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Efficient portfolio management is essential for business success in todays competitive landscape. Managing projects, aligning them with goals, and optimizing resources can be challenging without the right tools. Project portfolio management software, also known as a PPM tool, simplifies planning, execution, and monitoring.
Efficient portfolio management is essential for business success in todays competitive landscape. Managing projects, aligning them with goals, and optimizing resources can be challenging without the right tools. Project portfolio management software, also known as a PPM tool, simplifies planning, execution, and monitoring.
The teams want to use an agile approach so they can incorporate learning. The managers want rigid roadmaps. Because the managers want to “know” the teams will deliver it all. However, the managers create a roadmap similar to the image above. The managers created a Gantt Chart as a picture, not a roadmap.
So when does it make sense to customize your agile approach to gain a strategic advantage? They want an agile approach, so they started with Scrum. The first was not waiting for the end of an iteration to demo or release. They demo'd every week on Wednesday mornings and then they released after the demo. We do what works.”
Back in Part 1 , I wrote about how stage-gate approaches were as agile as we could use at the time. We had one delivery, so our agility was about canceling the project if we couldn't finish it. The spiral model assumes that if you get feedback early enough, you've managed the technical and requirements risks.
In the olden days, the project manager with the help of the team ranked.) Opportunities for More Agility. Because we release every time we finish a feature set, we have these opportunities for agility: Re-rank the remaining feature sets. See and demo the product as it grows. Part 5 Agile Approaches.
I see many teams and team members who say, “Agile stinks. ” When I ask people what's happening, they say: We're doing an agile death march because someone else already told us what we have to do and the date it's due. And don't get me started on how coaches tend to do life coaching instead of support for agility.)
He thought agile approaches would work to “meet” and “enforce” deadlines. I suspected I would learn about engagement with my next questions about management patterns. Let's start with how management organizes teams. These management patterns create disengagement. New Management Choices.
I have a new book: Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility. I wrote it because I'm concerned about what I see in too many supposedly agile teams: Crazy-long backlogs and roadmaps. Worse, sometimes the team doesn't demo or deliver. The post Tired of Fake Agility?
In Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1 , I said that real agile approaches require cultural change to focus on flow efficiency, where we focus on watching the work, not the people. If you and your team have been practicing real agility, you might say these ideas barely show any agility at all. That's fine.
Are you a manager accustomed to Management by Walking Around and Listening (MBWAL) ? You have an opportunity to work differently as a manager. As a manager, you can ask teams to collaborate. As a manager, while you might have a bunch of metrics, most of those measures don't help you manage. (
They've started to use agile approaches. Capitalization for Agile Work. Let me walk you through an example of a 5-person agile team. So, let's assume the team spends a total of 4 hours planning, retrospecting, demoing, all that non-creation time out of the 40 hours the team works. (I Why Capitalize? Yeah, right.
In Effective Agility Requires Cultural Changes: Part 1 , I said that real agile approaches require cultural change to focus on flow efficiency , where we watch the flow of the work , not the people doing tasks. Can you create an agile culture for your team even if you can't change how the organization works?
I spoke with a project manager recently. I used to facilitate project teams as a project manager. Why a project manager? When I learned to manage programs, I managed programs like that, too. Then, we went “all-Scrum” so my managers called me a Scrum Master. Scrum Master or Agile Project Manager?
Strategy and Product Feedback Loops About 20 years ago, I taught a project management workshop to IT people. ” For years, I explained that the more often the team or program could demo, the more the project or program could engage its stakeholders. Demo that value on a regular cadence. Now, John Cutler has changed my mind.
Many new-to-agile teams use some form of iteration-based agile approach. Back in Time You Spend in Agile Meetings (near the bottom of the post), I enumerated all the possible meetings. I mentioned how you could integrate the demo work into an iteration if you create a column for the demo.
Many managers feel pressure to deliver finished work. The managers don't think they need to use data to replan frequently, to address what's happening. The managers plan for the teams, not with the teams. Worse, the managers don't deliver that finished work—the teams do. Reasons Managers Plan. Assess risks.
You can see demos. I wrote about how to define release criteria for the software (or hardware) part of the product in Manage It!, Agile and Lean Program Management , and in Create Your Successful Agile Project. Use Milestone Criteria in an Agile Way for an Agile Program. That's not the problem.
I started asking if you actually need an agile approach in Part 1 and noted the 4 big problems I see. Part 2 was why we need managers in an agile transformation. Part 4 was about how “Agile” is meaningless and “agile” is an adjective that needs to be applied to something.
I discussed the origins of the agile approaches in Part 5. In this post, I'll discuss how you can create an agile approach that fits your context. Why should you create your own agile approach? You deserve an agile approach that helps you achieve the business outcomes you need. What do you need? Start with the Team.
A colleague unfamiliar with lifecycles or agility asked, “How can we use sprints in this approach?” Not the thinking and learning that go into the deliverables where you end up with something demo-able, if not usable.” See Create Your Successful Agile Project for more details.). ” “Oooh.”
That's why Part 1 of this series discusses your value and what managers want and need. That part discusses why managers see agile coaches and Scrum Masters as staff positions, not line jobs. This post is about your deep domain expertise, first in product, then in agility. There way too many of you. If not, read it now.
