20140404 how lean and agile are you? _orla o'dwyer lero
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Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
How Lean and Agile Are You?
Kieran Conboy, Deirdre Giblin, Orla O’Dwyer
National College of Ireland
4th April 2014
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ISIN/Lero/NUI Galway Event
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
• Dr. Kieran Conboy is the Dean of the College of Business Public Policy and Law and is leading a Science Foundation Ireland funded project with the Lero research centre in this area. He has worked with many companies on their agile initiatives including Atlassian, Accenture, Fidelity Investments and Suncorp.
• Deirdre Giblin is a manager with Ericsson with over 9 years’ experience in both project and line management. She has led teams of varying size and complex programs of work, delivering projects to multiple stakeholders and large Telecom operators. Her current roles involves the line management of 8 software development teams working in an agile environment delivering multiple features for Ericsson Network Management System.
• Dr. Orla O’Dwyer is a post-doctoral researcher with the Lero software
engineering research center and Whitaker Institute at NUI Galway, Ireland. Her research focuses on various aspects of project portfolio management including the challenges organisations face when managing IS project portfolios.
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About the Presenters
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Research Study on Software Project Portfolio Management:
Challenges and Solutions
Orla O’Dwyer, Roger Sweetman Kieran Conboy
April 4th, 2014
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Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Portfolio is a collection of programs and projects
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Portfolio, program and projects
Program is a group of related projects
Project is a temporary body of work to create a new product or service
Portfolio
Program 1
Project 1 Project 2
Program 2
Project 1 Project 2 Project 3
Project management is “doing things right”; Portfolio management is “doing the right things”
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Project Portfolio
Mgt (PPM)
Alignment of portfolio to
organisational strategy
Portfolio Balancing
Resource Management
Pipeline Management
Risk Management
Financial Management
Change Management
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Project Portfolio Management (PPM) involves:
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Organisation Regulatory Bodies e.g.
ISO
Customers
Strategic Partners
Competitors Sales
Marketing
Finance
Employees
Sponsors
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Stakeholders
External Stakeholders
Internal Stakeholders
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE 7
Participating organisations
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
To: (a) identify challenges organisations face when managing
portfolios of software projects and to (b) establish solutions to those challenges
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Objective of the study
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
• The unique features and constraints of PPM in a software development context are not fully understood
• Many organisations have clear plans in place to manage project portfolios – In others PPM is informal, ad-hoc and sometimes
completely absent
• How effective PPM is achieved is not entirely clear
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Reasons for this study
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
• Ensures projects are aligned to strategic objectives • Focus on the most important projects for the
organisation • Maximises delivery of value • Allocates resources to the most important projects • Central oversight of budget and projects • Balance of risk across all projects
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Why is PPM important?
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Why practice PPM?
“A portfolio should be a true measure of an organization’s intent, direction and progress.” (PMI, 2012)
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
• Participating organisations – Different industries – Different sizes – Differing levels of maturity – Geography (co-located vs. distributed) – Differing levels of PPM process – Customer (internal, external)
• Interviews included – Senior management, managers, portfolio managers,
program managers, product managers
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Data Collection
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE 13
Case Profiles
Organisation Range From Range To
No. of employees (local site)
45 4,500
No. of employees (globally)
230 114,000
Portfolio budget €50k €20 million
No. of projects in portfolio
1 47
Project duration 6 weeks 3 years
Interviewee Min Max
No. of years experience 8 years 30 years
No. of years in role 6 months 11 years
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE 14
PPM Challenges
PPM Challenges
1. Prioritisation and selection of the right projects
2. Project inter-dependencies
3. Resource allocation
4. Release Management
5. Metrics
6. Communication 7. Alignment of project portfolio with strategic objectives
8. Centralised view of the project portfolio
9. Balancing the project portfolio
10. Frequency of portfolio reviews
11. Forward Planning
12. Risk analysis
13. Lack of PPM process
14. Terminology 15. Political environment
16. Organisational culture
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE 15
PPM Challenges
PPM Challenges
1. Prioritisation and selection of the right projects
2. Project inter-dependencies
3. Resource allocation
4. Release Management
5. Metrics 6. Communication 7. Alignment of project portfolio with strategic objectives
8. Centralised view of the project portfolio
9. Balancing the project portfolio
10. Frequency of portfolio reviews
11. Forward Planning
12. Risk analysis
13. Lack of PPM process
14. Terminology 15. Political environment
16. Organisational culture
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Challenges
• Insufficient due diligence selecting projects • Lack of alignment to strategy • Regular switching of priorities • External influences re-prioritising projects
o Competitors o Customers o Release of new operating system o Accreditation bodies
• Pet Projects
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1. Prioritisation and Selection Process
Impact
• Demoralisation and employee turnover
• Low quality • Employees working on the
‘wrong’ projects
Solutions
• Introduce a scoring/ranking system - Rank projects by value and benefits (business case) o Develop and weight value and risk criteria
• Ensure projects selected are aligned to organisational strategy • Balance benefits (long-term, short-term) and risks (high/low) across markets, technologies,
products • Challenge peers/senior management to see why projects are selected.
o Credibility factor – are you credible to challenge?
