Enterprise-level Agile Project Management

Making Agile Work at an Enterprise Level

Project Governance

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 Project Governance

© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 2

In this lesson, we’re going to talk about Project Governance. The words “Project
Governance” may sound like they’re inconsistent with an Agile approach but I don’t believe
that to be the case. If’s very possible to create a project governance approach with the
right blend of adaptivity and control to fit a given project and business environment. At an
enterprise level, some form of project governance is typically essential to keep all projects
aligned with the company’s business strategy.

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Levels of Project Governance
Strategic Enterprise
Business
Management

Enterprise-level
Project
Agile Approaches
Portfolio Traditional
Management Plan-driven
Hybrid
Management
Approaches
Today
Program-level

Project-level
Agile
Projects
Team-level
Tactical

Plan-driven Hybrid Agile Increasing Agility

and Adaptivity
Cobb, Charles, Managed Agile Development – Making Agile Work for Your Business, Outskirts Press, 2013
© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 3

This slide shows some of the typical levels of management and governance that you will find in
many organizations.

An Agile development approach is primarily limited to the team level and project level and there
are large gaps that need to be filled above that level and for each of those levels, there’s a choice of
an Agile approach or a more traditional management approach. It’s not really a binary choice
between these extremes, there are a number of ways to create a hybrid approach that we will
discuss in more detail in a later lesson.

There also ways to develop an Agile approach at the business management level – we’ll discuss an
example of that called the “Lean Startup” approach that was created by Eric Riess.

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Three Primary Project Governance Challenges

Aligning the efforts of all teams and projects with the

organization’s business objectives

Coordination with other related efforts outside of the project

team and providing tracking and progress reporting to
management

Integrating the efforts of multiple teams from a development

perspective

© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 4

At an enterprise level, there are three primary objectives in creating a project governance
approach:

1. The first objective is Integrating the Efforts of Multiple Teams from a Development
Perspective

2. Another important objective is coordination with other related efforts outside of the
project team and providing tracking and progress reporting to management

3. A final objective is aligning the efforts of all teams and projects with the organization’s
business objectives

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Project/Program Management
A number of factors require a stronger focus on
project/program management at an enterprise level:

Multiple Distributed Teams

Integration with Higher-level Business Goals

Coordination with Other Organizations and Stakeholders

Cobb, Charles, Managed Agile Development – Making Agile Work for Your Business, Outskirts Press, 2013

© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 5

Let’s first talk about the role of project/program management in a project governance strategy.
Project/Program Management is a very important component of an overall project governance
approach. There are a number of factors that require a stronger focus on project/program
management at an enterprise level:

• The first factor is Multiple Distributed Teams – Because of the size of enterprise-level
projects, there will frequently be a need for multiple teams. In many cases, those teams may
be distributed in different locations and cannot be easily co-located. That will require some
level of coordination and communications among and across those teams to ensure that
those efforts are well synchronized and consistent with producing the intended business
results.

• Another factor is Integration with Higher-level Business Goals – A major source of value-
added that a Project Manager can provide at the enterprise-level is integration with the
company’s business objectives. At the team level, that role is typically provided by a Product
Owner; however, at an enterprise level the workload associated with that function may easily
justify a Project or Program Manager. In some cases, the Project Manager might facilitate a
group of Product Owners or other business stakeholders who act as a steering group for the
overall project/program.

• Yet another factor is Coordination with Other Organizations and Stakeholders – Because large
enterprise-level solutions can have a very broad impact, there is typically a significant need
for coordination with other organizations and stakeholders who may be outside of the direct
day-to-day project team.

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Project/Portfolio Management

A project/portfolio management approach should be designed to

manage the company’s return-on-investment from project and products

Different approaches are possible depending on the level of financial

rigor required and other factors

Each approach provides a tradeoff between control/predictability and

agility

Cobb, Charles, Managed Agile Development – Making Agile Work for Your Business, Outskirts Press, 2013

© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 6

The next area of project governance to talk about is project/portfolio management. A

project/portfolio management approach is another important component of an overall project
governance approach. Project Portfolio management should be designed to manage the company’s
return-on-investment from projects and products by selecting the right mix of projects and then
tracking and monitoring the performance of projects to maximize the return. Different approaches
for achieving that are possible depending on the level of financial rigor required and other factors

• At one extreme, some companies may want to do some kind of financial analysis to identify and
track the return from projects and products but:

• That approach isn’t very consistent with agile and

• It may be impractical in environments with high levels of uncertainty

• A more agile approach is to plan strategies on the basis of high-level business initiatives in the
form of epics and use a more dynamic approach for project portfolio management (we will
discuss an example of that in the Valpak case study later)

Each approach provides a tradeoff between control/predictability and agility

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Enterprise-level Business Management
The “Lean Startup” concept is a very Agile approach to the development and
planning of strategic business initiatives.

