<\/span><\/h2>\nTo explore the application of \u201cagile\u201d to portfolio management we need to start from \u201cwhat is agile?\u201d and why it\u2019s effective at driving value. I\u2019ll generalize some of the concepts you are probably already familiar with from agile development methodologies, and then tie those into portfolio management.<\/p>\n
Agile does not equal scrum or kanban. Scrum and kanban (and others) are methodologies for applying agile principles. Agile principles can be applied in other ways, and for other purposes.<\/p>\n
Essentially agile simply means you are continuously delivering value<\/em> – whether for a product, project or most commonly, software development. You can apply agile principles using scrum, but agile in and of itself is not scrum. For the context of this post, we will be looking at agile as it is used in portfolio management.<\/p>\nIrrespective of \u201cagile\u201d per se, it\u2019s to everyone\u2019s benefit \u2013 our organization\u2019s and ours – to deliver value continuously and ideally faster.<\/em> By taking an agile approach we can achieve that.<\/p>\nSounds good, but how does it work? At its simplest (and these are the basic principles of agile) the process goes like this:<\/p>\n
\n- You make a list of the things you want to do. Within a project that will be user stories or epics. In a portfolio that will be the projects and initiatives themselves.<\/li>\n
- You figure out the business value of each. You can use your own metric for this, like our customers do with the \u201cscoring\u201d capability in Innotas, or you can use NPV or ROI.<\/li>\n
- You may do a little work to decompose really big things into smaller, more manageable things \u2013 which are also easier to estimate and deliver<\/li>\n
- You stack rank your items by business value<\/li>\n
- And then you start working down the list, always finishing what you\u2019re working on before you start the next thing. In this way you\u2019re always working on the most important thing, or the few most important (most valuable) things, and delivering them before you start working on something less important.<\/li>\n
- Then you go through this loop again, starting at step 1: check your list, make any additions that have come up due to changes in the business environment or based on new ideas, make sure the business value is correct, and reorder the list by value if necessary. Then start work on the most important thing and do it until it\u2019s finished. Then repeat.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
<\/span>Benefits of Agile<\/span><\/h2>\nUnlike its older cousin \u2018waterfall,\u2019 agile is by its nature designed to adapt quickly to changes. In a rapidly changing environment, this can be the difference between success and failure; no matter how well the project was executed, if changes in the environment make it the wrong project you shouldn\u2019t work on it any more. This is pretty important if you are trying to minimize risk and deliver more quality projects. Don\u2019t get me wrong, waterfall planning has a place for projects that don\u2019t have much risk and whose steps are well understood \u2013 like building a house in a subdivision, but not building new business software applications.<\/p>\n
It’s fairly easy to see how this \u201cagile loop\u201d applies to an individual development project. But how do we apply the same approach to the project portfolio – the set of all the projects you will deliver over the next quarter or year or five years?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s very similar:<\/p>\n
\n- You figure out the business value of your list of candidate projects<\/li>\n
- You might do some subdividing of the projects if they are very large<\/li>\n
- You order the list by business value<\/li>\n
- You start working on the most important ones first<\/li>\n
- Review progress often, and re-rank projects if necessary<\/li>\n
- Repeat from step 1<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Of course, you might have multiple teams working on multiple projects at once. But the idea behind agile is that they will be working on the projects that deliver (or preserve) the most business value. And they will be leaving the projects that align less with business value to later (or never). This is Agile Portfolio Management. And it\u2019s different \u2013 although related \u2013 to agile project management.<\/p>\n
<\/span>The Best of Both Worlds<\/span><\/h2>\nAgile portfolio management doesn\u2019t happen overnight, so you will need to incorporate where necessary. If your organization is already managing projects using agile methodologies, the next step often is to bring the task data from your agile tool into another tool \u2013 like Innotas \u2013 that enables you to aggregate management-level information across your projects so you can see and track that status of your portfolio as a whole. That way if your organization is also responsible for waterfall projects, you can manage them in the same system and make decisions based on the portfolio as a whole.<\/p>\n
<\/span>To Sum it Up<\/span><\/h2>\nThe key thing to remember about agile is the goal of continuous and frequent delivery of business value, to focus on business value as your key metric, and to embrace change in such a way that you continually deliver more value over time. Agile is an approach, not a methodology per se (although methodologies can be helpful). Also, everyone can use agile \u2013 it\u2019s just prioritizing business value delivery over efficiency, and working to deliver that value as fast as possible. It doesn\u2019t matter what methodology you use as long as it aligns with those principles.<\/p>\n
