The presentation by Agile Rising’s CEO, Christopher Ruch, from the 2021 TBM Conference is now available to watch on-demand. This video presentation focuses on how the defining organizational transformation drivers of the next several years, Lean Portfolio Management and Value Stream Management, are key enablers for connecting finance and data driven TBM strategies with the Agile delivery and execution capabilities of the organization.
Transcript:
hello and thank you for joining my talk
0:24
on lean portfolio management connecting
0:26
tbm strategy with agile execution
0:29
i’m chris rush i’m the ceo of agile
0:31
rising i’m also a safe spct and i help
0:35
companies
0:36
adopt
0:37
both tbm and agile together and these
TBM and Agile
0:41
two approaches
0:43
are really
0:44
becoming popular drivers across
0:47
transformations
0:49
in a number of industries
0:51
and we have the modernization of it
0:54
finance being driven by tbm and by tbm
0:58
leaders and organizations and we have
1:02
the the optimization of the development
1:05
and innovation and execution process
1:08
being led by agile leaders in the
1:10
organization
1:12
and increasingly we’re seeing companies
1:14
adopt both tbm and agile together
1:18
and using that to drive
1:20
really significant digital
1:22
transformation
1:24
and cloud migration initiatives which
1:27
are
1:28
large investments
1:30
they involve really cross-cutting parts
1:32
of the organization
1:35
and require
1:37
both an agile execution approach and
1:40
also require
1:42
new attention to detail around
1:45
the
1:45
the value that’s being driven
1:48
by these large investments that are
1:50
being made in digital and in the cloud
1:54
and along with these frameworks of tbm
1:58
and agile driving our
2:00
our digital transformation efforts
2:03
many companies are also embracing value
2:06
stream management and organizing around
2:09
a product focus moving away from a
2:12
project focus
2:14
moving more towards what’s the value
2:16
that’s being delivered to our customers
2:18
and being delivered internally to our
2:21
stakeholders
2:23
and in the work that i do with our
2:25
customers
2:27
these are sometimes thought about as
2:30
different things different initiatives
2:33
of different parts of the organization
2:35
trying to make improvements drive
2:39
innovation
2:40
and optimize the organization
2:44
and
2:44
these are all valuable tools but their
2:48
value is multiplied when we really pull
2:50
them all together and think about these
2:53
as all different pillars of
2:57
the the real overall goal of improving
3:01
business results and improving the way
3:04
our
3:04
our organizations
3:06
operate
3:07
and ultimately
3:09
deliver more value faster with today’s
3:12
modern tools
3:14
so the question becomes if you want to
3:16
do all of these things
3:18
and
3:19
and your organization probably has
3:22
some other initiatives under the
3:24
underway
3:25
that are included here
3:27
devops
3:30
among other application modernization
3:33
re-architecture
3:35
initiatives
3:36
there are many things that you may be
3:38
trying to do that fall under
3:40
the umbrella of one of these so the
3:43
question
3:44
becomes how do you pull all of these
3:47
together so that they’re really
3:50
part of
3:52
one big initiative
3:54
that’s
3:55
found that’s founded on
3:58
the financial prioritization and
4:00
strategy being driven
4:02
by tbm
4:04
through the execution
4:06
that
4:07
that our agile delivery
4:09
model uses
4:11
and utilizing the tools
4:14
of our digital transformation our value
4:16
stream management
4:17
so the intersection of all of these
4:20
really brings us
4:21
to portfolio management
4:24
and
4:25
and in particular we’re going to talk
4:27
about the scaled agile framework
4:30
which is
4:31
kind of by far the most popular approach
4:35
to a lean agile
4:37
portfolio management approach
4:40
and what
4:41
lpm provides us
4:44
is a connection
4:46
from that strategy and investment
4:49
funding and the governance that tbm and
4:52
it finance
4:54
provides
4:56
through our agile delivery model and
4:59
through our agile portfolio operations
5:02
model and it provides us with a set of
5:04
practices and approaches to align the
5:07
organization
5:09
um
5:10
from
5:11
uh from really that idea
5:14
and the funding decisions through the
5:17
