The Agile PMO: From Process Police to Adaptive Governance: This webcast provides techniques for an Agile PMO and discusses how those concepts are being applied in the industry. Presented by LitheSpeed.

1. 1
The Agile PMO
Presented by Sanjiv Augustine
July 22, 2009
From Process Police to Adaptive Governance
• Why an Agile PMO?
• Setting up the Agile PMO
• Scaling Scrum through
Adaptive Governance
o Project Prioritization & Selection
o Portfolio Tracking
o Resource Management
o Sustainable Agile Adoption
• Q&A
Agenda
Adap0ve Governance
Adap&ve governance is the
collabora've, flexible and
learning‐based
management of programs
and por5olios.

2. 2
Why an Agile PMO?
Why an Agile PMO?
How are PMOs Doing?
“The recent research literature on PMOs
provides an ambiguous picture of the value
case for PMOs and suggests the tenuous
nature of their current posi0on in many
organiza0ons.”
‐ Hurt and Thomas, Building Value through Sustainable
PMOs, Project Management Journal, March 2009
“53% of CIOs say their IT
project priori0za0on is poli0cally driven.”
‐ CIO Insight, 2004
“The influence of a conserva0ve, process‐
oriented personality into the world of agile
technologies and agile‐thinking
technologists is nearly as ra0onal as using a
World War I trench warfare general’s
mindset to direct the efforts in Afghanistan.”
‐ Casca quoted by Thornberry, PMOs keep projects on
track and under budget, ZD Net Asia
Some of the challenges/problems faced by
PMOs:
• Lack of authority and executive support
• Lack of demand management
• Focus on upwards reporting
• Process standardization and auditing rigidity
• Over‐reliance on project portfolio
management tools
• Staff versus line organizational structure:
creates overhead, lack of accountability and
career plateau
• Misalignment of tools, techniques and
reporting with Agile methods
• PMOs perceived as “process police” who
block rather than enable

3. 3
Setting up the Agile PMO
Two Visions for the PMO
“An organizational unit
to centralize and
coordinate the
management of projects
under its domain. A PMO
oversees the management
of projects, programs or a
combination of both.”
A group of project leaders who achieve these results:
• We increase return on investment by making con&nuous
flow of value our focus.
• We deliver reliable results by engaging customers in
frequent interac&ons and shared ownership.
• We expect uncertainty and manage for it through
itera&ons, an&cipa&on, and adapta&on.
• We unleash crea0vity and innova0on by recognizing that
individuals are the ul&mate source of value, and crea&ng an
environment where they can make a difference.
• We boost performance through group accountability for
results and shared responsibility for team effec&veness.
• We improve effec0veness and reliability through
situa&onally specific strategies, processes and prac&ces.
A Guide to the Project Management Body of
Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Third Edi&on ©
2004 Declara'on of Inter‐dependence, h]p://pmdoi.org [©2005 David Anderson, Sanjiv Augus&ne,
Christopher Avery, Alistair Cockburn, Mike Cohn, Doug DeCarlo, Donna Fitzgerald, Jim Highsmith, Ole
Jepsen, Lowell Lindstrom, Todd Li]le, Kent McDonald, Pollyanna Pixton, Preston Smith and Robert
Wysocki.]
How best can a PMO aid in delivering business value across
multiple projects, programs and portfolios?

4. 4
• Encourage face‐to‐face dialogue across levels
• Create overlapping management with “linking pins”
• Run the Lean‐Agile PMO as an Agile project team
Source: The Lean­Agile PMO, Sanjiv Augustine and Roland Cuellar (Cutter Consortium 2006)
Organiza0onal Structure
Oscilla0ng Between
Informa0on Discovery and
Integra0on
A centralized structure works
well for discovery, because the
individual’s role is to Wind
information and report it back.
In contrast, a richly connected
network works best for
integration and decision
making, because it allows the
individual to hear everyone
else’s opinion about the
expected return from each of
the alternatives.
‐ Alex Pentland, How Social Networks
Network Best, Harvard Business Review,
February 2009
Image from www.crea'on'ps.com/bees.html
• Optimize for throughput,
not utilization
• Limit Work in Process
(WIP), not team freedom
• Obsess about the Flow of
value, not the process
Lean Principles for the Agile PMO
Throughput
Throughput in project
por5olio management is the
rate at which projects net
money for the business.

