hype cycle for project and portfolio management, 2020

Hype Cycle for Project and PortfolioManagement, 2020Published: 8 July 2020 ID: G00448201

Analyst(s): Anthony Henderson

This Hype Cycle provides program and portfolio management leadersinsight into the relative maturity of the enabling disciplines and technologiesfor executing strategy. The resulting capabilities will transform the delivery ofinitiatives in an increasingly dynamic and uncertain environment.

Table of Contents

Analysis..................................................................................................................................................2

What You Need to Know.................................................................................................................. 2

The Hype Cycle................................................................................................................................ 3

The Priority Matrix.............................................................................................................................4

Off the Hype Cycle........................................................................................................................... 6

On the Rise...................................................................................................................................... 7

RPA-Enabled PPM..................................................................................................................... 7

AI-Enabled PPM......................................................................................................................... 8

Strategic Portfolio Management................................................................................................10

PMO/PPM as a Service............................................................................................................ 11

At the Peak.....................................................................................................................................13

Strategy Realization Office........................................................................................................ 13

Adaptive Portfolio Governance..................................................................................................14

Adaptive Project Management and Reporting...........................................................................16

Project Collaboration and Management.................................................................................... 18

Business Agile.......................................................................................................................... 19

Digital Transformation Office..................................................................................................... 20

Product-Centric Delivery Model................................................................................................ 22

Adaptive Program Management............................................................................................... 23

Sliding Into the Trough.................................................................................................................... 25

Agile Project Management........................................................................................................ 25

EPMO.......................................................................................................................................26

Enterprise Agile Frameworks.................................................................................................... 27

Enterprise-Class Agile Development......................................................................................... 29

PPM for New Product Development......................................................................................... 30

Kanban for PPM....................................................................................................................... 32

Application Portfolio Management............................................................................................ 33

Resource Management............................................................................................................ 35

Climbing the Slope......................................................................................................................... 36

Change Leadership.................................................................................................................. 36

Domain PMO............................................................................................................................37

Organizational Change Management........................................................................................ 38

Entering the Plateau....................................................................................................................... 40

DevOps.................................................................................................................................... 40

Appendixes.................................................................................................................................... 42

Hype Cycle Phases, Benefit Ratings and Maturity Levels.......................................................... 43

Gartner Recommended Reading.......................................................................................................... 44

List of Tables

Table 1. Hype Cycle Phases................................................................................................................. 43

Table 2. Benefit Ratings........................................................................................................................43

Table 3. Maturity Levels........................................................................................................................ 44

List of Figures

Figure 1. Hype Cycle for Project and Portfolio Management, 2020......................................................... 4

Figure 2. Priority Matrix for Project and Portfolio Management, 2020...................................................... 5

Figure 3. Hype Cycle for Project and Portfolio Management, 2019....................................................... 42

Analysis

What You Need to Know

This document was revised on 9 July 2020. The document you are viewing is the corrected version.For more information, see the Corrections page on gartner.com.

of 46 Gartner, Inc. | G00448201

https://www.gartner.com/en/about/policies/current-corrections

PPM leaders aiming to improve their effectiveness in managing more dynamic portfolios (projects,programs, and products) to drive strategy execution must consider three themes:

1. As we transition out of the pandemic, moving from recover to renew, the broader focus willmove away from cost optimization to value optimization. Organizational stewardship, enabledby improved investment decision making, will be essential for driving strategically alignedbusiness outcomes.

2. Digitalization is an imperative and no longer a differentiator. The ability to scale agile andproduct-centric delivery, increase enterprisewide collaboration, and lead and engage others inchange will be core tenets for survival.

3. Continuous change and increasing uncertainty will be the norm. PPM disciplines andtechnologies must enable adaptability to accommodate for shifts in strategies and priorities,while shortening the time it takes to realize strategic objectives.

The Hype Cycle

This Hype Cycle includes innovations that consist of a combination of management disciplines andtechnologies. Typically, the maturation of technologies in this space lags that of the managementdisciplines and frameworks.

There is a high concentration of disciplines at the Peak of Inflated Expectations in the Hype Cycle,where the expectations are high and adoption challenges are not apparent. While organizationshave implemented the resulting capabilities from these disciplines in pockets or segments of theorganization, they are challenged to deploy these innovations throughout the enterprise. Much ofthis challenge stems from two factors:

1. The deployment of these disciplines requires paradigm shifts and effective organizationalchange across a broad network of IT and business stakeholders.

2. The need to improve maturity in portfolio management, governance and value determination,along with the tight coordination between strategic alignment and execution, is necessary tosuccessfully scale these disciplines across the enterprise.

The following innovation profiles are new to the 2020 Hype Cycle:

■ Adaptive Project Management and Reporting — This PPM submarket provides users withcohesive process automation for project and work planning and delivery, emphasizing intuitiveuser experience, advanced collaboration, and low- or no-code integration to other cloudapplications.

■ Change Leadership — Gartner’s ESCAPE model for change leadership has garnered rapidadoption at the CIO and executive leadership level. (The name is derived from the model’s sixsteps: [1] Envision, [2] Share, [3] Compose, [4] Attract, [5] Permit and [6] Enable). It is a keydiscipline that PPM leaders must integrate into a comprehensive change strategy thatembraces short-term change introduced by initiatives with the continuous change capabilitiesnecessary for agile and product management delivery.

Gartner, Inc. | G00448201 of 46

■ Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) — Technologies in this PPM submarket help enable theagility needed to respond to changing market conditions by providing capabilities that supportimproved decision making, using advanced portfolio management and analysis.

Figure 1. Hype Cycle for Project and Portfolio Management, 2020

The Priority Matrix

The Priority Matrix shows the benefit level and the number of years to mainstream adoption for thetechnologies, methodologies and disciplines presented in this Hype Cycle. No profiles are taggedas being of low benefit since the increasingly dynamic business environment renders pursuing low-benefit technologies and efforts unappealing.

In order to deliver on the promise of these innovations, PPM leaders must assume a mindset thatvalues continual learning and agility over technical expertise and mastery of a particular set of skillsor processes. They must champion transformation by engaging across the enterprise with a morediverse group of stakeholders.


PPM leaders must ensure their function has a growth mindset, and adopts practices, services andsupporting technologies relevant for effectively competing in this digital norm. This means they’llneed to get comfortable deploying more adaptive and agile approaches and promoting morestreamlined and accelerated decision making. PPM leaders will need to champion the efforts toprioritize investments and deliver the initiatives to drive business outcomes amid an ever-changingmarketplace.

Figure 2. Priority Matrix for Project and Portfolio Management, 2020


Off the Hype Cycle

Since this Hype Cycle provides insight into only the most important and prevalent concepts in PPM,the following summarizes the profile deletions from this year’s Hype Cycle.

Profiles for the following stand-alone technologies were retired and addressed as part of the AI-Enabled PPM and RPA-Enabled PPM profiles. PPM leaders choosing to accelerate theimplementation of these specific technology capabilities should reference the Hype Cyclescontaining them:

■ Project Management Bots (see “Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence, 2020”)

■ Predictive Analytics (see “Hype Cycle for Analytics and Business Intelligence, 2020”)

■ Prescriptive Analytics (see “Hype Cycle for Data Science and Machine Learning, 2020”)

■ Robotic Process Automation Software (see “Hype Cycle for Artificial Intelligence, 2020”)

With the introduction of the emerging strategic portfolio management segment of the PPM toolmarket, the following profiles were retired from the PPM Hype Cycle:

■ Integrated IT Portfolio Analysis

■ Strategy Execution Management

■ Product Management and Roadmapping Tools

We eliminated IT Project and Portfolio Management Applications since digitalization has polarizedthat market into two submarkets: Adaptive Project Management and Reporting, and StrategicPortfolio Management.

Earned Value Management (EVM) was obsolete before the plateau last year. For more agileenvironments, EVM cannot be applied at the onset since schedule and budget baselines are muchtoo uncertain. As organizations adopt and mature their agile and product management capabilities,the need for traditional EVM will diminish.

With the addition of the Adaptive Project Management and Reporting profile and its natural overlapwith Project Collaboration and Management, the Collaborative Work Management and WorkstreamCollaboration profiles were retired to reduce redundancy.

While Traditional IT Project Management is a well-established and mature discipline deployed bymany organizations, we retired the profile as it will not be the innovation to help propel organizationsto effectively compete in a continuously changing, value-driven environment.

Hybrid Application Project Management was retired as organizations will continue to transition tomore agile and product-centric delivery approached. Hybrid Application Project Managementrepresents a step in the journey, but not the destination.

We eliminated ContinuousNext to reduce redundancy since many of the existing profiles, such asChange Leadership, AI-Enabled PPM and Strategic Portfolio Management embody the capabilitiesinherent in the ContinuousNext framework.


Digital Twin was retired as it is no longer relevant to the PPM Hype Cycle (see “Hype Cycle for theInternet of Things, 2020”).

On the Rise

RPA-Enabled PPM

Analysis By: Daniel Stang

Definition: Robotic process automation (RPA)-enabled project and portfolio management (PPM) isthe use of RPA as part of the automation of PPM processes and supporting technologies. RPA-enabled PPM is focused on reducing the manual administration currently required of PPM leadersand other PPM end users for sharing data and interacting with multiple PPM tools and other third-party enterprise software solutions and data sources.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The number of PPM-related and other technologiesused to automate everything from strategy formulation, through to portfolio decision making andmanagement, to continuous work execution has grown substantially. End-user fatigue is a growingproblem, as PPM leaders and project professionals are expected to interact with, update and shareinformation with many different tools, technologies and critical data sources. RPA-enabled PPM canremedy integration inefficiencies causing PPM end-user fatigue.

RPA tools perform “if, then, else” statements on structured data, typically using a combination of UIinteractions, or by connecting to APIs to drive client servers, mainframes or HTML code. Processescan be mapped in RPA tool language for a software “robot” to follow, with runtime allocated toexecute the script by a control dashboard. Currently, though, there is no widespread availability ofRPA-enabled PPM. While incremental support for RPA-enabled PPM by the PPM software market isexpected over the next few years, currently, RPA-enabled PPM is in an embryonic stage.

User Advice: The best approach for applying RPA in PPM is very similar to applying conversationalAI and chatbots in PPM. PPM leaders must be bold enough to experiment with RPA to learn whatworks well and what does not, while being cautious enough to ensure they are not taking anyunnecessary risks. Leveraging pure-play RPA tools to connect existing PPM systems and otherwork management tools and data sources might be more effective and pay dividends faster thanwaiting for the PPM market to adopt RPA as a more modern approach to technology integration.Gartner predicts that RPA, and other modern approaches to technology integration, will become astandard part of many types of enterprise software solutions, including PPM technology, by the year2022.