They (the team) feel that the tasks for the sprint are too varied to manage to a single sprint goal. Instead, I see assumptions that reveal a divide-and-conquer, and possibly a command-and-control culture, not an agile culture. Agility requires a collaborative cross-functional team. Those two things do not make an agile team.
What issues will they bring to automotive project management, and what are the ways to address them? Such a complicated multi-project environment with its project dependencies and shared resources requires a well-thought project and resource management approach. . Manage uncertainty and risks . The need to cut costs.
Whenever I teach agile approaches, I discuss the possible meetings a team might choose. A demo once every two weeks. A demo once every two weeks. (I I prefer a demo every time you release a story, but that’s me. If you use kanban, you might integrate a demo into the board. No demo meetings necessary.
After that, they are given access to a simple demo environment with a standard set of configurations, where they can test how our system works. If your company uses other project management tools like Jira, MS Project, or Oracle Primavera, the demo environment will be adjusted accordingly. Data adjustment and integration.
Your managers are not yet. Your managers are stuck in what I call “how much” thinking: They want to see an estimate for “all” of it, regardless of when you might deliver the first piece of value. Managers need commitments and predictions for a number of excellent reasons. Release finished features often.
In Costs of an Agile Approach for Hardware Products , I suggested that an iteration-based approach for hardware was too expensive. Agile software teams are cross-functional and interdependent. Many agile software teams have somewhere between four and seven people. Hardware Costs Limit Agile Approaches.
You have an agile roadmap to see where you're headed. And, someone on your team keeps a Gantt chart because a manager wants to see the team's progress in a form they feel comfortable with. Your team hates having to translate the agile planning into more traditional planning. Placate the Manager.
You might need to manage your delivery risks before you can manage to free time for the discovery risks. That leads to people using agile approaches to focus on delivery. Managers: please measure your decision cycle time as in Long Decision Wait Times and Unearth Your Project's Delays. Delivery Focuses on Technical Risks.
Since I also write for project, program, and portfolio managers, you might not choose to read this post. Writers often need a different approach to manage everyone's expectations. How to Write for Secondary Readers Polly, a program manager, works with her program team to solve a cross-program problem: status reporting.
If you took an agile workshop sometime in the past 15 years, you probably played the “ ball game.” Especially since they've probably suffered through way too many “agile” workshops with more and more games. I explain the activity in this way: Your managers wanted you to fix this problem yesterday.
Are you a manager accustomed to Management by Walking Around and Listening (MBWAL) ? You have an opportunity to work differently as a manager. As a manager, you can ask teams to collaborate. As a manager, while you might have a bunch of metrics, most of those measures don't help you manage. (
Many of my clients use an iteration-based agile approach. They have to manage extra work—work they had not estimated—in the form of an emergency or production support. One of the managers I coached asked this question, “Is there any way to estimate ‘right' for two weeks at a time?”
I see too much micromanagement, even in supposedly agile organizations. This image shows a 6-person team where the leader/manager micromanages. Some managers want to stay “relevant,” so they work on the technical work. Other managers ask for status every day or multiple times a day.
” It depends on how your lifecycle manages feedback loops and learning, how collaborative the team is, and how much WIP the team has. Each Lifecycle Manages Feedback Loops Differently Brooks wrote the original version of The Mythical Man-Month in 1975, based on the 1960s IBM 360 project. .” Brooks also said on p.
might demo the feature. That defect escaped all your checklists, approvals, and demos. See What Lifecycle or Agile Approach Fits Your Context? At first, management told them they were “too slow.” Not all the managers agreed with me, but that was okay. The customer finds a problem, a defect.
I only wrote those business cases for the first couple of years I managed projects. Because experiments manage risk, we need people with these perspectives to create the experiments: A product leader: someone who can see where the company wants to head with this product. Does that mean the portfolio team should watch the demos?
Kassir Hussain, former director of Connected Home, told us: “In a space that can often be confusing and frustrating to consumers, our focus on regular user interviews, meetings, tests, and demos allowed us to build a product that was simple, easy to use, and addressed real consumer needs.” Help Employees Embrace Agility.
Because features change in value and because some feature sets need to deliver value on a more regular basis, the real roadmap looks more like this graphic, “When the Agile Roadmap Changes.” They noted MVPs and demos on their roadmap—a new idea for them. Part 6: Managers Want Commitments. Part 7: Summary.
Nor do the teams demo on a regular basis. The teams miss the feedback loops so critical for an agile approach. Their agile transformation falls apart. Let's think about how to create agile projects with short feedback loops, not projects that look like waterfall. Prevent Agile Projects that Look Like Waterfall.
In Part 1 , I suggested that when we organize by function, the recognition and rewards might prevent a successful agile transformation. The senior manager has P&L (Profit and Loss) responsibility for the entire product line, including Product Management (for this product line), Customer Support, Training, etc.
Early on in my agile practice, I believed in generalizing specialists. Here's how this might work for your agile team. You don't have an agile team because they're not collaborating on the work. Hooks for logs and demos. Anything else that makes development, testing, demo, and release easier.
They (the team) feel that the tasks for the sprint are too varied to manage to a single sprint goal. That's why I wrote a chapter about meetings in Manage It! In Create Your Successful Agile Project , I recommend the team end an iteration in the middle of a week. You might be using an agile approach, but it's not Scrum.
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