actual delivery of value so what we’re
5:19
going to talk about here uh over the
5:21
course of the rest of this talk
5:24
is
5:25
is really about lean portfolio
5:27
management and value stream management
5:30
which i believe will be the defining
5:32
organizational transformation drivers
5:34
for the next several years and together
5:37
lpm and value stream
5:39
value stream management really are the
5:41
key enablers for connecting finance and
5:45
a data-driven tbm strategy with the
5:48
agile delivery and execution
5:50
capabilities of the organization
5:53
and by
5:54
aligning these strategic planning and
5:57
budgeting processes
6:00
you really have a
6:01
powerful combination to enable i.t
6:04
to deliver more value with more
6:07
transparency and ultimately to achieve
6:10
our goal of greater enterprise business
6:13
agility
6:15
so how do we do that so what we’re going
6:17
to go over
6:19
some of the key components of a lean
6:22
portfolio management approach and how
6:26
tbm and agile can be implemented
Agenda
6:28
together
6:30
so we’re going to talk about
6:32
five main things here we’re going to
6:33
talk about how you organize around value
6:37
we’re going to talk about
6:38
enterprise business agility
6:40
creating flow throughout our
6:42
organization
6:44
driving continuous improvement and
6:46
continuous innovation
6:49
and
6:50
and then really supporting that with the
6:53
financial reporting and metrics tools
6:57
that tbm and aptio provide
7:00
and we’ll touch a little bit on
7:02
organizational change management as we
7:04
talk about rolling out new ways of
7:06
working um and and what the future of
7:10
work looks like
7:11
these are significant organizational
7:14
change management concerns
7:16
where
7:17
where organizations like agile rising
7:19
help our companies really drive these
7:21
adoptions
Value Stream Management
7:23
so what we’re talking about here
7:24
organizing around value value stream
7:27
management is
7:29
is ultimately
7:31
around
7:32
following the path of value through the
7:34
organization so it’s about knowing where
7:37
your um your value is being created
7:40
knowing what your products are and
7:43
aligning
7:44
your teams and your organization around
7:47
those products so the first step in
7:50
value stream management is really
7:52
understanding what your products are and
7:55
then identifying your value streams
7:58
everybody has value streams this is a
8:00
concept really about how you deliver
8:03
your value to your customers both
8:06
internal and external and
8:09
we do that by following
8:13
the flow of work the flow of ideas
8:16
from
8:17
when your customers ask for
8:20
something new when they place an order
8:22
or when an internal stakeholder comes up
8:25
with a new idea
8:27
either for a entire new product or for
8:30
enhancements to existing products and
8:32
then what are all of the steps that go
8:34
into that what we find
8:36
is that many organizations are very
8:37
siloed and it makes it very difficult
8:39
from a financial planning and reporting
8:43
perspective as well as from an execution
8:45
perspective to deliver value when we
8:49
have those bottlenecks and those silos
8:51
in our organizations so we need to
8:53
tackle those and we need to improve and
8:56
optimize
8:57
our our organization so that we can
9:00
optimize the way that work is getting
9:03
done and the value that’s being created
Enterprise Agility
9:06
enterprise agility um when we talk about
9:09
tbm and agile working together
9:11
enterprise agility is one of the four
9:13
pillars of uh of tbm it’s also
9:18
one of the
9:19
uh
9:20
it’s also really the key to scaled agile
9:23
framework
9:24
or any of the scaling approaches to
Enterprise Business Agility
9:27
agile so when we talk about
9:29
enterprise business agility we’re really
9:32
focused
9:33
not specifically on the practices and
9:36
the frameworks around agility this is
9:39
really a goal the goal
9:41
is to
9:42
improve the organization’s ability to
9:45
innovate and respond to change
9:47
and really drive
9:49
from
9:50
both the technology side and the
9:52
business side
9:54
the ability to
9:55
sense and respond to what’s going on in
9:58
the market
10:00
and
10:00
deliver the right things at the right
10:03
time and
10:04
tbm
10:06
and the financial
10:08
approach to maximizing
