Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization: PMILOC

Slide 1

Slide 1 text

Agile & Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization Johanna Rothman [email protected] www.jrothman.com (all my links) https://linktr.ee/johannarothman

Slide 2

Slide 2 text

Slide 3

Slide 3 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman What Worked? • Clear program vision • Clear deliverables • Feature teams who delivered something daily • Unit tests and system tests as support • Respect and trust across the organization 3 Trust Respect Delivery

Slide 4

Slide 4 text

Slide 5

Slide 5 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Programs Are Riskier Than Projects • Projects don’t scale linearly to programs • Many more risks: • Overall duration • Number of teams, each on their own deliverable (project risks) • Number of features (product risks) • Integrations (mechanical, hardware, other vendors) 5

Slide 6

Slide 6 text

Slide 7

Slide 7 text

Slide 8

Slide 8 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman “Scaling” Agility from One to Many Teams • Autonomy: Teams manage how they work • Collaboration: Teams collaborate across the program • Exploration: Must experiment to learn and deliver • Program management creates the environment for the teams to deliver 8

Slide 9

Slide 9 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Programs are Complex or Complicated • Where do you have unknowns? • How can you discover information to reduce risk? (Probe, sense, respond) • Small deliverables • Frequent integration • Experiment and explore everywhere 9

Slide 10

Slide 10 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Organize the Teams • Teams decide on their own agile approach as long as they deliver often • Internal delivery as often as possible (hourly or daily) • External delivery depending on cost • Evolve the architecture • Plan to replan 10

Slide 11

Slide 11 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Agile and Lean Programs Require • Aside from the team’s autonomy, collaboration, and exploration: • Visualize product progress often • Free- fl owing information around the program 11

Slide 12

Slide 12 text

Slide 13

Slide 13 text

Slide 14

Slide 14 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Small World Networks • Small world networks are more-and- less connected agile teams • How connected are you to everyone else? • Everyone chooses how connected they are to other people • Programs take advantage of the network so they don’t need hierarchies 14

Slide 15

Slide 15 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Programs Can “Exploit” Small-World Networks • Feature teams take responsibility • Small-world networks provide autonomy and collaboration • Communities of practice help with exploration 15

Slide 16

Slide 16 text

Slide 17

Slide 17 text

Slide 18

Slide 18 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Reality of Plans… • Some feature sets have more changes, more features • Arrival rate of changes/new features is unpredictable • Some features more valuable than others • Leads to pressure on teams to do “more” & “change” 18

Slide 19

Slide 19 text

Slide 20

Slide 20 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Embrace Change • Faster releasing leads to faster feedback and risk reduction • Faster feedback leads to a more successful product • Value-based approach to product development 20

Slide 21

Slide 21 text

Slide 22

Slide 22 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Collaborate with Tests & Integration • Create a program environment where people can collaborate • Autonomous teams deliver features through the architecture • Creates safe exploration of what’s remaining 22

Slide 23

Slide 23 text

Slide 24

Slide 24 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Changes for Agile & Lean Program Management • Teams (not managers) manage their work: • “Commitment” • How they build features • Evolve architecture • Program management • Removes obstacles • Collects and explains program status 24

Slide 25

Slide 25 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Core Program Team • Manages organizational risks • Core program team has one objective: • Create a great product • They do that by deciding what will create better product business value • Business value is about the market for the product 25

Slide 26

Slide 26 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Software Program Team • Resolves obstacles for technical teams • Focus the teams on the business value of the architecture, the code, the testing… (so they can create a great product) • This is the technical nurturing of the product itself 26

Slide 27

Slide 27 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Seeing Program Progress • Program level measures! • Demos of working product is the best measure • How often can you see a demo? Every day? • Cycle time (for demos, if nothing else) • Never try to do anything with velocity 27

Slide 28

Slide 28 text

Slide 29

Slide 29 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Manage With Flow Metrics • WIP (Work in Progress) • Cycle or lead time (how long work takes) • Throughput (how much work goes through your “pipe”) • Aging (how old the work is) • See https://www.jrothman.com/ fl ow- metrics for a full explanation 29 Little’s Law:

Slide 30

Slide 30 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Scale Your Collaboration • Small-world networks of collaborative teams who release often to: • See product progress • Reduce risks • Experiment for feedback • Program management removes impediments & shepherds the business value of the product • It’s agile and lean all the way down 30 Trust Respect Delivery

Slide 31

Slide 31 text

Slide 32

Slide 32 text

© 2025 Johanna Rothman Let’s Stay in Touch • Pragmatic Manager newsletter: www.jrothman.com/pragmaticmanager • All my links: https://linktr.ee/johannarothman • Agile and Lean Program Management book: jrothman.com/alpm in all formats • See the value stream maps in Measure Cycle Time, Not Velocity: https://www.jrothman.com/ mpd/2019/09/measure-cycle-time-not-velocity/ • Flow metrics newsletter: https:// www.jrothman.com/newsletter/2024/01/ fl ow- metrics-and-why-they-matter-to-teams-and- managers/ 32