Five Steps to Make Your Project Portfolio Flow

by Sanjiv Augustine, Roland Cuellar, Arlen Bankston

In most organizations adopting agile methods, the techniques used for program and portfolio management are still predictive and "waterfall": yearly budgeting cycles and capacity planning, and heavily matrixed resource management. It's no surprise then that despite adopting agile methods for their projects, many organizations have yet to exploit their full benefits at the portfolio level. Put another way, agile projects are constrained because their portfolios are clogged: with the debris of failing projects, with slow-moving projects that delay more critical initiatives, and with the inability to properly staff projects and deliver them at a rate that their business customers would appreciate. How can the project portfolio be unclogged so that business value can flow and projects can complete faster?