Manage Your Project Portfolio: Increase Your Capacity and Finish More Projects (Pragmatic Programmers)

Contents......Page 9
Foreword by Ron Jeffries......Page 13
Foreword by Tim Lister......Page 15
Preface......Page 17
Meet Your Project Portfolio......Page 22
What a Project Portfolio Is......Page 23
See the High- and Low-Level Views......Page 25
Now Try This......Page 28
Managing with a Project Portfolio......Page 29
Managing Without a Project Portfolio......Page 30
What Are Your Emergency Projects?......Page 33
Lean Approaches to the Project Portfolio......Page 34
Why You Should Care About the Project Portfolio......Page 35
Your Portfolio Reflects Your Influence Level......Page 38
Now Try This......Page 39
Know What Work to Collect......Page 40
Is the Work a Project or a Program?......Page 43
Organize Your Projects into Programs As Necessary......Page 44
Organize the Portfolio......Page 48
Using Tools to Manage a Portfolio......Page 49
Now Try This......Page 50
Should We Do This Project at All?......Page 51
Decide to Commit, Kill, or Transform the Project......Page 52
Commit to a Project......Page 53
Kill a Project......Page 56
How to Kill a Project and Keep It Dead......Page 58
Killing a Senior Manager's Pet Project......Page 59
Kill Doomed Projects......Page 60
Transform a Project......Page 62
Now Try This......Page 64
Never Rank Alone......Page 65
Rank Order the Projects in the Portfolio Using Points......Page 66
Leftover Points Provide Metadata......Page 69
Rank the Projects by Risk......Page 73
Use Your Organization's Context to Rank Projects......Page 74
Who's Waiting for Your Projects to Be Completed?......Page 76
Rank the Work by Your Products' Position in the Marketplace......Page 77
Use Other Comparison Methods to Rank Your Projects......Page 78
Don't Use ROI to Rank......Page 81
Publish the Portfolio Ranking......Page 83
Now Try This......Page 85
Organize to Commit......Page 86
Build Trust......Page 87
Prepare for Collaboration......Page 89
Set the Stage for Collaboration......Page 90
Facilitate the Portfolio Evaluation Meeting......Page 91
How to Say No to More Work......Page 93
Fund Projects Incrementally......Page 95
Never Make a Big Commitment......Page 96
Discover Barriers to Collaboration......Page 98
Who Needs to Collaborate on the Portfolio?......Page 105
Now Try This......Page 106
Decide When to Review the Portfolio......Page 107
Select an Iteration Length for Your Review Cycles......Page 109
How to Decide If You Can't Change Life Cycles, Road Maps, or Budgets......Page 115
Make Decisions as Late as Possible......Page 117
Now Try This......Page 118
Keep a Parking Lot of Projects......Page 119
Conduct a Portfolio Evaluation Meeting......Page 120
Conduct a Portfolio Evaluation Meeting at Least Quarterly to Start......Page 125
Now Try This......Page 127
Lean Helps You Evolve Your Portfolio Approach......Page 128
Choose What to Stabilize......Page 129
Stabilize the Timebox......Page 130
Stabilize the Number of Work Items in Progress......Page 132
Fix the Queue Length for a Team......Page 136
Management Changes When You Stabilize Something About Your Projects......Page 138
Now Try This......Page 139
Measure Value......Page 140
What You Need to Measure About Your Projects......Page 142
Measure Project Velocity: Current and Historical......Page 144
Measure Cumulative Flow for the Project......Page 147
Measure Obstacles Preventing the Team's Progress......Page 149
Measure Run Rate and Other Cost Data, If Necessary......Page 153
Don't Even Try to Measure Individual Productivity......Page 154
What You Need to Measure About the Portfolio......Page 155
Measure Capacity by Team, Not by Individual......Page 158
People Finish More with Lean and Agile......Page 159
Now Try This......Page 160
Define the Business You Are In......Page 161
What Good Is a Mission, Anyway?......Page 162
Define an Actionable Mission for the Organization......Page 163
Draft a Mission from Scratch......Page 165
Brainstorm the Essentials of a Mission......Page 166
Refine the Mission......Page 168
Derive Your Mission from Your Work......Page 169
How to Define a Mission When No One Else Will......Page 170
Beware of the Mission Statement Traps......Page 171
Make the Mission Real for Everyone......Page 173
Now Try This......Page 174
Start Somewhere …But Start......Page 175
Glossary......Page 177
Bibliography......Page 180
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M......Page 188
P......Page 189
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W......Page 193
Z......Page 194