5. 5
Agile PMOs consider Scrum
teams to be their customers,
and support them in:
• Bringing lean discipline to project
prioritization & selection
• Tracking project portfolios using
Agile tracking techniques
• Moving towards a stable teams model
of resource management
• Scaling and sustaining agile
adoption by supporting and
empowering Scrum teams
An Agile Role for the PMO
Adap0ve Governance
Adap&ve governance is the
collabora've, flexible and
learning‐based
management of programs
and por5olios.
Project Prioritization &
Selection

6. 6
The Typical Project PorXolio
Source: The Lean­Agile PMO, Sanjiv Augustine and Roland Cuellar (Cutter Consortium 2006)
• Too much Work in Process (too many in‐
Wlight projects)
• No project prioritization by business value
• Resource over­utilization
• Dangerous variation (large batch sizes,
unregulated demand, irregular rate of service)
• Terminate sick projects
• Split large projects in smaller ones
• Prioritize projects by business value,
at least within business unit
• Limit development timeframe to months
• Re­prioritize projects regularly
1
Development
3 24
Lile’s Law
WIP
Comple&on
Rate
Por5olio Realignment
Business Goals
& Strategy Produc0on Sunset
Cycle Time =
Backlog

7. 7
• Should we do this project at all?
• Determine ranking criteria
• Rank projects and create ranked project backlog
Project Iden0fica0on & Selec0on
Example Project Selec&on

8. 8
Portfolio Tracking
• Features laid out on index
cards as per overall release
plan
• Card colors identify agile
teams
• Labels identify dependent
teams
• Rows track feature streams
• Columns track sprints/
timeline
Por5olio Alignment Wall

9. 9
Manage the Flow
• Limit request backlog to a few items
• Prioritize requests by Value
• Measure time to deliver small, medium
and large requests
• Track and manage work­in­process
(WIP) to optimize throughput
• Optimize delivery speed by limiting
work‐in‐process to observed capacity,
thus ensuring continuous Wlow of value.
0
25
50
75
100
125
150
175
9-Oct
23-Oct
6-Nov
20-Nov
4-Dec
18-Dec
1-Jan
15-Jan
29-Jan
12-Feb
26-Feb
11-Mar
Time
Features
Inventory Started Designed Coded Complete
Bad: Ragged flow, long cycle
&me (Started to Completed)
Beer: Smooth flow, fast
delivery
Identify and address bottlenecks in
workWlow stages to smooth Flow of value.
Resource Management

10. 10
Tradi0onal Resource Management
• Run many projects
concurrently, with similar
priorities
• Split resources between
multiple projects
• Stress maximum resource
utilization
• ROI only after projects are
done Time
Projects & Resources
ROI
Costs of Task‐Switching
Source: Managing New Product and Process Development, Clark and Wheelwright, p. 242, 1992

11. 11
• Multiple, stable teams each focused
on a single project at a time
• Dedicated to platforms or lines of
business
• Platform owner prioritizes next
project
• Result:
o Support multiple lines of business
simultaneously
o Focused effort results in quick
delivery for individual projects
o Clear accountability
o Stability and predictability
Source: The Lean­Agile PMO, Sanjiv Augustine and Roland Cuellar (Cutter Consortium 2006)
Stable Teams
Lean organizations:
• Dedicate core resources to
each project team
• Ensure that each team has
all resources needed to
complete projects
• Stress maximum project
throughput
• ROI delivered incrementally
with each project release
Lean Resource Management
ROI
Time
Projects & Resources

12. 12
“…for a large organization to work it
must behave like a related group of
small organizations.”
­ E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful
Conquer and divide by building a
federation of agile teams:
• Build the “whole” into the “parts”
• Set a size limit ( e.g. 7 +/‐ 2 people)
• To grow, break off new integrated
Agile teams when team size limit is
reached
• Coordinate at higher level via Agile
PMO
Scaling Agile Teams
Sustainable Agile
Adoption

13. 13
• Conduct one­on­one sessions with
managers and executives
• Establish a training curriculum
• Create an Agile career path
• Locate Agile coaches in the Agile
PMO
• Provide project team coaching
and mentoring
• Provide training and coaching on
Agile Engineering techniques
Educa0on and Coaching
Create a defined and reliable process:
• Standardize high­level process steps, deliverables,
tools and artifacts
• Agree on process audit procedures
• Develop standard process metrics
Process Standardiza0on

14. 14
Contact Us for Further Informa0on
Sanjiv Augustine
President
Sanjiv.Augustine@lithespeed.com
On the Web:
http://www.lithespeed.com
http://www.sanjivaugustine.com
"I only wish I had read this book when I started my career in
sokware product management, or even be]er yet, when I was
given my first project to manage. In addi&on to providing an
excellent handbook for managing with agile sokware development
methodologies, Managing Agile Projects offers a guide to more
effec&ve project management in many business selngs."
John P. Barnes, former Vice President of Product Management at
Emergis, Inc.