Business Impact: As RPA-enabled PPM matures, PPM leaders will be able to combine an AI-enabled PPM UX with RPA to incrementally alleviate PPM end-user fatigue. RPA-enabled PPM hasthe potential to reduce the amount of manual operations project professionals will be required toperform to update a multitude of tools used for PPM.

The most common examples of RPA being applied in today’s project organizations include:


■ Conversational AI and natural language processing for the UX

■ A chatbot to convert conversations and commands into data that will be shared with PPMsoftware and other systems or trigger actions supported by RPA

■ A project or work management system collecting status information and updating projectreports for project managers

RPA-enabled PPM connects all three of these technologies and reduces the need for end users tojump in and out of multiple software systems to ensure that all updates are applied to all supportingand dependent technologies and data sources.

As it matures, RPA-enabled PPM will reduce much of the administrative overhead of following PPMprocesses using PPM tools and other supporting technologies. RPA-enabled PPM will also evolveto address the current administrative overhead associated with sharing PPM-related informationwith third-party systems, such as ERP systems. Specifically, translating PPM-related costinformation into data to be used by the finance department is a prime example of how RPA-enabledPPM can reduce administration for PPM leaders. At present, integrations between PPM technologyand ERP systems are basic at best. Other examples include automatic prioritization updates to agileor digital product backlogs when making strategic decisions at the portfolio level, which, in turn,notifies the delivery teams using connected agile development or other work management tools.

Benefit Rating: Moderate

Market Penetration: Less than 1% of target audience

Maturity: Embryonic

Sample Vendors: Automation Anywhere; Blue Prism; UiPath; WorkFusion

Recommended Reading: “How AI Will Reinvent Program and Portfolio Management”

“Magic Quadrant for Robotic Process Automation Software”

“Solution Comparison for 3 Robotic Process Automation Vendors”

AI-Enabled PPM


Definition: Artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled PPM is the application of AI in PPM technologies,including but not limited to conversational AI and machine learning (ML), to address moderncomplex challenges in PPM. The PPM market is beginning to provide incremental user experience(UX) benefits to individual project professionals via conversational AI. AI-enabled PPM aims to helpPPM leaders unlock deeper insights and speed up project plan generation, and to help thembecome more efficient and effective planners, managers and decision makers.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Assessing any of the AI technology options availablein the current PPM market is a daunting task. To date, the PPM market does not yet provide proven


and readily available AI-enabled solutions beneficial for PPM leaders and professionals. AI-enabledPPM is a slow starter in the PPM market. PPM providers are pooling their resources for datascience and hiring experts in AI. The providers are also either planning to partner, or already havepartnered, with technology providers that build bots and develop advanced natural languageprocessing (NLP) technologies. Some PPM providers are also experimenting with ML for automatedplanning of work and resources. Many PPM vendors are also refining their support for predictiveanalytics to support AI-enabled PPM. Innovation in AI-enabled PPM will continue to accelerate oncethe PPM providers and their customers can both recognize and measure the value it brings.

User Advice: PPM leaders should experiment with and leverage emergent and evolving AI-enabledPPM software options and technologies. To do so, PPM leaders should begin exploring how AI canbe a part of a PPM technology investment strategy by investigating approaches for conversationalAI and ML. Experimentation with AI-enabled PPM is a good, safe approach to see how using it willfit into the PPM environment. It will not be easy to do so, but the payout and the lessons learnedcan help drive transformation of the PPM function for digital business. PPM leaders should takesmall steps toward using AI-enabled PPM technology by keeping it simple, and experimenting withand adopting conversational AI. This simple approach should include using chatbots in ways thatimprove the lives of PMO managers and project team members. PPM leaders should also developplans to expand the use of AI-enabled PPM over time by applying any ML options to the PPMtechnologies in use. Doing so can result in reduced administration and human error associated withproject planning and other labor-intensive PPM activities. PPM leaders should take note that the AIoptions and ML technology choices available to them are emerging from outside of the PPMmarket.

Business Impact: Over time, AI-enabled PPM will dramatically increase the efficiency andeffectiveness of project planning and management, while also reducing the occurrence ofunforeseen project issues, risks and failures associated with human error. AI-enabled PPM has thepotential to dramatically reduce the administration required of PPM leaders. These improvedefficiencies will allow PPM leaders to focus more on delivering business capabilities and value-added activities such as change and risk management, and communications with stakeholders andcustomers. AI-enabled PPM has the potential to be a transformational element of PPM technology,but is still in its embryonic stage as an innovation in the PPM market.

Benefit Rating: Transformational


Maturity: Embryonic

Sample Vendors: Clarizen; Planisware; Planview; Workfront

Recommended Reading: “How AI Will Reinvent Program and Portfolio Management”

“Cool Vendors in AI Core Technologies”

“Predicts 2020: AI and the Future of Work”


“Enable Predictive Analytics to Improve Program and Portfolio Outcomes”

Strategic Portfolio Management


Definition: Strategic portfolio management (SPM) is an emergent segment in the PPM softwaremarket, focused exclusively on business decision making using advanced portfolio managementand analysis. SPM provides technologies for business leaders and leadership functions (e.g., SROs,EPMOs) responsible for strategy planning and realization, portfolio governance and visibility,strategy-to-execution alignment and the successful execution of strategic, enterprisewideinvestments, initiatives, business outcomes, products and programs.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: SPM technology emerged initially as a number ofdistinct portfolio management use cases and niche software markets, including PPM, integrated ITportfolio analysis (IIPA), strategy execution management (SEM) and other specialized marketssupporting strategic investment planning. SPM is an emerging technology focused solely onadvanced portfolio management and decision making. Within SPM, interdependent portfolioperspectives and views are combined to make holistic decisions regarding the most strategicinvestments and initiatives an enterprise plans to pursue. SPM as a discipline requires acombination of strategic business, IT, and scaled execution contexts to make truly informedbusiness investment decisions and achieve success in digital transformation and scaling.

Two major inhibitors to the successful adoption of SPM technology are lack of portfoliomanagement maturity within organizations facing digital business challenges and cultural obstacles.If appropriate senior leadership and organization are not in place or the enterprise is not culturallyprepared to support business transformation, SPM as a practice is not feasible and SPMtechnology will not be viewed as necessary or critical.

CIOs leading digital business transformation and scaling also identify lack of portfolio managementand enterprise-level resource planning as two major inhibitors hampering their ability to succeed.These CIOs expect they will need to lead major business and/or operating model changes tocontinue with their transformation. The need for SPM technology is therefore likely to increase andbecome a necessity within the next five years or less. This demand will likely drive stronger adoptionof SPM as a key technology needed to succeed in digital business.

User Advice: Business and IT leaders, including active participants in SROs or EPMOs, shouldbegin to evaluate portfolio management vendors that can support SPM. Emerging SPM technologycan help support the following:

■ Strategy-to-execution alignment, and maintaining that alignment to be successful

■ Governance, monitoring and execution of significant business and operational model changes

■ Execution of programs designed to scale key digital business investments

■ Successful management of business transformation through a variety of initiatives, investmentsand programs


As enterprises continue their transformation to digital business, they must eventually standardize onSPM practices to do so. Adopting SPM technologies supporting governance, visibility, andstrategy-to-execution alignment will help these enterprises source and fund key initiatives, businessoutcomes, products and programs.

Business Impact: SPM technology has a variety of benefits for enterprises mature enough to adoptit. Strategy realization, strategic business planning, and proactive portfolio-level decision making arekey capabilities for any enterprise pursuing digital business. The power of SPM technology,combined with an enterprise with a culture conducive to digital business transformation and scaling,gives an enterprise the agility it needs at the business level to respond proactively to changingmarket conditions. SPM technology can provide the visibility, monitoring and control to ensure thatsignificant, and potentially risky, enterprise-level investments are managed properly. These factorsearn SPM a transformational benefit rating. Additionally, SPM technology is a critical component toadapting business strategy, planned investments, and enterprisewide execution when anunforeseen disruption occurs. As an example, SPM capabilities can be used to apply alternativefunding and governance models when an enterprise is in the midst of a disruption, to help theenterprise see its way through such challenges.



Maturity: Emerging

Sample Vendors: Broadcom; Cascade Strategy; Changepoint; Cora Systems; EOS Software;Planview; StrategyDotZero; UMT360

Recommended Reading: “Market Guide for Strategy Execution Management Software”

“Magic Quadrant for Integrated IT Portfolio Analysis Applications”

“Beware of One-Size-Fits-All PPM Software Systems”

PMO/PPM as a Service

Analysis By: Jim Longwood; Anthony Henderson

Definition: PMO/PPM as a service (PPMaaS) covers a portfolio of PPM consulting, implementationand operational project services contracted to external service providers for a fixed or variable andscalable program of work. “PPM” is an aggregate of all aspects of project, program and portfoliomanagement, including program and portfolio management office (PMO), enterprise PMO (EPMO)and major IT initiatives for program operation and governance. It excludes offerings purely focusedon staff augmentation or training services.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: While many PPM disciplines are well-established,early research referencing project management as a service is more recent, dating back to2013-2015. With digital transformation and continuous change, traditional command and control


project management practices are rapidly shifting to adaptive or product practices. This shift hasdriven increased interest in PPMaaS offerings. These offerings may provide a range of advantagesfor meeting one’s PPM requirements, including flexibility, cost control, skills and experience, andcapacity improvements. Offerings range for traditional time and materials, to project-based and toprepackaged PMO managed services using a scalable catalog of PPM-related services.

User Advice: Few organizations can retain enough full-time staff with the necessary skills andexperience to address all aspects of project, program and portfolio management, including theoperation of business-unit PMOs and enterprise PMOs. One way to address these capability gapsis to contract for PPMaaS, which is not an option of “all or nothing.” When using these services:

■ Define short- and long-term objectives, and conduct a needs assessment to determine whatlevel of services make sense.

■ Ensure that the PPMaaS offerings provide flexible and scalable access to talent when needed,with or without long-term commitment or extra permanent hires. Many providers offer it as anon-demand resource, or as an add-on to existing implementation services.

■ Ensure knowledge transfer provisions are included in the contract to reduce long-termdependency and development of the retained organization skills when services are complete.

■ Work collaboratively with sourcing leaders to leverage go-to-market best practices for theseservices.

For most organizations, major projects and programs cause spikes in demand for project or PMOresources. Using external services avoids the cost of permanent new hires who are superfluous inquieter times. Another important element of PPMaaS is the opportunity to reduce costs byemploying lower-cost nearshore or offshore staff or resources, particularly for back-office functions.Finally, organizations can minimize internal staff turnover and retention issues by using PPMaaS,providing more efficient demand and supply management of PPM resources.

Business Impact: The digital business has increased demand for both traditional control-basedPPM services and more dynamic (adaptive) project and program management services. UsingPPMaaS helps organizations access experienced project and program managers without goingthrough a long search process and an extensive training program. This also creates an opportunityto develop, mentor and grow internal skills and capabilities.

