Lean-Agile PMO
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The document discusses the establishment of a Lean-Agile Project Management Office (PMO) to enhance organizational agility, highlighting common barriers to Agile adoption and strategies for overcoming them. It emphasizes the importance of effective project prioritization, resource management, and continuous portfolio tracking while advocating for a shift toward adaptive governance. Furthermore, it presents the benefits of a Lean-Agile PMO, such as improved coordination, visibility, and delivery performance across teams.
Lean-Agile PMO
- 1. The Lean-Agile PMO From Process Police to Adaptive Governance Presented by Sanjiv Augustine and Roland Cuellar Sanjiv.Augustine@LitheSpeed.com Twitter: @saugustine, @rolandcue, @lithespeed
- 2. 1. Barriers to Agile Adoption 2. Setting up the Lean-Agile PMO 3. Adaptive Governance via the Lean-Agile PMO 1. Project Prioritization & Selection 2. Portfolio Tracking 3. Resource Management 4. Q&A Agenda “An overwhelming majority of executives (88%) cite organizational agility as key to global success...MIT suggests that agile firms grow revenue 37% faster and generate 30% higher profits than non-agile. Yet most companies admit they are not flexible enough to compete successfully.” The Economist, via Jim Highsmith 2
- 3. Sanjiv Augustine • Co-Founder LitheSpeed, LLC and The Agile Leadership Academy • Experience: 27 years industry, 17 years of Agile, 14 years of Lean • Specialties: Agile, Lean, Innovation • Practitioner, entrepreneur, consultant, trainer, author, speaker and community organizer Introductions 3
- 4. Introductions Roland Cuellar (‘kway-are’) • 14 years of agile experience • BS CS, MBA LitheSpeed • We only do agile consulting, coaching and training • Capital One, Nationwide, CNBC, DHS, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Westinghouse, Nike, many many others 4
- 5. Barriers to Further Agile Adoption 5
- 6. “Our Project Teams Need Help!” Over the years, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve talked with customers about their ‘project team’ problems. We hear the following sorts of things all the time: • Our teams can’t manage projects • Despite Agile adoption, we are terrible at project delivery • We can’t estimate • We need more project management training • Yada yada yada These sorts of conversations are almost always fascinating and here is how they often go: 6
- 7. Tell Me More • Mgr: We need training for our teams on estimation and planning. • Me: Really! Why do you say that? • Mgr: We can’t estimate anything. We do it all the time, you’d think we’d be better at it by now but all of our projects are late. • Me: Hmm. What do you mean when you say that you estimate “all the time?” • Mgr: We have new project requests coming in every week. We need to provide quick and accurate estimates so that we can get these projects approved and started. • Me: Don’t you realize that every time you inject a new project into an already busy team, or pull them out to do unplanned estimation work, you are destroying all of the estimates they provided to you previously? • Mgr: … silence … 7
- 8. Digging Deeper • Client: Our teams can’t estimate or drive delivery successfully. They need more training. • Us: Are there just a few teams struggling or is this a more widespread issue? • Client: All of them! It is a problem across our organization. 8
- 9. It’s Not the Teams! • If only a few teams are struggling, then perhaps it is a training/skills/experience issue. • But if almost everyone is struggling, then the problem isn’t the teams. The system which they are trying to operate in is broken. 1. No effective work-intake process 2. Weak management that says ‘yes’ to everyone 3. Defining projects that are way too large 4. Inappropriate use of ‘projects’ 5. No real management system 9
- 10. So, how can a Lean-Agile PMO help? Lean-Agile PMOs consider teams to be their customers, and support them in: 1. Bringing Lean discipline to project prioritization & selection 2. Tracking project portfolios using Agile tracking techniques 3. Moving towards a stable teams model of resource management 10
- 11. Setting up the Lean-Agile PMO 11
- 12. • Encourage face-to- face dialogue across levels • Create overlapping management with “linking pins” • Run the Lean-Agile PMO as an Agile project teamSource: The Lean-Agile PMO, Sanjiv Augustine and Roland Cuellar (Cutter Consortium 2006) Organizational Structure 12
- 13. A Steering Committee creates the direction for agile teams to deliver for the organization Steering Committee Project teams Linking pin: individual that is a member of two groups Lean-Agile PMO Steering Committee Steering Committee • Sponsor and provide support for new initiatives • Prioritize projects • Establish metrics and track progress • Members • Key executive sponsors and application owners • Individuals from the project coordination team Major Benefits • Clear vision and prioritization • High stakeholder visibility • Cross organizational coordination of efforts 13
- 14. A Lean-Agile PMO enables agile teams to execute in a coordinated way Steering Committee Lean-Agile PMO Project teams Linking pin: individual that is a member of two groups Agile PMO Lean-Agile PMO • Execute vision of the steering committee • Manage the portfolio of projects on an iterative basis • Track projects • Allocate resources across projects • Support to the teams (e.g., training, coaching, removal of organizational obstacle, etc.) • Manage dependencies Major Benefits • Ability to manage change • Portfolio alignment • Coordinated release schedules • Increased organizational visibility across projects • Reduced risk across projects 14
- 15. Teams are created in a way that is conducive to agile delivery Steering Committee Project Teams Linking pin: individual that is a member of two groups Project Teams Project teams • Delivery working software in an iterative incremental manner • Empowered cross functional teams • Development • Business • QA • Time boxed sprints • Stakeholder prioritization Major Benefits • Adaptive teams • Greater employee engagement • Improved quality • Faster time to market • Reduced miscommunication • Lower process overhead Lean-Agile PMO 15
- 17. All Agile Methods Limit WIP • WIP determines speed and WE control WIP • Scrum uses the 2-week time box to indirectly limit WIP • Kanban uses explicit WIP limits instead. • All agile methods achieve speed and quality by narrowing the near-term focus • Excessive project WIP causes high levels of spending and very slow delivery! PROJECT PORTFOLIOS NEED WIP LIMITS TOO! 17
- 18. • Each sector is a different business area • Concentric circles represent time • Managers put their approximate project timing needs on the board • The center circles represent what’s going on right now • Use it to drive hard discussions • If you keep saying ‘Yes’ to everything, you have a work-intake problem, not a PM problem! Great photo … not sure who took it Work Intake •“We have 12 more efforts scheduled to start next month” •But we aren’t finished with what is going on right now •What are we going to do?
