Johanna Rothman, Management Consultant
Expert in Managing Product Development
A potential client called me. “What’s a good tool to see the state of my projects? I need a tool.” I asked, “What problems do you see?” “Everything is late. No one’s synchronized. I can’t tell where the projects are.” “How many projects do you have in progress?” “At least 100.” (I was pretty sure …
Continue reading “Project Portfolio Problems Masquerade as Project Problems”
You’ve got an impossible project. You have no flexibility. The project is a fixed-price, fixed-scope, fixed-date project. And, you have a specific team to do the work. (There are other impossible projects. Such as when you have a collection of people who multitask among several projects.) Can an agile approach save these projects? No. An agile …
Continue reading “Agile Approaches Can’t Save Impossible Projects: Fixed Cost, Scope, Date”
Part 1 was about seeing the value in the various projects. I called the value stream a product so that people would think about who would use it and why. I suggested that we stop work on specific products when you have more products than teams. That would allow you to work on other projects …
Continue reading “Projects, Products, and the Project Portfolio: Part 2, Assess & Rank the Work”
I suggested ways to think about more agile budgeting in part 1. I didn’t tell you why. How do you budget your own money and time? If you’re like me, you have a plan for the year. I evaluate the plan—my products, services, and clients—on a regular basis. I always evaluate monthly. Sometimes, I evaluate …
Continue reading “Strategy Behind More Agile Budgeting, Part 2”
Too often, organizations want to budget for an entire year. The managers run around for two or three months in advance of that fiscal year, attempting to predict a ton of things: Estimates for not-well-defined projects or features, Capital equipment or tool needs, “Headcount” aka, people needed. Then, the organization doesn’t finalize the budget until …
Continue reading “Tactical Ideas for Agile Budgeting, Part 1”
Henny Portman just published a review of Manage Your Project Portfolio. See his review at Review: Manage your project portfolio. He included a terrific image (go to the review to see it) about how you can think about the entire process, from soup to nuts. Here is an excerpt from his conclusion: “… a must …
Continue reading “Terrific Review of Manage Your Project Portfolio”
In the “Scaling” Agile: Part 1, I wrote about cross-functional collaborative teams. The cross-functional collaborative feature team is the basis for “scaling” agile. In “Scaling” Agile, Part 2, I wrote about programs. I realized I need another part before my original part 3 :-). This new part 3 is about creating agile product development capabilities. …
Continue reading “Defining “Scaling” Agile, Part 3: Creating Agile Product Development Capabilities”
Andy Hunt, the Pragmatic Bookshelf publisher, just sent me an email telling me that Manage Your Project Portfolio is featured in La República, Columbia’s “first and most important business newspaper.” That’s because getabstract liked it! Okay, my book is below the fold. It’s in smaller print. And, I have to say, I’m still pretty excited. If …
I’m not a fan of using schedule or cost estimate as a way to value the projects in your project portfolio. If you do, you are likely to miss the potentially transformative projects or programs. In Manage Your Project Portfolio, I have an entire chapter devoted to ways to evaluate your project portfolio: business value …
I read Sayonara Sony: How Industrial, MBA-Style Leadership Killed a Once Great Company, and was struck by how the company appeared to make decisions—what will make us the most money now? If you make your project portfolio decisions based on money, estimated cost, you too will have Sony’s problems. This is why cost is the …
Continue reading “Why Cost is the Wrong Question for Evaluating Projects in Your Project Portfolio”