Using external PPMaaS-based resources allows quicker access to a scalable pool of skilledresources and/or a PMO function that can bring best-practice processes, toolsets and resources.This enables business units to fully focus on delivering the business outcomes of new businessinitiatives or digital transformation projects in a more timely fashion.

While leveraging PPMaaS can also drive efficiencies and reductions in costs, establishing internallyor externally sourced PPM activities introduces costs and risks of its own. Often, externally providedPPMaaS requires assistance from sourcing, procurement and vendor management (SPVM) leaders.As this is an emerging trend, SPVM groups are increasing their insight and experience in going tomarket, establishing and managing short- and long-term PPM contracts for these services.

Benefit Rating: High


Market Penetration: 5% to 20% of target audience

Maturity: Adolescent

Sample Vendors: Capgemini; Core Consulting Group; CUPE International; DXC Technology; Jumar;MI-GSO | PCUBED; PM Solutions; Prosource; TCS; Tech Mahindra Business Services

Recommended Reading: “How to Effectively Employ PPM and PMO as a Service”

“Identify a Clear Statement of Requirements When Sourcing Services for Emerging PPM andPPMaaS Offerings”

“Market Guide for Adaptive Project Management and Reporting”

“Market Guide for Providers of PPM as a Service”

“Align Projects, Products and Outcome Metrics to Business Goals”

At the Peak

Strategy Realization Office

Analysis By: Joanne Kopcho; Monika Sinha; Daniel Stang

Definition: The strategy realization office (SRO) is a highly mature enterprise function focused onenterprise strategy execution. It combines enterprise planning and portfolio management, changeenablement, communication and program support into a single, often matrixed, unit of functionsthat assist the organization in accomplishing initiatives that impact the enterprise.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Organizations that are focused on a singleoverarching strategic priority (such as digital transformation) tend to establish a transformationoffice first, which, if successful, often ends up transitioning or refocusing efforts into a strategyrealization office. Organizations that have a number of changing strategic priorities or a largenumber of diverse business units or divisions will find value in implementing an SRO function.

The high failure rate on realizing the outcomes of planned strategic initiatives (between 50% to70%) means that a renewed focus on successful strategy execution or realization becomesessential for such initiatives. Strategy realization in the digital business is all about delivering thecapability of creating “different and better” outcomes or value repeatedly. However, many leadersfind it hard to identify what activities actually contribute to successful strategy execution, slowinguptake. In today’s global environment, adoption grows slowly, thus the position is unmoved on theHype Cycle this year.

User Advice: Successful strategy execution requires mature practices such as collaborative andvalue centered business cases, meaningful portfolio analytics, and clear agreement on strategyexecution tactics. These techniques require a significant level of collaboration between various rolesin the organization. The SRO must work their way toward the full mandate of the SRO as the


organization gains experience in making better investment choices. This will help in balance thevariety of portfolios that exist across the enterprise (see “3 Steps to Managing Distributed Portfoliosin an Increasingly Digital World”).

The SRO is also responsible for change enablement, communication and programmatic oversight.Change enablement is designed to move beyond a philosophy of one-and-done changesimplemented as part of a project or program, to a more open-ended perspective on change as acontinuous process of refinement. This may include ongoing cultural change that is driven fromcontinuous delivery within the digital business.

In addition, continuous engagement, collaboration and communication about strategy is anotherkey SRO responsibility. The SRO disseminates strategic direction, and provides feedback theorganization (see “Harness the Strategy Realization Office to Fight Organizational Change Fatigue”).Also, the SRO ensures the organization’s focus on strategy and that decision making reducesdistraction of competing priorities that move away from strategic goals.

The final responsibility of the SRO is programmatic oversight, coaching and training programmanagers. Mature organizations utilize adaptive program management for strategy execution.Oversight is provided for cross-product or -portfolio dependencies to prevent the variousworkstreams (products, services, projects) across the enterprise from getting off track — or worse,ending up on a collision course.

Business Impact: Organizations evolving to enterprise digital business mindset of “continuousvalue,” or value optimized operating models, will find an SRO a very helpful construct. The SRO willbe able to pay for itself by reducing money spent on strategic initiatives that fail to yield value.




Sample Vendors: Cascade; Cora Systems; i-nexus; StrategyDotZero; UMT360

Recommended Reading: “Leveraging the Strategy Realization Office to Execute the DigitalStrategy”

“Market Guide for Strategy Execution Management Software”

“Four EPMO Styles Are Evolving From Visibility to Transformation”

“Scaling Digital Business Requires an Enterprise Operating Model Perspective”

Adaptive Portfolio Governance

Analysis By: Sarah Davies

Definition: Adaptive portfolio governance is the organizational capability that utilizes adaptivegovernance styles and mechanisms to support the variety of planning and prioritization activities


required to deliver business outcomes in any given context. Portfolio managers must understandthat different styles of governance help orchestrate the desired outcomes or performance withindifferent portfolio contexts.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Increasingly program and portfolio management(PPM) leaders are managing a changing variety of portfolio activities to deliver the right initiative, atthe right time, for the right outcomes or value. Portfolio management and governance have animportant role, as well-governed IT portfolios lead to superior organization performance, with anincreased return on assets (upward 30% see “6 Practices for Effective Portfolio Management”).Decisions made within the portfolio (“portfolio governance”) are becoming more frequent anddiverse as roles evolve with the maturity of digital and organizations manage increasing change anduncertainty. PPM leaders must understand how different governance styles will better facilitate andsupport integrated portfolio direction across diverse portfolio practices and contexts. Adaptiveportfolio governance has been accelerating in popularity as a result of the digital dexterity increaseand will reach plateau in 2-5 years as the need to adapt overcomes former objections.

User Advice: Many organizations start with a traditional one-size-fits-all or command-and-control-based IT governance capability. This control governance lacks the scope and agility to meet theneeds of digital business. Understanding differences within the traditional and adaptive governancestyles can also help in determining how your organization’s portfolios are governed today. Differentgovernance styles and mechanisms may require cascading decision rights and accountabilityacross the IT and business portfolio teams responsible for portfolio outcomes and value. Asorganizations mature and portfolios diversify, performance focus shifts toward securing outcomes orkey results when dynamic business processes and risk appetite changes. Scaling this disciplinemay take time within an organization.

You must establish continuous improvement activities at a variety of checkpoints across theportfolio practices. As the business introduces digital technologies, transitioning from project toproduct portfolios and automated data analytics, different perspectives will continue to provideopportunities for changing governance styles and mechanisms. Introduce adaptive governancestyles by analyzing existing portfolio governance capabilities to determine the best fit for theorganization. Planning improvements to governance will require determining the right level ofempowered adaptive portfolio governance roles.

Business Impact: The digital era has changed traditional governance practices in manycorporations and large institutions. While several customer facing aspects of organizations (retail,financial, technology, for example) have already transformed, introducing product portfolios toaddress constant change will make the value case easier to accept. Organizations still need tomature a variety of governance styles and mechanisms to balance across a variety of portfolios andgovernance styles. Due to their progressive nature, utilizing adaptive governance within portfolioscan be considered as building blocks. Each style allows for specialization and refinement, whilemoving up the complexity and maturity ladder. As different styles emerge, some organizations willstruggle to balance the adoption of changes needed to become adaptive with short-term primacy“shareholder value.”




Maturity: Early mainstream

Recommended Reading: “Use Adaptive Governance Styles for Portfolio Management”

“6 Practices for Effective Portfolio Management”

“Succeed With Digital Business Through Adaptive Governance”

“Drive Up PPM Value and Reduce Risk With Effective Gate Reviews”

“Use Our Decision Model to Optimize Risk, Value and Cost in Governing Portfolios”

“Adapting Governance to Your Innovation Journey”

Adaptive Project Management and Reporting


Definition: Adaptive project management (PM) and reporting is a process flow, a set of behaviors,and a set of technologies included in the PPM market. The adaptive PM and reporting PPMsubmarket emphasizes automation of detailed project and work execution activities of projectmanagers and contributors. Reporting services provide visual representations of status andprogress of projects or other work tracked in the adaptive PM and reporting system, using real-timeportfolio views and supporting dashboards.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Adaptive PM and reporting technologies enablecohesive process automation for project and work (demand) intake, basic prioritization, detailedsourcing and planning, detailed progress reporting, and full project inventory (portfolio) reporting,using a central technology or platform. These technologies are disrupting traditional enterprisesoftware approaches to formal project and work execution, by emphasizing intuitive userexperience, advanced collaboration, flexible project and work definition, and low- or no-codeintegration to other cloud applications and platforms. This makes adaptive project management andreporting technologies useful in many different project and work management scenarios and usecases.

Proliferation of adaptive PM and reporting tools through discretionary spend in differentdepartments in an enterprise has led to questions being asked about technology redundancy.Consolidation of this tool proliferation using application rationalization and standardization ofadaptive project management technologies is an emergent activity in today’s enterprises. There arealso many adaptive PM and reporting vendors relying heavily on private equity and venture capitalinvestments. These providers are being pressured to grow organic license revenue, and the vendorsunder this pressure are modifying their pricing models to capture that increased revenue. This isprompting existing customers that enjoyed low-cost-of-entry pricing of these technologies torethink their investments in tools from these providers. Market consolidation is likely in this portionof the PPM market and not all adaptive PM and reporting vendors will survive, but rather, will beacquired by larger enterprise software vendors or will reach a plateau in business growth.


User Advice: PPM and other business leaders responsible for organizing and automating adaptivePM and reporting should do the following:

■ Define their specific requirements for an adaptive PM and reporting technology, and include theopinions and feedback of the end users that will be expected to adopt and use the proposedtechnology solution on a daily basis.

■ Avoid redundant and unnecessary proliferation of adaptive project and work management toolsby evaluating any tools already being used in their enterprises against their specific toolrequirements.

■ Expand their lists of potential candidates for adaptive PM and reporting to include additionalproviders and products included in “Market Guide for Adaptive Project Management andReporting” that may fit their specific tool requirements.

■ Consider and account for the differences between selecting an independent, pure-play,adaptive PM and reporting technology, versus extending (through the addition of modules orsuites) existing investment in a technology platform to support their specific requirements (e.g.,pure-play versus single-source comparisons).

Business Impact: The high level of project and work management flexibility, an initial low cost ofentry to acquire and adopt, and an emphasis on ease of use make adaptive PM and reportingtechnology applicable in different parts of an enterprise. Significant use cases where adaptive PMand reporting technology is providing value include scenarios involving IT project and workmanagement, agile development and work management, marketing project and work management,product-development-based project and work management, outsourced IT services or systemintegration project and work management, and client-facing professional services project and workmanagement. This versatility positions adaptive PM and reporting technology for success in anenterprise, which is why it has a high benefit rating. Increasing price points from some providers,however, may prompt questions as to whether or not the increasing costs outweigh the benefitsrealized in adopting such technology.




