
enterprise strategic goals.
The proposed LeAP framework has been suc-
cessfully applied at many of our Fortune 500
financial services and insurance clients. The
best approach is to perform a global assessment
at the enterprise level of current portfolio
management practices to identify immediate
challenges and gaps in the LeAP framework
building blocks. The next step is to define the
LeAP portfolio management strategy roadmap
to address the identified gaps in iterations.
By doing so, organizations can customize the
framework and enable continuous improvement
through constant feedback from portfolio stake-
holders, program management and teams. Agile
offers many benefits and opportunities for the
digital age, and adopting a LeAP framework can
help organizations realize those goals through
better decision-making and improved Agile
project ROI.
Figure 11
LeAP Framework Best Practices12
• Define KPIs for each level of
planning and their relationship
to execution KPIs to close
feedback loop.
• Actively use performance data to
make adjustments on an objective,
fact-driven level.
• Establish scalable enterprise-wide
PPM tool standards for decision
making and transparency.
• Base prioritization on capacity,
cross-organizational impact and
value.
• Derive strategic themes from
enterprise strategic intent.
• Articulate portfolio epics for each
strategic theme as unit of atomic
business value.
• Implement portfolio epics to deliver
value.
• To achieve an optimum, sustain-
able pipeline of value flow, apply
WIP limits and make work in
process visible.
• Collaborate with development
teams to break down portfolio
epics into program-level epics and
user stories.
• Continuously prioritize approved
epics using WSJF.
• Executives engage in holistic
planning and base their decisions
on corporate value.
• Directly link strategy to the plan
and provide bi-directional
traceability.
• Promote shared responsibility,
authority and accountability.
• Define portfolio views by capability
or service.
Integrate Vision and Ownership
Establish Contextual KPIs
Traceable to Strategy
Lean-Agile Portfolio
Management
Align Portfolio with Value Streams Build Portfolio Kanban System1 2
4 3
9. cognizant 20-20 insights 9
Footnotes
1 “Agile Plus Portfolio Management: Bridging the Gap Between Agile Teams & Management,” Innotas, 2014,
https://www.innotas.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Final-WP-agile-portfolio-management_050614.
pdf.
2 “The Standard for Portfolio Management, Third Edition,” Project Management Institute, 2013, http://mar-
ketplace.pmi.org/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?GMProduct=00101388901.
3 Jochen Krebs, “Agile Portfolio Management,” Microsoft Press, 2008, https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Port-
folio-Management-Jochen-Krebs/dp/0735625670.
4 “Agile Project Portfolio Management,” KPMG, May 2016, http://agilesummit.harrisburgu.edu/lib/pdf/Agile-
ProjectPortfolioMgt_Presentation_May-6-2016-to-HU.pdf.
5 “Agile PPM in the Scaled Agile Framework: Eight Transformational Patterns,” Leffingwell LLC, https://scal-
ingsoftwareagility.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/agile-portfolio-management_rally-keynote-pptx.pdf.
6 Kenny Rubin, “Agile 2013: Strategies for Agile Portfolio Management,” Innolution, Aug. 6, 2013, http://www.
innolution.com/resources/presentations/agile-2013-strategies-for-agile-portfolio-management.
7 Agile Portfolio Management for a Fast Paced World,” CA Technologies, https://www.ca.com/us/collateral/
ebook/agile-portfolio-management-for-a-fast-paced-world.register.html.
8 Ibid.
9 “SAFe 4.0 for Lean Systems and Software Engineering,” Scaled Agile, http://scaledagileframework.com/.
10 “Agile Project Portfolio Management,” KPMG, May 2016, http://agilesummit.harrisburgu.edu/lib/pdf/Agile-
ProjectPortfolioMgt_Presentation_May-6-2016-to-HU.pdf.
11 “Agile PPM in a Scaled Agile Framework: Eight Transformational Patterns,” Leffingwell LLC, https://scaling-
softwareagility.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/agile-portfolio-management_rally-keynote-pptx.pdf.
12
“Agile Project Portfolio Management,” KPMG, May 2016, http://agilesummit.harrisburgu.edu/lib/pdf/Agile-
ProjectPortfolioMgt_Presentation_May-6-2016-to-HU.pdf.