The Lean Startup approach starts with a hypothesis of what the market wants
and, through a series of experiments, attempts to progressively validate and
refine that hypothesis.

It is most effective when there is a high risk associated with a business

strategy being successful because of the uncertainty of market acceptance.

Ries, Eric. The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Crown Publishing, 2011
Roush, Wade. Eric Ries, the Face of the Lean Startup Movement, on How a Once-Insane Idea Went Mainstream. Xconomy. July 6, 2011

© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 7

The last concept I want to mention regarding Project Governance is regarding Enterprise-level Business
Management. The “Lean Startup” concept is a very Agile approach to the development and planning of
strategic business initiatives. It was developed by Eric Ries and published in his book in 2011. The simplest
way to describe Lean Startup is an Agile approach for developing and managing a very dynamic and successful
overall business strategy.
The word “startup” may be misleading — the approach captures the essence of a very successful,
entrepreneurial startup company, but it can be applied to any size company at any stage of maturity. It is not
limited to companies that are in the startup phase, and can be used to rejuvenate larger, established
companies by infusing the mentality of a successful startup company into the environment.
Eric Ries developed the Lean Startup concept based on lessons learned from failed attempts of his own to
start a business or launch new products.
The idea behind the Lean Startup approach is that many business ventures or new product launches fail
because of some faulty assumptions about what the market wants. The Lean Startup approach can be a very
effective way to develop and validate a business strategy for new products in very uncertain markets.
The Lean Startup approach starts with a hypothesis of what the market wants and, through a series of
experiments, attempts to progressively validate and refine that hypothesis. The Lean Startup approach can
be a very effective way to develop and validate a business strategy for new products in very uncertain
markets
It is most effective when there is a high risk associated with a business strategy being successful because of
the uncertainty of market acceptance.

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 Instead of recognizing and validating the uncertainty behind
their assumptions, companies many times create elaborate
business strategies and expensive product development
efforts based on some very faulty assumptions that are
never fully tested and validated.
They don’t discover that some of the underlying
assumptions behind the business strategy were wrong until
an expensive development effort is completed, and by that
time it is too late to make a significant change.

© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 8

Instead of recognizing and validating the uncertainty behind those assumptions, companies many
times create elaborate business strategies and expensive product development efforts based on
some very faulty assumptions that are never fully tested and validated. They don’t discover that
some of the underlying assumptions behind the business strategy were wrong until an expensive
development effort is completed, and by that time it is too late to make a significant change.

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Lean Startup Approach
Business Strategy

Product Development

Traditional Product Development Approach Product Launch

Business Strategy

Incremental Product Development

Lean Startup Approach

Product Launch
Ries, Eric. The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses, Crown Publishing, 2011
Roush, Wade. Eric Ries, the Face of the Lean Startup Movement, on How a Once-Insane Idea Went Mainstream. Xconomy. July 6, 2011

© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 9

This slide shows a comparison of these two approaches:

• In a traditional product development effort, the business strategy and planning effort and the product
development effort are typically sequential. There is an assumption that the business strategy behind
the product is complete and is a sound strategy when the development starts, and only details of the
requirements need to be resolved.
• The Lean Startup approach starts with a hypothesis of what the market wants and, through a series of
experiments, attempts to progressively validate and refine that hypothesis. The difference is as
follows:
In a Lean Startup approach, the business strategy and planning effort are more concurrent with the
development effort. When the development effort starts, the business strategy is recognized as only a
hypothesis that needs to be tested, validated, and refined as the development effort progresses.

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 Overall Project Governance Strategy

© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 10

This slide shows an overall summary of an overall enterprise-level project governance strategy. As I
have mentioned, there are typically a number of management levels that need to be addressed;
and, at each of those levels, there is a choice of agility versus a more plan-driven approach. All of
these levels in an overall strategy should be in alignment.

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 NEXT LECTURE…
AGILE PROJECT GOVERNANCE
EXAMPLE

© 2014-2019 High Impact Project Management, Inc. 11

In the next lecture, we’re going to discuss an example of applying a project governance model to a
large, complex Agile project.

Thanks for taking the time to do this lecture and I’ll look forward to working with you in the rest of
the course.

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