10:10
the impact that our dollars have is
10:13
contingent on us working on the right
10:16
things
10:18
an agile organization
10:20
is built around delivering value quickly
10:25
and with high quality
10:27
but
10:29
we can only deliver the right value
10:33
quickly and with high quality if we’re
10:35
aligned on the strategy and we’re
10:37
aligned on
10:39
building the right things because if
10:40
we’re not building the right things the
10:42
organization’s going to continue to go
10:44
very quickly but it’s going to build the
10:47
build things that aren’t needed at the
10:48
time we’re delivering it so
10:51
when we talk about
10:53
frameworks like
10:55
agile at scale like scaled agile
10:57
framework
10:58
we’re talking about
11:00
driving the ability across the
11:02
organization from the beginning to the
11:04
end of the value stream to be able
11:07
to
11:08
to deliver value at the right time and
11:10
in the right place
Agile at Scale
11:14
and one of the other important parts is
11:16
creating flow throughout the
11:18
organization so
11:20
value stream management is about
11:23
identifying how value flows through the
11:25
organization and then eliminating
11:27
bottlenecks and creating flow and this
Creating Flow
11:30
flow starts at the top it starts with
11:33
senior management it starts with senior
11:35
leaders and it starts with
11:37
very often our budgeting and funding
11:40
process which is a key component of lpm
11:44
and a key component of our tbm
11:46
implementation so
11:49
value stream management is going to
11:50
drive continuous flow of value in the
11:53
organization and it’s also going to
11:55
drive identifying and removing
11:57
impediments to that flow and impediments
12:00
are things like
12:02
silos dependencies
12:04
handoffs manual processes and other
12:07
inefficiencies in our organization which
12:10
inhibit the flow of value and it and
12:13
ultimately inhibit our agility
12:16
one of the things that we often see is
12:18
that it’s the budgeting process itself
12:21
the financial processes
12:23
the project approval project change
12:26
order uh processes
12:29
um and
12:31
the types of metrics and reporting that
12:33
we’re
12:34
gathering
12:37
either are inhibiting or not providing
12:39
the visibility into the actual flow of
12:42
value that we need so um so this is one
12:46
of the reasons why that organizing
12:47
around value is so important because it
12:50
inhibits our ability to really deliver
12:52
value and that continuous flow of value
Value Management Office
12:56
this is where we start to talk about
12:58
changing
12:59
organizational constructs in your
13:01
organizations
13:03
increasing in popularity today is the
13:06
value management office very much as an
13:09
alternative to the product
13:11
or the project management office
13:13
and a traditional waterfall approach to
13:16
projects being replaced with a an agile
13:21
long-lived
13:23
product oriented value stream oriented
13:26
approach
13:27
so
13:28
value management office is a is a common
13:31
term
13:33
you may hear this
13:35
as
13:36
as a lean portfolio management office
13:39
as an agile pmo
13:42
or as something like a value
13:45
recognition office
13:47
you can use a number of terms here the
13:49
key is
13:51
we are moving away from that
13:53
that idea of
13:56
big upfront
13:57
design and planning and budgeting for
14:00
projects and kind of creating a
14:03
speculative scope of what we think we’re
14:05
going to be able to accomplish
14:07
and replacing it with
14:10
with an approach that’s really focused
14:13
on
14:14
the teams delivering the value
14:17
optimizing the organization of those
14:19
teams and then creating the right
14:23
metrics and reporting and visibility
14:26
into what’s being worked on so that we
14:28
can make informed decisions about
14:31
prioritization and shifting
14:34
um from the decisions that we may have
14:36
met may have made in the past to what’s
14:39
the decision that’s
14:41
that that makes the most sense today in
14:43
today’s business environment
14:46
when we look at how we create this flow
14:50
what we’re looking at here is scaled
14:52
agile’s approach to
14:54
kanban and visualizing the flow at the
14:56
strategic level there’s a whole lot
14:58
going on in this
15:00
in this kanban board
15:02