Sample Vendors: Asana; Atlassian; Clarizen; monday.com; Planview; ServiceNow; Workfront; Wrike

Recommended Reading: “Market Guide for Adaptive Project Management and Reporting”

“Beware of One-Size-Fits-All PPM Software Systems”

“How to Select PPM Technologies Suiting Digital Business in a Confusing Market With PorousBoundaries”

“Avoid These Major Pitfalls When Implementing a PPM Solution to Support Continuous Delivery”


Project Collaboration and Management


Definition: Project collaboration and management (PCM) technologies provide an interchangeableonline workspace. They enable users to access project or product data in dashboards, Kanban/taskboards, calendars, and other integrated technologies. Often used by temporary teams with nostandard project/or work management tool, PCM technologies are alternatives to adopting acollaboration hub. They can typically feature: document sharing and annotation, basic reporting,resource and task tracking, audit trails, unified communications, and change notifications.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The continuation of dynamic use cases in whichmultiple teams temporarily work together has helped PCM technologies sustain traction in themarket. They are still two to five years away from plateau, even with the recent surge of online PCMtechnology use driven by the rapid uptake of remote team working in 2020. They extend fromgeneric collaboration into the more focused domains of projects and products. Research about useof contemporary technology in structured change execution has produced specific feature sets forsuch work. Users often include IT and business users alike. Continued adoption is driving furtherproduct development, despite difficulties displacing traditional project and portfolio management(PPM) tools. PCM technologies increasingly push PPM vendors to either acquire or build out thecapabilities PCM can provide. The emergence and existence of PCM technologies can threaten toupset the status quo in PPM markets, through rapid adaption and integration with existing products,and PCM technology innovation is constantly uncovering new needs for innovative capabilities.PCM technologies support teams working together, with contributors often drawn from multipledepartments or even different enterprises engaged in temporary endeavors.

User Advice: Explore PCM technologies particularly if you have to make use of distributed teamsacross enterprises, departments or locations. Those encountering fragmented collaborationenvironments that introduce delays and confusion into their project or product-based work canespecially benefit. Among advanced features to look for is the ability to merge personal activitieswith team-based project work.

Business Impact: PCM technologies particularly pertain to situations in which projects or productsinvolve multiple members of a “virtual enterprise” working on a common endeavor, such as anevent, a proof of concept or minimum viable product. They help virtual teams come together,including some software and IT scenarios (perhaps involving collaboration with outsourcedcontractors).




Sample Vendors: Asana; monday.com; Planzone; Podio; ProjectManager.com; Projectplace;Smartsheet; Teamwork; Wrike


Recommended Reading: “How to Select Collaboration Technology Using Gartner’s ACMEFramework”


“How PPM Leaders Can Harness Digital Workplace Capabilities to Improve Key Project Processes”

“Critical Capabilities for Project and Portfolio Management, Worldwide”

“Avoid These Major Pitfalls When Implementing a PPM Solution to Support Continuous Delivery”

Business Agile

Analysis By: Lorri Callahan

Definition: Business agile is a discipline that will help shorten the time it takes to accomplishstrategic goals. This discipline focuses on improved investment decision making, iterative andadaptive practices, frequent customer interactions and increased team effectiveness. With moretechnology decisions driven outside of IT to enable digital business transformation, it is necessaryfor organizations to become more agile in how they approach all types of work.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: The word “agility” in the context of business agileimplies both speed and adaptability. Any organization can move quickly — being adaptive andinnovative is more elusive and implies balance, a lack of wasted motion, clarity and focusedcommitment to the desired outcome. Business agile takes discipline, and discipline requires acombination of knowledge and practice. It is focused on realizing business value in the shortesttime possible in order to deliver to the expectations of the customer and the market on a real-timebasis.

The position of business agile has moved forward on the Hype Cycle as interest in adoptingenterprise agile frameworks has increased, fostering improved collaboration between IT and thebusiness. We expect this trend to continue as organizations are accelerating their digital businesstransformations in response to the impacts of the pandemic and the advancement of agile projectmanagement.

User Advice: Business agile is an approach to achieving customer-centered collaborative resultsunder conditions of uncertainty, and is not limited to IT and software development. Leveragespecific techniques such as an agile mindset to help support the adoption of business agile (see“The 6-Principle Framework for Mastering a Business-Agile Mindset”). An agile mindset changesthe culture for how decisions are made, how teams collaborate and how work gets done, to ensurerealization of continuous customer value. This approach can be applied to the way project andproduct teams work together to deliver results.

Begin by providing general overviews to help orient everyone to the concepts and practices neededto adopt business agile and an agile mindset. Next, identify a pilot team of dedicated resources toaddress a specific scope of work, with limited amount of interdependencies, to reduce complexityand allow the team to focus on practice adoption. The pilot team will commit to the shortest


possible deadline required to achieve a viable outcome, without burning out people and withoutdisrupting day-to-day operations. Be sure to publicize the progress of the pilot team and the shift intheir behaviors as they implement agile practices and create opportunities for others to learn aboutthe pilot through demos and pilot team metrics.

PPM leaders need to update the PMO’s charter to offer agile services including a roadmap foradopting business agile, facilitation of training sessions about agile methods, and enablement ofagile practice adoption across the business.

Business Impact: PPM leaders can support the adoption of a business agile because of theirvisibility into planned work and its alignment to strategic imperatives. When adopted and rigorouslyapplied, the mindset can enable the enterprise to move faster and to be more focused on ensuringoutcomes that deliver customer value. This means further integration of business and IT teams,moving from a “me” to “we” culture. Adoption will enable new ways of doing business by boostingperformance through group accountability for business results.

The greatest impediment to the adoption of business agile is breaking the bad habit of starting toomany ill-defined projects simultaneously. Instituting prioritization and starting the right projects, atthe right time, with the right skill set will always yield higher results. PPM leaders can deliver greatervalue by shifting into “enabler” roles such as a promoter that advocates for and supports enterprisechange.




Recommended Reading: “The 6-Principle Framework for Mastering a Business-Agile Mindset”

“Digital Business Transformation in Established Organizations: Ride the Third Wave of EnterpriseAgility”

“PMOs Can Deliver Faster Results With Business Engagement in Agile”

“Predicts 2020: Evolving PPM for Digital Business at Scale”

“Evolving for Digital Business: 6 Key Roles for Today’s PMO”

Digital Transformation Office


Definition: A digital transformation office (DTO) exists to oversee the execution of a top-down“transformation initiative,” focused on adapting the enterprise for digital business. These offices aresimilar to enterprise program offices because the breadth of their mandate typically involves a largeportion of the operating model. These offices may be managed outside of existing domain or as partof the enterprise PMO structure.


Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Although organizations may have multiple constructsin place to address initiatives, the DTO is an increasingly visible, overarching structure establishedto manage a major transformation. It provides a comprehensive solution for aligning an enterpriseand driving the execution of the transformation. Organizations that create a formal DTO as adedicated function are usually more successful at holistically addressing the required enterprisechange. They benefit from ensuring the approval and execution of projects are not done on a one-off basis but rather as a cohesive approach.

User Advice: With the global push to drive innovation and competitiveness through digitaltransformation, the creation of a DTO has been improving transformation success rates. Begin bydeveloping a program office structure that supports effective leadership for executing programdelivery across the enterprise. Next, complete the following steps:

■ Set up portfolio functions to plan and validate the transformation vision and success criteria.

■ Establish governance facilitation that can prioritize work and mitigate impacts betweentransformation and nontransformation portfolios.

■ Create transparency as to the progress of the transformation and outcomes through reportingand extensive communication vehicles.

■ Manage the oversight of ongoing culture shift using organizational change managementpractices and personnel.

Business Impact: Digital business transformation crosses many organizational boundaries. Assuch, having a central coordinating function has proven to be a strategic approach to addingdiscipline and structure to transformation efforts. Organizations that do not leverage a DTO fail toachieve the benefits and desired outcomes they seek in their enterprise transformation initiatives.Once the transformation is complete, a successful DTO can become the basis for a strategyrealization office to sustain the rapid and complex change required by the digital businesslandscape.




Recommended Reading: “Four EPMO Styles Are Evolving From Visibility to Transformation”

“Market Guide for Strategy Execution Management Software”

“Leveraging the Strategy Realization Office to Execute the Digital Strategy”

“How CIOs Can Promote a Consistent Understanding of Digital Business Transformation”

“Leverage Business Models to Guide Digital Business Transformation”

“A Program Office Is Crucial for Digital Transformation Program Success”


Product-Centric Delivery Model

Analysis By: Matthew Hotle

Definition: Digital business requires a fundamental shift to a product-centric delivery model forapplication organizations, which involves a shift from project and application to backlog, productand platform. This shift allows the organization to respond more rapidly to demands using agilemethods, combined with a continuously prioritized backlog. It also allows the organization to focuson delivering the most important and customer-satisfying features first, rather than waiting for long-lasting projects to complete.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Most organizations have begun using agile deliverymethods in segments of their business during the past five to 10 years. Since agile methods are aproduct-oriented delivery method, along with this change has come a (sometimes informal) shift tomanaging applications as “products.” During the past four years, the number of organizationsemploying this strategy has increased significantly. In most organizations, the shift is organic, andmay take longer than the stated two to five years from its inception.

User Advice: If your organization is headed down the digital path, you’ll need to adopt agilemethods and DevOps. If your organization adopts agile methods (for digital or other reasons), itmust also adopt a product delivery paradigm where agile is being used. It is critical to make the shiftformally, since mixing and matching project-based and product-based strategies on the samebusiness change is often worse than simply staying with a project-based (incremental or iterative)strategy. Organizations making the shift should clearly identify and train product managers, productowners, business leaders and team members on agile and product management strategy. Theyshould use an agile coach to aid in their transformation. They should also use formal change-management practices as they do so, since the project model has a lot of organizational inertia thatmust be overcome. Moreover, they must have a partnership with their colleagues in the variousbusiness areas as they adopt this new delivery model.

This means that, for most organizations, a top-down, organizationwide shift to agile will not bepossible, and the transition will take many years. Business leaders have “grown up” in the project-based delivery world, and financial managers are used to project-based value and funding models.For most organizations, the transition will be organic — based on the business need for agility in theshort term and on the success of agile methods in the midterm (where business leaders see thevalue in adopting agile and products). It can take more than five years once the transition is begun,so the organization will be “hybrid” between projects and products during that time.

