CHARITABLE ORGANIZATION
Optimizing Lean Portfolio Management
INTRODUCTION
Springbach Consulting has been engaged with a Charitable organization, as its preferred agile training, coaching and consultancy partner since 2020. We have provided a range of solutions such as delivering Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) training classes, launching multiple Agile Release Trains (ARTs), conducting Value Stream Mapping workshops and much more. Due to the organization’s agile adoption success, their passionate agile leader and Digital Solutions Director had the aim of taking their agility to next level by implementing Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) practices to supercharge the transformation. The Director and her senior management team peers collaborated across the portfolio to create a clear vision for success. This started a new, 15-month LPM engagement with Springbach.
THE OPPORTUNITY
Like many of our clients who are leading an agile transformation, the digital and technology side of the organization led the way. We had worked with our client to the point where their digital ARTs were delivering predictably and effectively at the team and program level (at the most recent PI at the time of writing they had just achieved a 100% predictability measure). Now they needed the rest of the organization to move with it. We were asked to collaborate with another consultancy on the initial LPM assessment phase. Where a lot of consultancies would baulk at this, Springbach has a great track record of collaborating with other partners and welcomed the opportunity to cooperate with another partner to act in the best interests of our client.
Through this collaborative assessment, we identified numerous opportunities:
Increasing alignment between Strategy and Execution
Redefining key roles and responsibilities that feed into key portfolio management processes.
Implementing objective prioritization methodology and incorporating prioritization into quarterly cadences
Implementing a mechanism to measure throughput and flow across the portfolio
Implementing a process to update the roadmap on a rolling basis based on forecasted capacity
Implementing a Portfolio Kanban process for all inflight initiatives
OUR SOLUTION
We developed an approach that would allow our client to use the elements of SAFe’s Lean Portfolio Management toolbox. This would allow them to experiment, learn, and ultimately redefine how they get work done. The goal of the engagement was not to blindly follow SAFe’s LPM for the sake of it - the goal was how might we leverage elements of SAFe’s Lean Portfolio Management toolbox to increase alignment and optimize flow?
The following are some of the highlights on our LPM journey together.
Partnership on the LPM Assessment and Initial Experiments
Springbach partnered with another consultancy throughout the initial portfolio assessment and experiments. We were there to use our agile expertise and client domain experience to ensure that the solutions presented were right for the organization. This phase consisted of the following 2 experiments:
Assessing the current prioritization model and providing alternatives, from RICE and 9 Box, to Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF). We ran through different scenarios using these tools to ensure that they enabled a rich prioritization discussion. We eventually landed on WSJF, but with the levers specifically designed to ensure that everyone was clear on what Business Value meant to the client.
Piloting the definition of a new role specifically created to better align strategy to execution and create a true business agility.
Launching a Dedicated Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE)
Following the conclusion of the initial assessment and experiments, our client asked Springbach to stay on and lead the LPM implementation. We held an in-person LACE kick off workshop to:
Be intentional about team building
Complete our Team Canvas to understand how best to work with one another
Agree on how we will work together - specifically using scrum, assigning a Scrum Master and Product Owner and how we will use Jira
Build a high-level plan for the forthcoming quarter
Conducting LPM Training
We soon identified that for us to capitalize on the SAFe LPM tools, we needed to deliver certified training to the LACE team, sponsors, and wider stakeholder group. This was a catalyst for us to speed up by bringing the whole team’s knowledge up to the same level.
Optimizing LPM Practices
Following the training, the team was inspired by the power of visualization and the opportunities to enable flow that the Portfolio Kanban brings. The team quickly set up a digital Portfolio Kanban, plotted the inflight initiatives and began to use the Lean Business Case template to test to see how they fit. The impact of the visualization was immediate. It was clear that there was too much work in progress that needed managing. This led to conversations about flow naturally happening and portfolio leaders actively engaging in how we can support the teams and move to a “stop starting, start finishing” mindset. Since adopting the Portfolio Kanban, the group has dramatically reduced the amount of work in progress.
Value Stream Mapping
Springbach wanted to look forward at how our client might explore different ways to increase flow throughout the portfolio and led a series of workshops, one being Value Stream Mapping. This enabled us to pull forward some ideas and challenges that we could see in our desired future state.
Applying Change Management Patterns
As the LACE team was moving at a significant pace, we were starting to experience challenges from a change management perspective. To ensure that people understood and bought into the change, we added a change management practitioner to the team, helping us to focus our communication to the wider organization. We used Prosci’s ADKAR model to help us to identify gaps and then to build a communication strategy around it. In addition, we really wanted to ensure that the people impacted by the changes understood “what’s in it for me?” To do this, we created 7 personas by conducting multiple interviews with employees. Following this, we used these personas to build a communication matrix based on David Rock’s SCARF model.
We also re-ran the employee survey that we executed at the start of the transformation. We needed to make two changes to the survey:
Updating one section to grasp if people understood the new changes
Removing questions around investment funding as this was deprioritized to 2024
The results of the survey were a success - people understood the new changes and how they were impacted, and we recorded an overall 9% improvement in the overall portfolio performance.
Extending Beyond the Portfolio
As Springbach concluded the engagement, we saw an interest in departments across our clients organization to adopt an agile approach to their work, too. We developed some bespoke, internal agile training that we delivered to the senior management team. Following this, we began to roll out specific training and workshops to individual departments such as marketing and knowledge management.
Finally, for our client to be self-sufficient, we offered train-the-trainer coaching to some select LACE team members.
What we learned
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While everyone was clear on the what we were doing, we realized that we weren’t clear enough with the why from the very beginning. We used the “Cover Story” vision template to build a fun, engaging and compelling vision to bring everyone together and inspire change. This should be the first thing that you do before embarking on such a large transformation effort.
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We underestimated the need for intentional change. When you are working with a small team or organization, we can suffice with sprint reviews being our main mode of change management. However, in an organization of hundreds and thousands, it’s critical to have a more intentional plan for change, with relatable personas and tactics for managing resistance to change.
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One of the simplest things that you can do to transform how you work is to visualize your process and work. Once you have your vision and considered change management, start with visualizing your portfolio using a Portfolio Kanban. Not only does this force the right conversations, but it sends collaboration and alignment into overdrive.
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The process side to LPM is simple to understand and to implement. However, have you stopped to think and ask yourself “what are the behavior changes that we are seeking from LPM?” The processes are important to support people in their work, but think back to the Agile Manifesto: “Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools.” The Portfolio Kanban, Lean Business Cases and everything else are good, but if people do not understand how they should engage and interact with it, then the true benefit of a cultural change towards business agility will not be achieved. Start with the human side and behaviors and work backwards to make your processes and tools fit.