“Not enough due diligence done to ensure the right projects are selected…. It
used to be who could go in and argue the best”
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Challenges
• Multiple dependencies between projects in relation to delivery dates
• Technical dependency on core or other teams, which is not delivered
• Individuals part of a centre of excellence and assigned to a team (not a member)
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2. Project Inter-Dependencies
Impact
• Missing a date can have huge financial implications for the business
• Option to work around, delay, or build it • Core code developed by multiple teams • Causes frustration amongst teams
Solutions
• Define inter-dependencies up-front • Signed agreement between teams to deliver where there are dependencies
o Renegotiation takes place at very senior level • Sometimes teams need to work it out amongst themselves • Team who write the code give it to the CORE team • Putting relevant skills on each team e.g. instead of database team, include a database
resource on each team
“Another team may down-prioritise a feature
because it is not important for them, but we were
depending on them delivering”
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Challenges
• Competition for resources all the time within sites/across sites
• Too many projects for resourcing available • Politics involved in allocating resources
o Lots of negotiation o Often based on numbers rather than skill
set/expertise of employees o At lower level managers fight over skills
• Flexible resource model vs. dedicated resources
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3. Resource Allocation
Impact
• Resources must be requested from central teams/other teams (negotiation process)
• Right resources may not be allocated to projects
• Resources may be allocated to multiple projects
• Teams may move on an ad-hoc basis
Solutions
• No easy solution o Larger organisations tend to dedicate a person/headcount board to manage
resource allocations o Tools are used in some cases to ensure resources are allocated and utilised o Conduct regular meetings in relation to resources and project priorities
o Resources are moved accordingly
“we need to be flexible and nimble as we can have developers working on
three different projects in any one week”
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Challenges
• Lack of release plan o Different sites move at different pace o Desire to include too many features in a release o Teams working on features that are not a real
priority (decreasing priority on the backlog) • Lack of buy-in to planning releases • Aligning releases with timing of the product suite
o Aligning each individual module/feature of a product with the release date for the overall product suite
o Inter-related projects delivering together
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4. Release Management
Impact
• Delayed delivery of features • Lack of forward planning • Developing features that are
no longer a priority • Increased cost and overheads
Solutions
• Aim to release regularly with agreed achievable functionality • Focus on the top priorities all the time • Some organisations have created a release management function responsible for
software delivery, packaging etc. • Need to plan well ahead of time to avoid a bottleneck with resources e.g. service packs,
beta release
“We have the concept or are at least trying to get
to the concept of quarterly releases”
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Challenges
• Difficult to determine business value o No process to evaluate if ROI was achieved o Sales staff sell a product and give your
module/feature for free to make the sale o How is value determined? Who obtains the
sale? • Lack of involvement of finance personnel • Senior management need other metrics since
transitioning to agile • Strict quality metrics
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5. Metrics
Impact
• No closing of the loop in relation to ROI/business case
• Lack of clarity on revenue • Lack of transparency/visibility
on progress • Team is accountable as
opposed to individuals • Increased cost if quality targets
are not met
Solutions
• Introducing new templates for senior management to detail progress of agile projects • Involve finance/accountants in the process • Define and implement metrics appropriate for your organisation
o E.g. Financial metrics to support business case (NPV, ROI), Stage gates/milestones, time, budget, quality, revenue, number features delivered, no. of o/s defects, no. sales, profit margin
“Our product may have been written off because
sales staff are trying to secure a wider deal (of
multiple products)”
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
• For effective project portfolio management – Prioritisation and selection of the right projects is critical
• Have a strong process in place – Build a portfolio road map that is updated regularly
• 6, 12, 18, 24+ months ahead – Good supports must exist
• e.g. tools, templates, accurate reporting, frequent reviews to ensure investments deliver business strategy
– Provide transparency and visibility across the organisation to all relevant stakeholders
– Communication is important, especially in relation to the strategic direction of the organisation
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Conclusion
Lero© 2013 THE IRISH SOFTWARE ENGINEERING RESEARCH CENTRE
Thank you
Thank you
Questions?
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