Business Impact: Digital business efforts such as websites, mobile applications and APIs are oftenearly targets for a shift to product-based delivery models. Next comes software that automatesbusiness capabilities where the pace of change must be high. These efforts mandate a much moreagile approach to delivering software than can be achieved by a project-based model, where the“chunk” of delivery (the project) must often be defined a year or more in advance. Done correctly,product delivery focuses the entire business on strategy and business outcomes, and enables it tobe more agile in driving toward those outcomes. Moving toward a product-centric delivery modelalso moves the organization closer to getting everyone who should be in the value stream on thevalue stream. It also limits the “us” and “them” approach that has dominated the IT landscape for


years. It also requires a much tighter connection across the organization, in terms of planning andexecution.




Recommended Reading: “Becoming Product-Centric Should Be an Evolution, Not a Top-DownTransformation”

“Overcome Objections and Sell the Benefits of Moving From Projects to Products and Agile”

“Move Away From Waterfall to Agile and Product-Centric Delivery Methods”

“Leveraging Digital Product Management: A Gartner Trend Insight Report”

“Product Manager Role Description for Digital Business”

Adaptive Program Management

Analysis By: Anthony Henderson; Joanne Kopcho

Definition: Adaptive program management is an approach that helps organizations accomplishlarge efforts or amounts of work in a comparatively short time frame. It is a natural fit for anyorganization, using multiple methods (agile, lean startup, waterfall).

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Continuous change is the norm in today’s dynamicand uncertain business environment. According to recent Gartner surveys, the adoption ofenterprise agile frameworks is increasing, and product-centric delivery is maturing. Programmanagement practices are a crucial construct of each of these approaches that require thecoordination and collaboration between IT and business constituents. Adaptive programmanagement requires balancing program objectives across initiatives, periodic reviews, planningflexibility and integration of minimally viable outcomes to ensure success.

We anticipate the increased adoption of adaptive program management as organizations realize theexecution of these large, strategic initiatives is key for driving continuous delivery and results. Thechallenge lies in the IT and business capability to coalesce around an initiative that is vaguelydefined initially while engaging though cycles to refine as they progress in delivery.

User Advice: The key characteristics of the adaptive approach to program management includeboth a learning approach and an experience-driven approach, in which planning is incremental, andthe direction will evolve through discovery.

The adaptive program life cycle enables organizations to execute the large, complex work ofprograms in highly uncertain environments. The life cycle consists of six phases: envision, order,create/build, engrain change, evaluate results, and learn.


Within the envision phase, the “vision” or goal for the end state is defined along with an assessmentof the gap between the current and target states. The level of precision achievable during theenvision step is somewhat limited, because details related to how the program will proceed andwith whom are yet to be defined.

Once the second phase, order, is complete, there are potentially multiple subiterations of the create/build and engrain change steps, followed by a step to evaluate whether the results are appropriatelysupporting the original vision. Success deployment of the adaptive approach requires:

■ Commitment and engagement of the right business and IT leaders and a strong program team.Capabilities need to be developed in all functions for success.

■ Establishment of a program office to help facilitate collaboration and consistency across keyfunctions such as solution architecture, business change, deployment planning and riskmanagement.

■ Implementation of stage gating and/or step funding (periodic checkpoints on program progressfrom an independent perspective), so that expectations can be managed appropriately.

Business Impact: Many large programs continue to underperform and the need to deliver resultsfaster during uncertainty is key for strategic success. Organizations don’t have the time or themoney to delay the implementation of benefits in order to deliver programs in a slower and morecostly fashion.

Classically, organizations have automatically associated the concept of a program with high-control,high-governance approaches. Adaptive program management enables organizations to executelarge efforts in uncertain environments faster while balancing control and risk.

Adaptive program management demands competent teams, rapid decision making, and diligentand continuous risk management. Also, it requires collaboration across product and projectconcepts, that are maturing, in many organizations to address dependencies. While difficult toenforce as a process with vendor-led teams, it does best in circumstances where at least a part ofthe program staff is employee-based.




Recommended Reading: “Embrace an Adaptive Program Management Life Cycle”

“A Program Office Is Crucial for Digital Transformation Program Success”

“Optimize Outcomes With Program Management Across Product Lines”


Sliding Into the Trough

Agile Project Management

Analysis By: Robert Handler

Definition: Agile project management is a style of project management designed for continuousconnected activities in environments with higher degrees of uncertainty and change. Conventionalproject management uses on-time and on-budget delivery against an initial plan as a primarydeterminant of success. Agile project management focuses on constant incremental value deliverythrough dedicated teams, embracing success metrics provided via customer feedback.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Agile software development is now mainstream. Inour 2019 Agile in the Enterprise Survey, conducted online in June 2019 with 130 participants, 63%used or planned to use agile on the business side. Agile concepts are also gaining acceptanceoutside of software development, and as valid and useful constructs within project managementoffices (PMOs). Agile projects generally deliver faster business outcomes and foster betterpartnerships between teams and stakeholders. The pandemic forced many business leaders topivot, leading many to believe they are suddenly agile. We believe the residual effects from thisglobal incident will accelerate agile project management into the Plateau of Productivity within fiveyears.

User Advice: Organizations must adopt an approach to project management that enables agility.Agile project management, if applied appropriately, provides an effective approach to addresschanging requirements and environmental uncertainty.

Organizations must gauge their current rate of change and need for speed, and develop a plan toevolve agile project management beyond software delivery projects. Agile project management isnot the singular approach for managing all projects — just those with requirements changingthroughout the project life cycle.

When incorporating agile project management, adjust processes and evolve ways of getting workdone. For example, epics and user stories will likely replace lengthy requirements documents. Also,work will be prioritized based on value and size as opposed to following a rigid plan. However, whencertain activities must occur in a certain order, this must be provided through constructs such asminimum viable product (MVP) and roadmaps.

When incorporating agile project management, evolve agile project dashboard metrics to focus on“business outcomes” and customer satisfaction instead of on-time/on-budget.

Business Impact: Today, organizations must rapidly and effectively respond to change because ofthe increased complexity and quicker pace of change inherent in a more connected world. Agileproject management is relevant to virtually all organizations and most areas within theseorganizations. Agile project management is required to enable effective innovation and businesstransformation to allow both to be change aware. To succeed, organizations must dedicateresources, closely engage with customers, and act on customer feedback.





Sample Vendors: Atlassian; Broadcom (CA Technologies); CollabNet VersionOne

Recommended Reading: “Adopting Agile? Do What Successful Agile Teams Do”


“The 6-Principle Framework for Mastering a Business-Agile Mindset”

EPMO


Definition: The enterprise program and portfolio management office (EPMO) acts as a conduitacross all organization functions to ensure that the enterprise can optimize. The EPMO operates ata strategic level with executives to ensure alignment between business objectives and their deliveryframeworks. Executives utilize an EPMO to better orchestrate diverse planning and deliveryfunctions within the organization. EPMOs are rated “far ahead” of PMOs for: developing innovativeproduct or service and translating needs into high-value products or services.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Adoption of EPMOs has continued to grow, year overyear, as organizations realize the value in coordinated management of enterprise projects,programs, and portfolios to deliver outcomes. As the digital business creates a shift from project- toproduct-centric delivery, Gartner is witnessing more organizations across industries developingEPMO functions. Within the product-centric organization, the EPMO provides a function that canfurther optimize across the variety of products and platforms to assure enterprise outcomes andsuccess. Adoption and maturity of the four different styles of EPMO that Gartner recognizes vary,but all will plateau within 10 years.

User Advice: As digital business grows, strategy execution and value delivery are key factors in thesuccess of different styles of EPMO. Gartner has identified four different EPMO styles that haveproven successful and evolved over time: the reporting EPMO, enterprise portfolio offices,enterprise project capability centers, and business transformation offices (see “Four EPMO StylesAre Evolving From Visibility to Transformation”).

When EPMOs have any responsibility for execution and program and project delivery, then, it is forthe large or strategic initiatives. Consequently, EPMOs must use influence rather than authority toensure successful program and product delivery to strategic outcomes (see “EPMO PractitionerNetwork: Expanding the EPMO’s Influence”). EPMOs must shift their emphasis for the digital era by:

■ Enabling alignment between evolving strategy and performance.

■ Positioning themselves as adaptable enablers of change.


■ Learning to adopt an agile mindset.

■ Moving away from a risk-averse administrative posture toward one of enterprise digitalleadership.

■ Reevaluating and readjusting their staff competencies, disciplines, metrics and tools to enableenterprise transformation.

Business Impact: Regardless of what type of EPMO your organization initiates, the EPMO musthave clear purpose that can positively impact the fast-changing pace of continuous delivery in thedigital business. Where successful, the executive leaders who sponsor EPMO activities do so toultimately gain visibility and transparency into success with the organization’s overall strategy andgoals. Based on a recent survey, key activities for EPMOs have been aligned with YOY revenuegrowth, innovative product or service development, and translating customer or business needs intohigh-value products services, and attracting talent. In addition EPMOs continue to excel inexecuting large, strategic initiatives, facilitating operating model shifts and management of benefitsrealization (value or outcome).




Recommended Reading: “Four EPMO Styles Are Evolving From Visibility to Transformation”

“EPMO Practitioner Network: Expanding the EPMO’s Influence”

“EPMO and Program Management Playbook”

“PMO Evolution for Digital Primer for 2020”

“How PPM Leaders Can Help Resource Management in Product Teams”

Enterprise Agile Frameworks

Analysis By: Mike West

Definition: Enterprise agile frameworks are a collection of one or more methodologies andassociated principles, such as lean and systems thinking, structured in such a way as to enable thedelivery of large, complex agile programs. They may be top-down, bottom-up or a combination ofboth approaches, and they are increasingly implemented by agile organizations that are scaling upto address enterprise initiatives. Some feature program- and portfolio-level coordination to enablecomplex software or cyber-physical product releases.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Several enterprise agile frameworks have beenaround for years — Disciplined Agile (DA) Large-Scale Scrum (commonly, LeSS and LeSS Huge),Nexus, Spotify model and Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe). By no means, however, all are


development organizations agile. A significant number (laggards) are still developing skilled productteams, piloting agile or considering how adopting it may benefit them, but the majority are usingthese frameworks. Nevertheless, there are varying degrees of success, hence our currentpositioning of enterprise agile frameworks pre-trough 35% on the Hype Cycle.

User Advice: CIOs and their application leaders should investigate frameworks such as DA, LeSS,Nexus, Spotify model and SAFe for their organizations if planning to scale agile. Be aware that youcan use frameworks partially, applying key best practices, and still get some success. Considercarefully the cultural fit, especially when still developing your organization’s agile culture.

Ideally, focus on a single value stream at first, map the value stream and identify the opportunitiesfor accelerated delivery. Match the opportunities to the frameworks to find the best fit.

