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Prepared exclusively for William Anderson Download at Boykma.Com What Readers Are Saying About Manage Your Project Portfolio If you leave the office with more projects than you started the day with, this book is for you. This isn’t an abstract or theoretical book; Johanna offers practical advice that will help you manage your project portfolio—whether you are a team lead, a middle manager, or a senior executive. Esther Derby Author and consultant, Esther Derby Associates, Inc. At last! Now, we can get serious about extending an agile approach beyond individual projects and begin to extract further value from our agile programs and portfolios. Johanna’s book lays out many ways to manage your portfolio—agile or otherwise—and will give you, the manager, the practical tools to apply agile principles beyond the project. Managers in the field will be relieved to be able to get crucial insights from a thought leader in the agile space, and I believe this book will take its place among the best in the field. Sanjiv Augustine President, LitheSpeed Author, Managing Agile Projects The hardest thing about managing an agile enterprise is prioritizing across projects. Johanna’s book shows how to do this, and it should be on every manager’s desk. Dan Rawsthorne, PhD Certified Scrum trainer, Danube Technologies Businesses improve (and profit) by finishing projects, not starting them. In this book Johanna Rothman clearly shows managers how, by making just a few simple changes, they can finish more projects and make considerably more money. This is an important book—a book that should be read by every manager. Clarke Ching Theory of constraints consultant, SpiceUpIT.com Prepared exclusively for William Anderson Download at Boykma.Com While many books focus only on tools and methodologies, Johanna highlights the importance of the critical but often overlooked “soft skills”—trust, influence, negotiation, collaboration—in successful portfolio management. Her approaches are extremely flexible and easily adapted to various life cycles as well as to the culture of your company and team. This book is a must-read for all software development management (and read Manage It! first)! Ellen R. Salisbury Managing director, Cambridge West Ventures Juggling competing priorities is what managers are paid to do, but few get the coaching they need to do it well. Manage Your Project Portfolio brings expert coaching within reach. Dave W. Smith Software development coach Johanna offers us a down-to-earth pragmatic book on portfolio management. Her conversational style is very engaging. When I picked up the book, I couldn’t put it down until I read it cover to cover. She anticipated many of my questions and provides practical answers. This book is filled with solid advice on all aspects of project portfolio management for the individual as well as the enterprise. It belongs on the bookshelf of anyone serious about delivering business value through good portfolio management practices. Bob Wysocki President, Enterprise Information Insights You need to read Johanna Rothman’s Manage Your Project Portfolio. If you are a confirmed “agileist,” you will see how core agile principles have been used to deal with the value an organization expects from its projects. If you are a traditional PMO professional, you will find the insights and points of reference are uncomfortably familiar, because the examples and the outcomes she presents come from her (and our) experiences. Take note of the lessons learned in getting things done, and you should be able to avoid the fate of your colleagues who didn’t take the time to read this book. Mike Dwyer Principal agile coach, BigVisible Solutions, Inc. Prepared exclusively for William Anderson Download at Boykma.Com Prepared exclusively for William Anderson Download at Boykma.Com Manage Your Project Portfolio Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects Johanna Rothman The Pragmatic Bookshelf Raleigh, North Carolina Dallas, Texas Prepared exclusively for William Anderson Download at Boykma.Com Many of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book, and The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters or in all capitals. The Pragmatic Starter Kit, The Pragmatic Programmer, Pragmatic Programming, Pragmatic Bookshelf and the linking g device are trademarks of The Pragmatic Programmers, LLC. Every precaution was taken in the preparation of this book. However, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages that may result from the use of information (including program listings) contained herein. Our Pragmatic courses, workshops, and other products can help you and your team create better software and have more fun. For more information, as well as the latest Pragmatic titles, please visit us at http://www.pragprog.com Copyright © 2009 Johanna Rothman. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior consent of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. ISBN-10: 1-934356-29-8 ISBN-13: 978-1-934356-29-6 Printed on acid-free paper. P1.0 printing, July 2009 Version: 2009-8-17 Prepared exclusively for William Anderson Download at Boykma.Com To anyone who’s ever been asked to focus on more than one project at a time. And, to Mark, Shaina, and Naomi, who help me realize what is most important. Prepared exclusively for William Anderson Download at Boykma.Com Prepared exclusively for William Anderson Download at Boykma.Com Contents Foreword by Ron Jeffries 13 Foreword by Tim Lister 15 Preface 17 1 Meet 1.1 1.2 1.3 2 See Your Future 2.1 Managing with a Project Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 Managing Without a Project Portfolio . . . . . . . . 2.3 What Are Your Emergency Projects? . . . . . . . . 2.4 Lean Approaches to the Project Portfolio . . . . . . 2.5 Why You Should Care About the Project Portfolio 2.6 Your Portfolio Reflects Your Influence Level . . . . 2.7 Now Try This . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 4 Your Project Portfolio What a Project Portfolio Is . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . See the High- and Low-Level Views . . . . . . . . . . . . Now Try This . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 23 25 28 . . . . . . . 29 29 30 33 34 35 38 39 Create the First Draft of Your Portfolio 3.1 Know What Work to Collect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 Is the Work a Project or a Program? . . . . . . . . . 3.3 Organize Your Projects into Programs As Necessary 3.4 Organize the Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Using Tools to Manage a Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 Now Try This . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 40 43 44 48 49 50 Evaluate Your Projects 4.1 Should We Do This Project at All? . . . . . . . . 4.2 Decide to Commit, Kill, or Transform the Project 4.3 Commit to a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4 Kill a Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 51 52 53 56 Prepared exclusively for William Anderson . . . . . . . . Download at Boykma.Com 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8 4.9 5 6 7 CONTENTS How to Kill a Project and Keep It Dead Killing a Senior Manager’s Pet Project Kill Doomed Projects . . . . . . . . . . Transform a Project . . . . . . . . . . . Now Try This . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 59 60 62 64 the Portfolio Never Rank Alone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rank Order the Projects in the Portfolio Using Points . Leftover Points Provide Metadata . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rank the Projects by Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Use Your Organization’s Context to Rank Projects . . . Who’s Waiting for Your Projects to Be Completed? . . . Rank the Work by Your Products’ Position in the Marketplace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.8 Use Other Comparison Methods to Rank Your Projects 5.9 Don’t Use ROI to Rank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.10 Your Project Portfolio Is an Indicator of Your Organization’s Overall Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.11 Publish the Portfolio Ranking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.12 Now Try This . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 65 66 69 73 74 76 Rank 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 Collaborate on the Portfolio 6.1 Organize to Commit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Build Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Prepare for Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Set the Stage for Collaboration . . . . . . . 6.5 Facilitate the Portfolio Evaluation Meeting 6.6 How to Say No to More Work . . . . . . . . 6.7 Fund Projects Incrementally . . . . . . . . . 6.8 Never Make a Big Commitment . . . . . . . 6.9 Discover Barriers to Collaboration . . . . . 6.10 Who Needs to Collaborate on the Portfolio? 6.11 Now Try This . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77 78 81 83 83 85 86 86 87 89 90 91 93 95 96 98 105 106 Iterate on the Portfolio 107 7.1 Decide When to Review the Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . 107 7.2 Select an Iteration Length for Your Review Cycles . . . 109 7.3 Defend the Portfolio from Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 7.4 How to Decide If You Can’t Change Life Cycles, Road Maps, or Budgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 7.5 Make Decisions as Late as Possible . . . . . . . . . . . 117 Report erratum Prepared exclusively for William Anderson this copy is (P1.0 printing, July 2009) 10