The ICON Blog

More often than not, the shift to Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) is not an overnight one. After all, it takes time to pivot from traditional Project Management (PPM) to a lean-agile LPM capability, especially since we want to get the SAFe Essentials established first. But the benefits are clear—better exposing strategy and demand and having a big picture view of capacity and impact on delivery provides better alignment and transparency, which in turn informs better decision making and trade-off discussions at all levels. But where do we begin?

In this slide presentation, you will learn the context of LPM and view field-tested, practical approaches to get started.

With the holidays around the corner, you might be on the verge of hosting an upcoming celebration. Oh, the stress! You know what it’s like pulling together a party that everyone can enjoy. As the host, you tend to get wiped out before the party even gets going!

What if I told you that there was a better way to plan and execute your parties, based on personal experience? If I were you, I'd consider using Kanban for one of your upcoming celebrations.  Not only does it help with organization, but it also provides more opportunities for fun—for both you and your guests.

Intrigued? Below, I will share with you my story behind "Celebrations with Kanban," as well as some tricks and tips for your next party, so you can enjoy it as much as your guests.

Do you find that your teams and Business Owners have a hard time digesting PI Objectives, what they are and their purpose in PI Planning? Their PI Objectives can end up sounding more like features (“Add the green widget feature to the purchase screen”), and sometimes they are ignored entirely.

DevOps is a market buzzword, with nearly every enterprise trying to implement DevOps to remain relevant in their industry. When I was first introduced to DevOps, I was skeptical—over 40 deployments in a day and 200x shorter lead times? I was extremely concerned about the security and robustness of these builds being deployed, as the only artifacts to support this were from smaller companies. There was nothing to prove that DevOps worked in large enterprises.

How does a Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe) Transformation stick and sustain? An important key to success is having communicative leaders who commit to organizational culture change. While this commitment is best obtained from the C-suite or VPs early in the sales cycle, it is also the hardest. SAFe Transformations tend to start and stop in the IT department, where the primary goal is to produce a faster software development lifecycle.

All politics about fake news aside (PLEASE!), I’ve heard a growing number of reports, sighs and cries about Fake Agile. It’s frustrating when people just don’t get it, especially when they think they do. We can point fingers and vilify those who think differently—or we can try to understand why this “us vs them” mindset is splintering the Agile community. After all, isn’t that what a true Agilist would do: take an empirical and collaborative approach?

Agile is disciplined; not reckless.

“That’s not how we do things here.”

“That will never work for us.”

“That’s not our culture.”

Sound familiar? Maybe you’ve heard or even said one of these phrases before. If so, you might be trudging through a Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe) Transformation.

If you think that your SAFe Transformation is doomed to fail because your organization is unique—so unique that industry best practices couldn’t possibly apply to you—then let’s dispel that myth right now. That's not why SAFe Transformations fail. Sure, context matters, but at the end of the day, large enterprises across all industries have the same problems.

...Because the world is moving too fast not to be Agile!

At the XP 2002 Conference, The Standish Group showcased their study of how often features were used in a typical system. According to the results, features were used “often” or “always” only 20% of the time. 15 years later in 2017, after the software development world had largely embraced incremental delivery methods, the Standish Group conducted the same study again. The result? Still only 20% of features were used “often." There was little to no significant change.

If you’re a newly minted SAFe Program Consultant (SPC), then congratulations! After all your agile/project/program management experience and diligent studying to pass a difficult exam, you deserve a sense of accomplishment. However, as you may already suspect, your journey has only just begun. To be an effective SPC for years to come, more will be required.

Today’s topic is near and dear to my heart. I’ve had the opportunity to work with and observe several great SPCs during the last five years, and I’ve learned nuances and success patterns for the multifaceted endeavor of becoming a great SPC.

Have you ever said a word to someone, let’s say “puppy,” and got a positive reaction from one person, and a negative reaction from someone else? Why is that? It’s the same word! It turns out there are two types of meanings to words, and it’s the second type that makes all the difference in the world.