Potential users should be clear that they are buying into proprietary intellectual property; the majorframeworks are not open standards or consortium-controlled — they are products. The alternativeis a customized Scrum of Scrums process that some organizations have used successfully. Thosewho choose this path should be prepared to maintain the framework and provide training for the lifeof the framework.

Business Impact: Introducing agile methods into a mature IT organization is, by itself, a significantcultural change for every function in IT and for all the business managers who engage with IT. Whenexecuted well, the use of an enterprise agile framework has the capability to transform IT-businessrelationships. It can have a major positive impact on IT value delivery by eliminating unnecessarytime and effort expenditure and by imposing predictable release cadences for delivering complexsolutions.

An organization’s long-term success in using any enterprise agile framework will depend on itsfitness for purpose and its adaptability to changing business circumstances, rather than its presentpopularity in the market.


Market Penetration: More than 50% of target audience


Sample Vendors: Disciplined Agile Consortium; scrum.org; Scaled Agile; The LeSS Company

Recommended Reading: “Survey Analysis: Enterprise Agile Frameworks Maximize Potential forAchieving Agility at Scale”

“Market Guide for Enterprise Agile Frameworks”

“Implementing Enterprise Agile Using the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)”

“Use Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) to Increase Agility”

“Learn from the Spotify Model for Better Enterprise Agile Scaling”


“Implement the ‘Spotify Model’ as a Full Operating Model and Cultural Transformation — or RiskCareer Failure”

Enterprise-Class Agile Development

Analysis By: Mike West

Definition: Enterprise-class agile development (EAD) is the use of business-outcome-driven,customer-centric, collaborative and cooperative practices with continual stakeholder feedback.Feedback is done in dynamic and changing heterogeneous environments throughout the softwarelife cycle, to support continuous delivery of enterprise-class adaptive products and services.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: EAD adoption has traditionally been driven bottom-up, and as a natural evolution of team-level agile development. However, top-down strategicadoption has now become the norm, driven by business demands for faster time to market,especially for complex products, and the need for greater business agility. Top-down adoption hasbeen accelerated by the growing awareness of frameworks such as Disciplined Agile (DA), ScaledAgile Framework (SAFe) and Large-Scale Scrum (LeSS).

User Advice: Organizations must adopt a clear strategy for targeted use and support, with policiesindicating where agile practices should be used freely and where they should be used with cautionor avoided. Define agile roles and touchpoints with key stakeholders.

Use goals and key result metrics to align agile product and service delivery to business outcomes.Create key performance indicators (KPIs) that include technical attributes (e.g., defect density,technical debt, refactoring rate and defect escape rate) and product delivery attributes (backlogvalue, cycle and lead time, responsiveness and flexibility). Utilize KPIs to track improvement inbusiness outcomes and make the KPI dashboards available to all stakeholders.

Consider enterprise-scale agile approaches, such as SAFe and DA, but do not assume that theseframeworks will lead to the changes you want without the required cultural change. We have rarelyseen the “big bang” agile transformation approach work, as it often leads to temporary gains andthen a slow return to the old practices and culture. Instead, take a more organic approach byconsolidating and building on team success and the gradual changes in organizational culture andindividual behavior.

Recognize that suppliers of tools for enterprise agile planning as well as project and portfoliomanagement are moving aggressively to provide EAD support, thus bridging the gap between agileand nonagile. Most clients are still predominantly best-of-breed users, reflecting the fragmented toolstrategies of many end-user organizations prior to adopting EAD.

Business Impact: EAD is about business benefits and business outcomes; it is not just atechnology and IT endeavor. The business must be clear about the commitment required to makeEAD successful. Hence, EAD benefits can only truly be realized if lines of business and productowners structure their business cases and roadmaps with agile delivery in mind. This includesfunding and benefits realization, and agile PMO governance processes. EAD is now significantlyimpacting middle management as organizations adopt operating models with a flatter management


structure and with greater team autonomy. Business domains with a degree of uncertainty, or wherethe level and pace of business change are issues, will be a good fit for EAD. Also, programs thatrequire a more proactive approach to fiscal governance can benefit from EAD.



Maturity: Mature mainstream

Sample Vendors: Agile Alliance; Disciplined Agile; Scaled Agile; Scrum Alliance; The LeSSCompany

Recommended Reading: “Market Guide for Enterprise Agile Frameworks”

“Best Practices for Adopting an Enterprise Agile Framework”

“A Technical Professional’s Guide to Successful Adoption of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)”

“Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools”

“Critical Capabilities for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools”

PPM for New Product Development


Definition: Project and portfolio management (PPM) for new product development (NPD)technology supports an enterprise’s product development groups, research and developmentorganizations, or advanced software application and development organizations. PPM for NPDautomates the PPM processes required when conceptualizing, prototyping, launching andimproving new products and services for specific target markets.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: PPM for NPD has strong traction in the market and itstime to plateau on the Hype Cycle will be faster than similarly positioned profiles on account ofconsumer expectations for fast improvements to the products they buy and use, and talentedproduct developers engaged in continuous delivery and leveraging IoT. These factors drive the needfor advanced and proactive product innovation, which can never be “fast enough” or “agile enough”to meet market demands and answer market needs ahead of the competition. The need forcontinuous delivery is spurring more product companies and their product innovation anddevelopment teams to accelerate their abilities to strategize, prioritize, select, source and executeprojects to deliver products to market faster and more aggressively.

Further, the ever-expanding datasets available to providers present an opportunity to continuouslyimprove and enhance products delivered to market, even when the products are already in thehands of customers. Such data includes streamlined customer feedback and review mechanisms(e.g., voice of the customer), market listening and analysis, and data from sensors and applicationsembedded in products. Existing product life cycle management (PLM) systems alone cannot handle


the decision making and supply and demand balancing required to address the NPD challengesposed by continuous change. PPM technology for NPD supports robust product strategy,innovation management, ideation and proposal management, roadmapping, as well as projecttracking and execution.

User Advice: Product companies and product development organizations should evaluate theirneed for NPD PPM technology based on how well their technologies support continuous changeand rapid market responses to emergent customer requests for product innovations andenhancements. Companies interested in applying portfolio-level visibility, resource capacityplanning, and elements of governance and oversight to their product and service plans andlaunches, should evaluate providers and products in the segment of the PPM market focused onNPD. They should also evaluate their current inventory of PPM software assets used for developing,launching, and managing products and services as a first step toward improving the time to marketand quality of their products and services.

Business Impact: PPM for NPD technology can be applied in any work environment where theresources within that environment are managing projects and programs to create or improve aproduct consumed by external customers in a specific consumer or commercial market. NPD PPMtechnology can also support cost optimization in relation to the modeling of future performance of aproduct. Applying cost measures to product performance can help PPM leaders estimate thegreatest potential ROI of a product or product line in its life cycle. Examples of products includetangibles like a new type of automotive equipment or a new line of soft drinks, or (somewhat)intangibles, such as software code, software applications, mobile and other web applications, or aninsurance policy or loan agreement with a bank. In any of these cases, NPD PPM systems are usedto manage the projects and work involved in product development, improvement and maintenanceover its life cycle. These tools are not designed to support PLM, because that is a different set ofprocess areas distinct from PPM. PPM for NPD technology provides the portfolio, demand, project,time and resource management capabilities that product organizations require to make quickdecisions about resource spend and to deliver their new products on time, on budget and ahead ofthe competition.




Sample Vendors: GenSight; Microsoft; One2Team; PDWare; Planisware; Planview; Sciforma;Sopheon; UMT360

Recommended Reading: “Magic Quadrant for Project and Portfolio Management”

“The Hierarchy of New Product Introduction Metrics: Align Metrics to Improve New ProductIntroduction Results”

“S&OP Process: Product Portfolio Planning”


“Product Development Primer for 2020”

Kanban for PPM


Definition: Kanban for PPM is a work-in-progress management methodology. Its core purpose is tominimize activities without sacrificing productivity. It does this by using a Kanban (Japanese wordfor “placard”) to visually represent a work package in the program or project. PPM leaders canmonitor workflow, priorities and manage constraints via a visualization of all the work and resourcesin one place — a Kanban board. Without this visibility, duplicative efforts and interdependenciesmay be overlooked and often cause delays.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Lean techniques have gained steady popularity sincethe adoption of agile practices, such as Scrum, XP, Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), and Kanbanmethods. Kanban for PPM is still emerging as a method for PPM leaders to coordinate bothbusiness and IT initiatives across programs or product lines. It helps to ensure initiatives are clearand ordered correctly based upon the actual ability of the teams to deliver the work. Kanban forPPM, when used across an entire organization, promotes incremental improvement from anorganization’s current state without any immediate disruptive need for new roles, events or artifacts.Kanban adoption continues to increase as part of enterprise agile framework adoption, but manyimplementations remain ineffective due to incomplete method adoption. Many vendors haveincorporated Kanban visualization and principles in their PPM tools (see “Market Guide for AdaptiveProject Management and Reporting”). As Kanban for PPM moves closer to the Trough ofDisillusionment, organizations must not assume that Kanban will solve all challenges with gettingwork done. Stakeholder management, effective communications and proactive risk mitigation mustnot be overlooked. When issues arise with Kanban-driven work, leverage conventional ways tocomplement visual management.

User Advice: Kanban is an effective technique for visualizing team workloads and release planning,and it can also be used to visualize the status of multiple workstreams within a portfolio, program,project or product. It is becoming even more critical to complex digital business programs,especially those involving multimethodologies and cross-product teams. The real value of Kanbanfor a program is that it is easy for all team members to understand as they pull tasks from theworkflow entry point and move them across (left to right) until they are complete. Team ownership ofboards and processes is critical for empowering teams. Kanban is also useful as a visualization toolthat facilitates group planning and better communication, and it should definitely be a tool in anyprogram manager’s toolkit.

PPM leaders can leverage Kanban by aligning programs of work into vertical categories thatcorrespond to life cycle phases. This concept is the same as how teams align work into thecommon buckets of “to do,” “in progress,” and “done.” The end result is a visual representation ofwhere programs of work fall across demand intake, analysis, execution backlogs, and ultimatelycompleted phases. Use the visual to drive stakeholder discussions to clearly identify collaborationpoints needed to deliver the work.


Business Impact: Kanban used at the project or team level provides visibility into each work itemthat represents a task to be performed. A board has also proven very effective in providing a limit onwork in progress — an outcome we appreciate. One of the most common management questionsof the agile project approach is centered on a fixed understanding of when work will be finished.Kanban creates a visual flow of work, therefore, providing valuable insight about the progression ofwork at the program, project and product level. At the portfolio level, Kanban can be effective invisualizing dependencies across expected business outcomes and capabilities. However, Kanbandoes not replace portfolio prioritization practices, which must remain to make investment andresource allocation decisions and trade-offs.

The visual display of work through the life cycle phases supports effective management of the flowof work. Stakeholder discussions have increased clarity around sequencing, interdependencies, andrisks because of the common understanding created by the Kanban board.