- 19. • Terminate sick projects • Split large projects in smaller ones • Prioritize projects by business value, at least within business unit • Limit development timeframe to months • Re-prioritize projects regularly 1 Development 3 24 Little’s Law Cycle Time = WIP/Completion Rate Portfolio Realignment Business Goals & Strategy Production Sunset Backlog 19
- 20. Whittling It Down • I asked one team to write down all of the current efforts underway • 12 projects for a 10-person team! • Score them on several factors: • T-Shirt Size (S,M,L) • Biz Value ($, $$, $$$) • Do Smaller and $$$ first 20
- 21. LeanKit Examples: Portfolio Management 21
- 23. Portfolio Management Framework 1. Strategic Performance Monitoring: Are we hitting our business goals? 2. Work Intake Process: What are the requests that are being made of us? 3. Capacity Availability and Allocation: What teams are available and when? 4. Delivery Performance Monitoring: Are our teams on schedule? Will we get the capabilities that we agreed to? 5. Impediment Resolution: What do we need to do to address our delivery challenges? 6. Stakeholder Communications: Who do we need to inform regarding delivery status? 7. Process Improvement: What do we need to do to improve the effectiveness of our portfolio management? 23
- 24. Lean-Agile Portfolio Management Lean-Agile Practices • Cross functional and cross team project coordination team • Coordinated sprint planning across teams • Lean-Agile portfolio management is performed by the steering committee to manage cross project priorities • Reduce WIP • Feature stream or value stream • Portfolio alignment wall Major Benefits Manage the flow • Early ROI • Clear prioritization for entire portfolio of features • Visualization of entire portfolio of of features and work • Ability to prioritize high priority features from multiple competing projects against each other Lean-Agile Portfolio Management Steering Committee Project coordination team Release Release 24
- 25. Visualize the Flow • Use visual boards to track projects • Note where they are in the process • And how long they have been there • And what is coming up next • If most projects are not flowing through to DONE then you have a system problem (not a team problem!) 25
- 27. Portfolio Alignment Wall (Cont’d) • Features laid out on index cards as per overall release plan • Card colors identify agile teams • Labels identify dependent teams • Rows track feature streams • Columns track sprints/timeline 27
- 30. Traditional Resource Management • Run many projects concurrently, with similar priorities • Split resources between multiple projects • Stress maximum resource utilization • ROI only after projects are done Time Projects & Resources ROI 30
- 31. • Projects are by definition …. 1-time events • “Let’s deliver into production every month … If we do that, it’s not a project” • We don’t do tons of documentation and artifacts for our monthly payroll run ... Why would we do all of that for monthly software updates? • Let’s deliver frequently as a normal course of operations and focus on DELIVERY and QUALITY and NOT on paperwork! • How much of your time could be recovered by removing the overhead? • We have several F500 clients and major govt agencies that are already experimenting with this approach and doing very well 31 The #NoProjects Movement Even if you have to stick to projects, you should try to chunk them down into multiple small deliveries.
- 32. • Multiple, stable teams each focused on a single project at a time • Dedicated to platforms or lines of business • Platform owner prioritizes next project • Result: • Support multiple lines of business simultaneously • Focused effort results in quick delivery for individual projects • Clear accountability • Stability and predictability Source: The Lean-Agile PMO, Sanjiv Augustine and Roland Cuellar (Cutter Consortium 2006) Stable Teams 32
- 33. Lean Resource Management Lean organizations: • Dedicate core resources to each project team • Ensure that each team has all resources needed to complete projects • Stress maximum project throughput • ROI delivered incrementally with each project release ROI Time Projects & Resources 33
- 34. Here’s how can a Lean-Agile PMO can help! Lean-Agile PMOs consider Scrum teams to be their customers, and support them in: 1. Bringing Lean discipline to project prioritization & selection 2. Tracking project portfolios using Lean-Agile tracking techniques 3. Moving towards a stable teams model of resource management 34
- 35. Contact Us Roland Cuellar (‘kway-are’) Roland.Cuellar@LitheSpeed.com @rolandcue Sanjiv Augustine Sanjiv.Augustine@LitheSpeed.com @saugustine On the Web: http://www.lithespeed.com +1 703 745 9125 @LitheSpeed, @AgileAcad 35
- 36. SAFe Portfolio and Program Management 36
- 37. Enabling Your Lean-Agile PMO through Connected Kanban 37