25 March Two themes for Portfolio Agility March 25, 2012 By Administrator Account Methodology, Portfolio Management, Project Management Ideas, Tools agile, benefits, collaboration, communicate, communication, culture, data integrity, drivers, failures, fast, faster, ideas, investments, mehtodology, portfolio, prioritizing, project, selecting, speed, sponsor, success 0 I have seen the future and it is agile. The agile I am talking about is not a tool, or methodology, or a movement. It is the outcome when Project Managers have discussions with Sponsors on how to go faster, or how to beat competitors, or how to win new business. Portfolio management is listing, prioritizing, selecting, and controlling business ideas/investments in the context of the top success drivers and constraints affecting the business. In my experience, many projects are handed to the Project Manager that have risks or budget or schedule issues that the PM can’t even quantify. Unfortunately, these very items are likely to be the root cause of missed expectations, budget overruns or schedule delays. Our challenge is to enter into an ongoing conversation to ensure the right investments are being made at the right time. We need to develop and design a new way of thinking to respond to the needs of the business. Here are two themes to help support this change: 1. Focus on enhancing the collaboration and communication between the person managing the work (Project Manager) and the person who wants the work done (Sponsor). Create visibility anytime and to any desired level of detail. Speed everything up so that we can see business benefits/failures faster. 2. Gain trust by eliminating multiple sources of data/truth by bringing data integrity into the project and program environment. Ensure culture is conducive to increased reporting. Communicate better about those things that people care about. I first head the following from an industry research analyst, “We need better brakes … so we can go faster”. How true! By investing in portfolio management skills and tools to improve communication and data quality, the organizations we support will have improved agility to amplify successes and reallocate resources from underperforming projects. Related Articles What value are you creating with your IoT? | Stephen Wise The increasing capability to digitize the physical world presents enormous dollar opportunities. IoT and its technology provides the ability to sense the world or take an action or both. For example, manufacturing applications include operations optimization, predictive maintenance, inventory optimization, and health and safety. McKinsey has suggested that the economic impact of IoT in factories will be valued at 1.2 to 7.7 trillion US dollars in 2025. Most companies can explore the following over arching models: Transform business process; Enable new business models; or Combine with other advanced technologies like AI and blockchain. Developing a business model to reduce your costs or enhance the customer experience is the first transformation step. Here are my top 5 tips for developing your IoT business strategy. Ensure the business case has clarity for how the company will capture value from the IoT solution internally or from customers. Executive sponsorship of the IoT portfolio of activities requires business led cross-functional support from all areas of the enterprise; IT enables IoT for the enterprise, not the other way around. Involve manufacturing and the frontline in up-front planning as monetizing IoT benefits depends on business process change and change to customer experience. For example, most implementations will require/suggest for things to be done differently as part of the future state – buy-in from those impacted is critical. Engage partners and internal resources to augment the new skill sets that will be required to maintain and use functionality. Networking and connectivity, Data science, and security will all be learning curves. Manage all your IoT initiatives as a portfolio to initiate/cancel, prioritize, and balance projects according to revenue, cost, resource availability, and risks. The pervasive embedding of IoT hardware is a given. IoT is reshaping the way enterprises manage processes. Albeit, the usefulness and timing for when it is helpful that your fridge knows it will soon be out of milk is not clear. Nevertheless, the great value to be gleaned in Health, Transportation, Retail, Manufacturing, and so on is logical. Monetizing the power of sensor-enabled data and knowing how to deploy is a disruptive change that should be on everyone’s business radar. Stephen Wise www.IntegrationProfessionals.com Dramatically Improve Traction Comments are closed.