1st Edition
Agile Portfolio Management A Guide to the Methodology and Its Successful Implementation “Knowledge That Sets You Apart”
Agile Portfolio Management deals with how an organization identifies, prioritizes, organizes, and manages different products. This is done in a streamlined way in order to optimize the development of value in a manner that’s sustainable in the long run. It ensures that a company provides their clients with the best value for their investment. A good portfolio manager understands and follows the agile principles while also considering the various factors needed to successfully manage numerous teams and projects.
The project management offices of many organizations are faced with the reality of more and more agile deliverables as part of agile transformations; however, they lack the knowledge to perform these tasks. Researchers and practitioners have a good understanding of project, program, and portfolio management from a plan-based perspective. They have common standards from Axelos, PMI, and others, so they know the best practices. The understanding of agile on a team level is fairly mature and the knowledge of more agile teams (scaling) is increasing. However, the knowledge of agile portfolio management is still limited. The aim of this book is to give the reader an understanding of management of a portfolio of agile deliverables, what the options are (theory), what we know (research), and what others are doing (practice).
Many organizations in banking or insurance, to name a few, are in the middle of major agile transformations with limited knowledge of the practice. In this book, the author collects and analyzes common practices in various industries. He provides both theory and, through case studies, the practical aspects of agile portfolio management.
Table of Contents
About the author
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1 – "Financial" Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
1.1 The short history of Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
1.2 The definitions of Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
1.3 The main goals of Project Portfolio Management (PPM)
1.4 The new challenges for Project Portfolio Management
1.5 The main challenges of Project Portfolio Management.
1.6 The global standards approach to Project Portfolio Management
1.7 The Project Portfolio Management life cycle model
Chapter 2 - The Reality of Agile@Scale
2.1 Understanding Complexity Theory and System Thinking
2.2 Adaptability vs. Predictability
2.3 Lean Thinking and Lean Portfolio Management
2.4 Continuous Planning
2.5 From Silos to Collaboration and increased interaction
2.6 Managing for Innovation (Culture and work environment)
2.7 Transparency
Chapter 3 – Agile Portfolio Management (APM)
3.1 Agile principles
3.2 Explaining Roles and Responsibilities
3.3 Agile Levels of Governance
3.4 The Portfolio Kanban aka Agile Portfolio Planning Kanban Wall
3.5 Ongoing Agile Portfolio Ceremonies
3.6 Portfolio Artefacts
3.7 Agile Requirements Levels (Scope decomposition)
3.8 Agile Portfolio Budgeting and Resources
3.9 Identify the portfolio value in an initiative
3.10 Portfolio Wide Stakeholder Analysis
3.11 Align all work to the Strategy
3.12 Estimation of Initiatives
3.13 Portfolio prioritization – Sorting/ranking the Portfolio
3.14 Bottlenecks and Cost of Delays
3.15 Qualify ideas for Portfolio inclusion – The Agile business case
3.16 Visualize and present the portfolio values
3.17 Managing Portfolio Risks
3.18 Portfolio Metrics worth tracking - Measuring progress and value
3.19 The Agile Project Management Office (PMO)
3.20 Exploring EDGE
3.21 Transformational leadership for a successful Portfolio
Chapter 4 – Agile Portfolio Management Frameworks
4.1 Scaling frameworks for Agile Portfolio Management
4.2 The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®)
4.3 More with Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS)
4.4 Agile Portfolio Management by Agile Business Consortium
4.5 The Nexus Framework for Scaling Scrum
4.6 Disciplined Agile (Delivery) (DA/DAD)
4.7 Portfolio Management using Scrum (Scrum of Scrums)
4.8 XSCALE Alliance (XA)
4.9 Enterprise Scrum
4.10 Recipes for Agile Governance in the Enterprise (RAGE)
4.11 The Spotify Model
Chapter 5 – Project Portfolio Management versus Agile Portfolio Management
Chapter 6 – Hybrid Portfolio Management
Chapter 7 - Implementing Agile Portfolio Management
Chapter 8 – Tailoring Agile Portfolio Management
Chapter 9 - Case studies on Agile Portfolio Management
9.1 Case study (2018) - Ocuco Ltd
9.2 Case study (2016) - An empirical study of portfolio management and Kanban in agile and lean software companies
9.3 Case study (2019) - Managing the Agile Scalability to implement Agile Project Portfolio Management
9.4 Case study (2018) – Large-Scale agile transformations at Ericsson
9.5 Case study (2011) - Supporting Scaling Agile with Portfolio Management at Paf.com
9.6 Case study (2019) - Agile Software Integration at Telfor
9.7 Case study (2015) - Is Agile Portfolio Management following The Principles of Large-Scale Agile in the Finish broadcasting company Yle
9.8 Case study (2018) – Agile Portfolio Management Challenges in the Swedish Automobile Industry
9.9 Case study (2011) – Agile Kanban IT project Portfolio at Getty Images 295
Chapter 10 - Reference list
Chapter 10 - Glossary of terms and Acronyms
Biography
Klaus Nielsen, Cambridge (UK) educated and dual MBA (HRM and Technology) holder from the US who has worked in Project, Programs and Portfolio Management for more than 15 years. Mr. Nielsen is the author of I Am Agile (2013); Mastering the Business Case (2015), Achieve PMI-PBA® Exam Success (2015); Agile Certified Practitioner Exam (2016) and writer of several industry articles published worldwide. He is the founder of Global Business Development, a PMI Registered Education Provider and agile training provider where he trains and consults to businesses ranging from small start-ups to top 500 companies worldwide. For the last eight years, Klaus has taught part-time at the IT University of Copenhagen as faculty lecture ad is a frequent speaker at events, conferences and tradeshows.