Recommended Reading: “Guidance Framework for Adopting Kanban”

“How PPM Leaders Can Leverage Lean Principles”

“Adopting Agile? Do What Successful Agile Teams Do”

“Why Traditional Application Development and Maintenance Teams Should Adopt Kanban”

“A Technical Professional’s Guide to Successful Adoption of the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)”

“Evolving for Digital Business: 6 Key Roles for Today’s PMO”


Application Portfolio Management

Analysis By: Stefan Van Der Zijden

Definition: Application portfolio management (APM) is the foundation of an application strategy.APM profiles an organization’s business applications and products — evaluating business andtechnical fitness together with cost — to identify and prioritize activities for improvement. APMinforms application portfolio rationalization and modernization by categorizing applications intotolerate, invest, migrate or eliminate strategies.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Adoption benefits are realized when the analytics leadto agreement with business, financial and IT stakeholders on application strategies and roadmapsthat optimize capabilities for the resources available. The key drivers for beginning APM are to


eliminate portfolio bloat, to reduce complexity, overlap and redundancy, and to establish betterefficiency in the delivery of IT-enabled business services.

APM and application strategy processes show value when their assessments lead to the moreconscious management of application assets and investments. Companies are slow to adopt APMbecause of three reasons: (1) the value of APM is not well-understood and is often seen as abookkeeping exercise, (2) APM loses out when competing with other initiatives, and (3) getting thebusiness to support the change in applications is difficult. They generally don’t get the opportunityto start unless a major business transformation initiative is forcing a reevaluation of the entireportfolio. Some companies will simplify the process by managing at a business service level, whileothers will try to get by with short-term management that is focused on service delivery. Neitherapproach will help to cull applications or services as they come to the end of their useful life.

User Advice: Companies should turn to APM for one of three reasons:

■ Peak performers should undertake APM to fuel continuous improvement of the applicationportfolio and to identify ways of increasing their operational advantages.

■ Lagging organizations should undertake APM to help allocate limited resources to the mostcritical gaps, to drive adoption of better practices across lines of business and to move towardmore efficient support of business services.

■ For other organizations, adoption is triggered by a tipping point — a significant event thathighlights portfolio inefficiencies/issues and triggers an APM initiative.

Organizations with increasingly complex IT needs, dealing with IT modernization or, more broadly,with the evolution of business processes and technology portfolios, benefit from the adoption ofAPM.

Business Impact: Business perceptions of IT are often hurt by spiraling maintenance costs andpoor responsiveness due to legacy systems with high levels of technical debt. Effective APM willmanifest in the form of a smaller and simpler portfolio, well-managed portfolio risk, redirectedinvestment yielding lower and more predictable recurring costs, and a higher percentage of the ITbudget being directed toward growth or transformative initiatives. Despite the difficulty ofcoordinating business process change with IT redeployment, companies will eventually be forced toacknowledge and emulate peers that successfully adopt cultures of continuing application overhaul.




Recommended Reading: “Managing a Portfolio of Applications Demands More Than ApplicationPortfolio Management”

“How to Assess Your Application and Product Portfolio for Business and Technical Fitness”

“Use TIME to Engage the Business for Application and Product Portfolio Triage”


“How to Prioritize Application Inventory and Rationalization”

“Engage the Business by Developing an Application Strategy Together”

Resource Management

Analysis By: Robert Handler

Definition: Resource management is focused effort to optimize the use of available humanresources to achieve business objectives. Resource management leverages an evolving body ofknowledge that includes both proven and emerging techniques. While PPM often focuses oncapacity planning, techniques that improve individual productivity and team performance are withinthe scope of resource management.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Resource management remains in the Slope ofEnlightenment. Until the impact of the pandemic, we continued to see organizations embracededicated product teams. We viewed this as a sign of mainstream thoughtful allocation ofresources, as cohesive teams. With the pandemic, and its economic impact, we remain concernedthat organizations will revert to old ways of time-slicing people as they manage costs and pivot.

User Advice: We recommend the following:

■ Forecast resource capacity at the portfolio level cyclically. Put accuracy over precision whenforecasting capacity. Use this forecast to realistically manage and constrain demand.

■ Switch from focusing on keeping people busy to using people effectively to generate the mostsuccessful business outcomes possible. Leverage the power of teams. Assign responsibility foroutcomes to teams, give teams reasonable targets and empower them to succeed.

■ Pay careful attention to bottleneck resources, as they define the throughput of the entiresystem. Avoid overallocating resources at all costs — especially bottleneck resources.

■ Maintain dedicated teams whenever possible. Institute policies and practices to minimizeshifting resources between efforts, as well as policies to minimize the impact of shiftingresources when necessary. When resources must absolutely be shared, instruct team managersto work with each other, across initiative boundaries, to coordinate shared resources.

■ Ensure standard team practices leverage best practices to drive consistently high performance.As teams are composed of individuals, ensure individuals, particularly those apt to work onteams, know best practices in personal productivity.

Business Impact: Resource management, if done correctly, drives productivity and changes theperception of IT from a service provider to a key business enabler.





Sample Vendors: Meisterplan; PDWare; ProSymmetry; Saviom; UMT360

Recommended Reading: “PMO Evolution for Digital Primer for 2020”

“How PPM Leaders Can Help Resource Management in Product Teams”

“Expedite Resource and Capacity Management Analyses With PPM Tools”

“Resource Capacity Planning for PPM Leaders: Crawl Before You Walk”

“Effectively Manage People Who Have Operational and Project, Program or Product DeliveryResponsibilities”

Climbing the Slope

Change Leadership

Analysis By: Elise Olding; Suzanne Adnams

Definition: Change leadership is culture-driven change that embraces the flux of business andbuilds sustainable organizational capabilities and skills. The ESCAPE change leadership modeldistills change leadership into steps that leaders can apply to bolster change success. The modelhas two phases with three steps each. INSPIRE: envision, share, compose and ENGAGE: attract,permit and enable. Change leadership is a continuous and iterative approach to buildingadaptability at an enterprise level.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: There is persistent and increasing demand from CIOsand enterprise IT leaders for help and support dealing with culture-driven change. They arerecognizing the priority of having and inspired and engaged workforce to navigate disruption anduncertainty. Over the last three years, there has been a significant increase in client workshops andanalyst calls on the ESCAPE model and change leadership.

User Advice: To address change leadership, leaders must work with their peers and their directreports to develop the skills, competencies and experience required to inspire and engage theirteams, stakeholders and members of their organizations. This means recognizing the ongoing,iterative nature of transformation and the cumulative effect of project activities on people andworkplace.

Use Gartner’s ESCAPE model for change leadership. The six steps are:

■ Envision — create a compelling vision to help employees imagine the future

■ Share — continually share the vision with a goal to make it everyone’s vision

■ Compose — Define and transition to the leadership practices needed for the future

■ Attract — attract early adopters to overcome organizational change resistance


■ Permit — create the psychological safety and examples of new behaviors that allow employeesto change

■ Enable — create the structures and mechanisms to move from experimentation to execution

Business Impact: The ability to embrace continual change in a constantly changing businesslandscape is a competitive differentiator for the survival of an enterprise. Being able to adapt andpivot in the face of disruption will require everyone in the organization to have change fitness and bepart of co-creating change. Leaders must embrace the changes they need to make in how they leadand be acutely aware of how their actions foster or inhibit organizational and culture change. Thisexamination of leadership is a critical success factor. The ESCAPE model of change leadershipoutlines current leadership actions that create barriers to culture-driven and transformative changeand defines the steps to make positive changes that will increase employee engagement andautonomy. Dictating change to employees has proven to be a time-consuming and frustratingprocess, given that adoption takes time. Change leadership accelerates this by inspiring changeand engaging everyone on the change journey.




Recommended Reading: “Use the ESCAPE Model to Develop Change Leadership”

“CIOs Need Organizational Change Management and Change Leadership for Digital Business”

“Culture Change Succeeds or Fails in Leadership Moments”

“The Culture Hacking Roadmap”

Domain PMO

Analysis By: Mbula Schoen

Definition: The domain project management office (PMO) is an organizational structure basedwithin a domain (business unit or IT function) that provides initiative support for the domain itresides in. It may be focused on a specific management need for project, program or portfoliomanagement, or any combination of these. With a focus on ensuring project planning and deliverysuccess, it may not necessarily deliver or execute projects directly.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: Gartner views domain PMO’s as foundational to aspecific group or set of functions within the digital organization. For example, the domain PMO actsas a lower-level set of activities that exist within IT, like shared services, or increasingly a businessunit. A domain PMO is initiated to improve the control and management of programs, projects andproducts. However, the inward and narrow focus of many of these PMO’s can lead to dissatisfactionby stakeholders and eventual disbandment. Others will evolve their focus and function to supportdigital transformation. In the last two PMO-related surveys that Gartner conducted, respondents


reported having eight to nine active PMOs on average. PMO leaders who aim to be more proactive,yet recognize the capabilities and sphere of influence, are likely to ensure the success of their PMO.There are several types of domain PMOs that support the variety of needs within IT or the business(see “How PMO and PPM Disciplines Will Change in the Digital Business”). As digitalizationcontinues, the various domain PMOs will also align to become aspects of an enterprise PMO.

User Advice: With digital business growth, PMOs at the domain level will become supportmechanisms for the enterprise PMO, further integrating business value and direction. Successfuldomain PMOs will evolve to play a key role in balancing investments in digital business and BAU forspecific functions or areas of the organization, as warranted. To do this, they will need to considerhow they approach delivery and adapt current risk tolerance as business tolerance of risk isincreasing. The domain PMO leader needs to ensure that the PMO and any enterprise programmanagement office (EPMO; if one exists) are in sync with business and technology needs.

Business Impact: The domain PMO can deliver valuable strategic impact for organizations at lowerlevels of project management maturity. This PMO focuses more on improving operational delivery ofprogram and portfolio capabilities (i.e., supporting project and program managers, providingtraining, portfolio management basics, establishing governance processes, etc.). As organizationsare constantly changing due to digital business, the domain PMO is a crucial component of anorganization’s ability to respond to change in an informed manner.




Recommended Reading: “PMO Evolution for Digital Primer for 2020”

“The PMO Leader’s First 100 Days”

“Toolkit: Key PPM Job Descriptions to Accelerate the Setup of Your PMO”

“Survey Analysis: Follow the Lead of EPMOs in Digitally Mature Organizations to EnhancePerformance”

“How PPM Leaders Can Leverage Lean Principles”

Organizational Change Management

Analysis By: Elise Olding; Suzanne Adnams

Definition: Organizational change management (OCM) encompasses the discipline, frameworksand methods used to address the people and process dynamics — and thus human challenges —associated with projects and programs, business transformation, technology implementations orchanges to organizational practices. It employs a set of techniques that inspire and engagestakeholders by enabling them to prepare for ongoing change and developing skills to betterembrace transformation.


