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

Your product requires several teams working together. But most of the scaling frameworks add control points, which create hierarchy and less collaboration. That hierarchy and control points slow everything and make it more difficult to finish faster.

You don’t need a framework to release a complex product. Instead, organize the work to remove the barriers to collaboration. With principles based on collaboration, you can create an effective agile and lean program to create and release products your customers want.

Scale collaboration, descale process, and release products that customers want.

Transcript

1. Agile & Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization Johanna Rothman jr@jrothman.com www.jrothman.com (all my links) https://linktr.ee/johannarothman
2. © 2025 Johanna Rothman 2
3. © 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
4. © 2025 Johanna Rothman Program Management • Organizing and coordinating several projects’ results into one deliverable. • That deliverable has the value to the organization. • Product focus 4
5. © 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
6. © 2025 Johanna Rothman Scaling process leads to bloat Scaling collaboration leads to product 6
7. © 2025 Johanna Rothman Agile Teams 7
8. © 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
9. © 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
10. © 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
11. © 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
12. © 2025 Johanna Rothman What’s most effective for your organization to pass around information in minutes or hours? 12
13. © 2025 Johanna Rothman Rumor Mill 13
14. © 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
15. © 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
16. © 2025 Johanna Rothman Roadmaps & Backlogs Provide Team Autonomy • Roadmap is the wish list • Backlog is what teams will do • Rank everything by value • Sometimes learning about risk is valuable 16
17. © 2025 Johanna Rothman All Too-Typical “Agile” Roadmap 17
18. © 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
19. © 2025 Johanna Rothman Continual Planning One month rolling wave: time based 19 One quarter lean roadmap: scope-based
20. © 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
21. © 2025 Johanna Rothman Lean is Essential • See the fl ow of work all over the organization • Manage WIP • Create knowledge • See the whole 21
22. © 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
23. © 2025 Johanna Rothman What About Component Teams? 23
24. © 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
25. © 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
26. © 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
27. © 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
28. © 2025 Johanna Rothman 28
29. © 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:
30. © 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
31. © 2025 Johanna Rothman All My Books (Organized) 31 Product Development Management Personal Development
32. © 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