And finally, the goal \u2013 and what you\u2019ll achieve \u2013 is to deliver more value faster, while being responsive to change. Tools and processes can help you make the transition to this approach more easily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In today\u2019s tech infused world, many companies strive to rise above the competition and get results from their efforts and ideas as quickly as possible. It\u2019s okay to want instant gratification – our customers seem to expect it – but as we well know, anything great takes time. But shaving even small amounts of time…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":5778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[46,467],"class_list":["post-5777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pmo-project-management-organizations","tag-agile","tag-innotas"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Agile Portfolio Management of Today - Blog | Planview<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Agile simply means you are\u00a0continuously delivering value. This post will be looking at agile as it is used in agile portfolio management.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Agile Portfolio Management of Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Agile simply means you are\u00a0continuously delivering value. This post will be looking at agile as it is used in agile portfolio management.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Planview Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Planview-Inc\/89422974772\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-04-15T17:17:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-12-19T18:10:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nils Davis\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@Planview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Planview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nils Davis\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Nils Davis\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4d224c0708bb572ec845f248af8b9c0f\"},\"headline\":\"Agile Portfolio Management of Today\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-15T17:17:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-12-19T18:10:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/\"},\"wordCount\":1017,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Agile\",\"Innotas\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Project Portfolio Management\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/\",\"name\":\"Agile Portfolio Management of Today - Blog | Planview\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2016-04-15T17:17:37+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2017-12-19T18:10:39+00:00\",\"description\":\"Agile simply means you are\u00a0continuously delivering value. This post will be looking at agile as it is used in agile portfolio management.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg\",\"width\":750,\"height\":400,\"caption\":\"Bringing Agile into the Portfolio\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Agile Portfolio Management of Today\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/\",\"name\":\"Planview Blog\",\"description\":\"Leading the conversation on digital connected work\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Planview\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/planview-logo-black.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/planview-logo-black.png\",\"width\":280,\"height\":66,\"caption\":\"Planview\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Planview-Inc\/89422974772\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/Planview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4d224c0708bb572ec845f248af8b9c0f\",\"name\":\"Nils Davis\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/author\/nils-davis\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Agile Portfolio Management of Today - Blog | Planview","description":"Agile simply means you are\u00a0continuously delivering value. This post will be looking at agile as it is used in agile portfolio management.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Agile Portfolio Management of Today","og_description":"Agile simply means you are\u00a0continuously delivering value. This post will be looking at agile as it is used in agile portfolio management.","og_url":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/","og_site_name":"Planview Blog","article_publisher":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Planview-Inc\/89422974772","article_published_time":"2016-04-15T17:17:37+00:00","article_modified_time":"2017-12-19T18:10:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":750,"height":400,"url":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Nils Davis","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@Planview","twitter_site":"@Planview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Nils Davis","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/"},"author":{"name":"Nils Davis","@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4d224c0708bb572ec845f248af8b9c0f"},"headline":"Agile Portfolio Management of Today","datePublished":"2016-04-15T17:17:37+00:00","dateModified":"2017-12-19T18:10:39+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/"},"wordCount":1017,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg","keywords":["Agile","Innotas"],"articleSection":["Project Portfolio Management"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/","url":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/","name":"Agile Portfolio Management of Today - Blog | Planview","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg","datePublished":"2016-04-15T17:17:37+00:00","dateModified":"2017-12-19T18:10:39+00:00","description":"Agile simply means you are\u00a0continuously delivering value. This post will be looking at agile as it is used in agile portfolio management.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bringing-Agile-into-the-Portfolio.jpg","width":750,"height":400,"caption":"Bringing Agile into the Portfolio"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/agile-portfolio-management-today\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Agile Portfolio Management of Today"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/","name":"Planview Blog","description":"Leading the conversation on digital connected work","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#organization","name":"Planview","url":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/planview-logo-black.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/planview-logo-black.png","width":280,"height":66,"caption":"Planview"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Planview-Inc\/89422974772","https:\/\/x.com\/Planview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/#\/schema\/person\/4d224c0708bb572ec845f248af8b9c0f","name":"Nils Davis","url":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/author\/nils-davis\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.planview.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}