Position and Adoption Speed Justification: This year we’ve adjusted the profile forward topreplateau. There is increased demand for organizational change management support andrecommendations not just in IT but at an enterprise level. More leaders are realizing that a focus onpeople during times of transformation is critical, particularly when changing toward a more agile ordesign mindset. The Gartner Culture in Digital Business Survey (see “Survey Analysis: CIOs MustEngage in Culture Change for Digital Business Success”) revealed that most organizations view theirculture as a strategic investment since it can become a barrier to success. Managing people andorganizational change is a critical success factor for developing a culture that delivers oninvestments and achieves business strategy (see “Survey Analysis: Follow the Lead of EPMOs inDigitally Mature Organizations to Enhance Performance”)

User Advice: Leaders must acknowledge that two types of change are taking place across theenterprise and each requires a different approach from them and we have separated OCM fromchange leadership this year. This year we have created two profiles to represent this OCM andchange leadership. Project-driven change or OCM, must have sound organizational changeprocesses to introduce new elements into the environment and facilitate successful adoption afterthe project completes. Culture-driven change or change leadership addresses the secondary effectsof escalating projects on individual performance, mindset and behaviors. Attention to the changesexperienced by the stakeholders involved in transformation programs is essential for success. BothOCM and change leadership approaches must be established and developed across leadership,management and supervisory roles.

To lead project-driven change, leaders must recognize the separate but complementary role thatorganizational change plays within a project environment. The OCM manager’s role should beseparate from the PM role. The OCM plan should be structured to integrate into the project plan butcontinue outside the project completion schedule. This is the only way to ensure adoption issuccessful. Mature organizations will recognize the value of not only a formal OCM manager role butestablishing an OCM office (see “CIOs Need Organizational Change Management and ChangeLeadership for Digital Business”).

Business Impact: The adoption of OCM is a critical step in maturing an enterprise’s ability to fullyrealize the benefits from investments in projects and transformation efforts, and positions theorganization to continuously take advantage of competitive opportunities. They can move theirorganization forward by creating a culture that enables their strategy.

Any enterprise that is facing disruption, escalating projects and initiatives, an evolving workforce ora shifting market, needs to actively pursue strong OCM processes, and change leadershipcapabilities.




Recommended Reading: “CIOs Need Organizational Change Management and ChangeLeadership for Digital Business”


“Four Must-Have Practices for Successful Organizational Change”

“Five Organizational Change Pitfalls for CIOs to Avoid”

“Foster a Growth, Not a Fixed Mindset”

Entering the Plateau

DevOps

Analysis By: George Spafford; Joachim Herschmann

Definition: DevOps is a customer-value-driven approach to deliver solutions using agile methods,collaboration and automation. DevOps emphasizes people and culture to improve collaborationbetween development, operations and other stakeholders to navigate uncertainty, and acceleratethe delivery of customer value. DevOps implementations use architecture and tools to improve theflow of work.

Position and Adoption Speed Justification: DevOps doesn’t have a concrete set of mandates orstandards, or a known framework (such as ITIL); thus, it is subject to a more liberal interpretation. Ingeneral, it is about cross-functional teams collaborating to deliver business value faster. DevOps isassociated with processes, tools and organizational styles intended to optimize the flow of workacross the application life cycle, from development to production. DevOps concepts have becomewidely adopted for initiatives with a style of work that is focused on exploration and agility, includingdigital business, machine learning, mobile apps, IoT. Also, there is potential for use in moretraditional enterprise environments; however, every implementation is unique. Good practices areemerging, the sharing of lessons learned is vibrant among practitioners. Vendors are developing anddelivering supporting tools and professional services. While some new adopters are havingchallenges clients report that DevOps does deliver value.

User Advice: DevOps initiatives must be iterative, focused on business value and have executivesponsorship, with the understanding that new team(s) will have to make an often-difficultorganizational philosophy shift toward the development of agile capabilities. DevOps hype remainselevated among tool and service vendors, with the term applied aggressively and claims outrunningdemonstrated capabilities. Many tool vendors are adapting their portfolios and branding theirofferings as DevOps-related to gain attention. Some vendors are acquiring smaller point solutionsspecifically developed for DevOps to boost their portfolios. Clients are recommended to clearly tieinvestments to business outcomes to help improve internal adoption.

IT organizations must establish key criteria that will differentiate DevOps tooling traits (strongtoolchain integration, workflow, automation, etc.) from traditional management tools. Bothdevelopment and operations should look to tools to replace custom scripting with improvingdeployment success and cycle times through more predictable configurations and seek tocontinually improve the flow of work via refactoring.

IT organizations should approach DevOps as a set of flexible guiding principles. Start small andfocused — don’t try a “big bang” approach. Select a product that is politically friendly, and offers


acceptable value and risk involving development, operations and other critical stakeholders, suchas information security and architecture. Stakeholders need to work together to accomplish thebusiness objective, while learning how to organize and determining what methods and tools to use.At a minimum, seek to continually improve the flow of work from developer through to the new orchanged application being in production and the customer receiving the promised value. Thesestakeholders must also collaborate to scale efforts.

Business Impact: DevOps is focused on delivering customer value and enables hypothesis-drivendevelopment and the aggregation of data to make decisions about future functionality. Releasecadence can be varied to meet demands for organizational learning and change absorption.DevOps approaches are made possible by the adoption of continuous learning, improvement andincremental release principles adopted from agile methodologies. Smaller, more frequent updates toproduction can work to improve organizational learning and overall quality, including both stabilityand control, thus reducing risk. A successful DevOps implementation will improve the delivery ofcustomer value. This delivery of value justifies the scaling and expansion of DevOps using aniterative approach.




Recommended Reading: “Adopt an Iterative Approach to Drive DevOps Success in LargeOrganizations”

“DevOps — Eight Simple Steps to Get It Right”

“DevOps Primer for 2019”

“Three Ways Midsize Enterprises Can Maximize Value From DevOps”

“Four Steps to Adopt Open-Source Software as Part of the DevOps Toolchain”

“DevOps Success Requires Shift-Right Testing in Production”

“Avoid Failure by Developing a Toolchain That Enables DevOps”

“Top 5 Causes of DevOps Failure and How to Avoid Them”

“How to Avoid Compliance and Audit Concerns When Using DevOps”

“How to Scale DevOps by Building Platform Teams”

“Top SRE Practices Needed by Teams Scaling DevOps”


Appendixes

Figure 3. Hype Cycle for Project and Portfolio Management, 2019


Hype Cycle Phases, Benefit Ratings and Maturity Levels

Table 1. Hype Cycle Phases

Phase Definition

Innovation Trigger A breakthrough, public demonstration, product launch or other event generates significantpress and industry interest.

Peak of InflatedExpectations

During this phase of overenthusiasm and unrealistic projections, a flurry of well-publicizedactivity by technology leaders results in some successes, but more failures, as thetechnology is pushed to its limits. The only enterprises making money are conferenceorganizers and magazine publishers.

Trough ofDisillusionment

Because the technology does not live up to its overinflated expectations, it rapidly becomesunfashionable. Media interest wanes, except for a few cautionary tales.

Slope ofEnlightenment

Focused experimentation and solid hard work by an increasingly diverse range oforganizations lead to a true understanding of the technology’s applicability, risks andbenefits. Commercial off-the-shelf methodologies and tools ease the development process.

Plateau of Productivity The real-world benefits of the technology are demonstrated and accepted. Tools andmethodologies are increasingly stable as they enter their second and third generations.Growing numbers of organizations feel comfortable with the reduced level of risk; the rapidgrowth phase of adoption begins. Approximately 20% of the technology’s target audiencehas adopted or is adopting the technology as it enters this phase.

Years to MainstreamAdoption

The time required for the technology to reach the Plateau of Productivity.

Source: Gartner (June 2020)

Table 2. Benefit Ratings

Benefit Rating Definition

Transformational Enables new ways of doing business across industries that will result in major shifts in industrydynamics

High Enables new ways of performing horizontal or vertical processes that will result in significantlyincreased revenue or cost savings for an enterprise

Moderate Provides incremental improvements to established processes that will result in increased revenueor cost savings for an enterprise

Low Slightly improves processes (for example, improved user experience) that will be difficult totranslate into increased revenue or cost savings



Table 3. Maturity Levels

Maturity Level Status Products/Vendors

Embryonic ■ In labs ■ None

Emerging ■ Commercialization by vendorsPilots and deployments by industry leaders

■ First generation

■ High price

■ Much customization

Adolescent ■ Maturing technology capabilities and processunderstandingUptake beyond early adopters

■ Second generation

■ Less customization

Early mainstream ■ Proven technology

■ Vendors, technology and adoption rapidly evolving

■ Third generation

■ More out of box

■ Methodologies

Maturemainstream

■ Robust technology

■ Not much evolution in vendors or technology

■ Several dominant vendors

Legacy ■ Not appropriate for new developments

■ Cost of migration constrains replacement

■ Maintenance revenue focus

Obsolete ■ Rarely used ■ Used/resale market only


Gartner Recommended ReadingSome documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

Understanding Gartner’s Hype Cycles

Program and Portfolio Management Leaders Primer for 2020

Survey Analysis: Follow the Lead of EPMOs in Digitally Mature Organizations to EnhancePerformance

Survey Analysis: PPM Leaders Must Enable Constant Change

2020 Gartner CEO Survey: The Year of Recession

Leadership Vision for 2020: CIO

The 2020 CIO Agenda: Winning in the Turns


The Postpandemic Planning Framework


GARTNER HEADQUARTERS

Corporate Headquarters56 Top Gallant RoadStamford, CT 06902-7700USA+1 203 964 0096

Regional HeadquartersAUSTRALIABRAZILJAPANUNITED KINGDOM

For a complete list of worldwide locations,visit http://www.gartner.com/technology/about.jsp

© 2020 Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Gartner is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and its affiliates. Thispublication may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without Gartner's prior written permission. It consists of the opinions ofGartner's research organization, which should not be construed as statements of fact. While the information contained in this publicationhas been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy ofsuch information. Although Gartner research may address legal and financial issues, Gartner does not provide legal or investment adviceand its research should not be construed or used as such. Your access and use of this publication are governed by Gartner Usage Policy.Gartner prides itself on its reputation for independence and objectivity. Its research is produced independently by its researchorganization without input or influence from any third party. For further information, see "Guiding Principles on Independence andObjectivity."


http://www.gartner.com/technology/about.jsp

https://www.gartner.com/technology/about/policies/usage_policy.jsp

http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp

http://www.gartner.com/technology/about/ombudsman/omb_guide2.jsp

hype cycle for project and portfolio management, 2020

Documents