it’s really
15:05
laying out the process from the intake
15:08
from the funnel where we
15:10
get good ideas all the way through
15:13
our agile and iterative
15:15
and experimental
15:17
uh
15:18
mvp driven approach to development so
15:22
while we don’t have enough time to talk
15:23
about this in detail here uh
15:26
happy to to follow up with you
15:29
at our booth after this talk um
15:33
or in another setting
15:36
continuous innovation continuous
15:37
improvement um is something that is
Continuous Improvement
15:41
part of the culture of any organization
15:44
that’s adopting tbm or agile
15:48
we don’t have a final destination of
15:51
just implementing tbm or becoming agile
15:55
those are tools that are driving us
15:57
forward
15:58
to
16:00
to improve our organization for
16:02
continuous improvement and to create
16:06
an environment where we can really
16:08
innovate and create good ideas into the
16:11
future so the idea of continuous
16:13
improvement is foundational to both tbm
16:16
and agile
16:18
the frameworks that we adopt to
16:21
implement tbm and agile through value
16:24
stream management through lean portfolio
16:26
management
16:27
need to drive a continuous improvement
16:30
culture and a continuous innovation
16:33
culture in our organizations
16:37
and when we implement a lean portfolio
16:39
management approach it’s it’s a feedback
16:43
loop
16:45
from both
16:46
senior leadership about what we want to
16:48
accomplish from a strategic
16:50
theme and from an okr perspective but
16:53
it’s also from the development teams
16:57
and the people
16:58
doing the real work
17:00
about ideas for improvement
17:04
and learning from what we’re building
Financial Reporting Metrics
17:08
and then finally we need the right
17:11
financial reporting and metrics and this
17:13
is where it really brings us to the tool
17:15
sets that
17:16
that actio and target process
17:19
provide in the market so
17:22
so transparency is also foundational to
17:26
tbm and foundational
17:28
to
17:29
um
17:30
to agile and we need the right tools to
17:34
to drive our
17:36
our reporting and the visibility into it
Transparency
17:38
so we come back to tbm um and our
17:42
digital transformation cloud
17:44
and having the right tools which aptio
17:47
provides
17:49
through the apti 01
17:51
product suite for supporting tbm through
17:54
cloud ability supporting the digital
17:56
transformation in cloud and then plan
17:58
ability and apo target process
18:02
that help visualize and roll up
18:05
the uh the agile
18:07
delivery process
18:10
um so tbm and agile are very
18:13
complementary but we also have to call
18:15
out that there are some friction points
18:17
between tbm and we’re still evolving tbm
18:21
um to
18:23
to fully embrace agile in the places
18:25
where it makes sense to do that
18:27
and
18:28
and often this project language that’s
18:31
still
18:32
found in tbm
18:33
can cause misunderstandings between
18:35
different parts of the organization
18:38
and this is where
18:39
where we really want to make sure that
18:41
we’re tying the tbm and agile
18:44
initiatives together other
18:46
which is what lpm does and what scaled
18:49
agile helps us do because otherwise
18:52
we’re going to end up with
18:54
conflicting messages from different
18:56
people in different parts of the
18:57
organization
Wrapup
19:00
so we’re going to leave you with this
19:02
tbm and agile are highly compatible
19:05
there’s a lot of overlapping goals
19:07
and approaches here
19:09
and tbm agile
19:12
digital transformation cloud lean
19:14
portfolio management value stream
19:16
management these are all complementary
19:19
pla practices that are most effective
19:21
when they’re implemented together
19:24
and thought of as
19:26
all contributing and pulling in the same
19:28
direction
19:30
and the flip side of that is they’re
19:31
significant pitfalls if you don’t do
19:33
that and if you don’t coordinate them so
19:36
hopefully that’s given you some things
19:38
to think about that’s where i’m gonna
Outro
19:40
leave you if it’s uh if it’s prompted
19:43
you to uh to think about something new
19:46
or have questions uh please stop by our
19:48
booth and continue the conversation we’d
19:50
be happy to talk to you
19:52
thank you very much and enjoy the rest of the tbm conference