Thanks to all of you who came to hear the highly regarded Barbara Roberts from the Agile Business Consortium (ABC) at our OnTarget in Sydney and Melbourne last month.
It was our final OnTarget for the year, but looking around at such a packed-out room it clearly tackled a subject that resonates with many of you in our industry: Agile Portfolio Management.
For those unable to join, and by way of recap, Barbara Roberts, head of the not-for-profit, Agile Business Consortium (ABC), has been a leading proponent for Agile methods long before it was even called Agile, and has led numerous transformations in a variety of sectors. ABC pioneered Agile and continues to inspire new developments and thinking such as the role of innovation at the heart of the Framework for Business Agility.
With so many different Agile methods, this session was not about this one or that one, but rather Barbara aimed to outline how an agile approach to portfolio management can help organisations prioritise and achieve business agility, while still maintaining an agnostic approach to the best methodology for the purpose.
This is why we at PM-Partners are immensely proud to be the global launch partner for Agile Portfolio Management, and follows our partnership with the Agile Business Consortium announced earlier this year.
The session included an outline of considerations involved in basic Agile Portfolio Management concepts, such as Agile Portfolio roles and responsibilities, agile budgeting and value-focused portfolio prioritisation, balancing and blending.
Barbara highlighted telltale signs of known issues with traditional portfolio management, such as rigid planning and budgeting, overly ambitious expectations of the actual capability to change, and a gap in skills and buy-in between senior stakeholders and those delivering the change.
She then painted the picture of Agile Portfolio Management where benefits range from a more engaged workforce, to cross-functional (vs siloed) value, better realisation of strategic goals and benefits, and visibility in the value provided. There were countless others, often more specific to the portfolio. More critically, she paired these benefits with the core behaviours for agile portfolios to succeed.
For more information on our Agile frameworks, and on scaling agile for Business Agility, or general advice on Agile adoption and coaching, phone us today on 1300 70 13 14.