This is the third blog in Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) series. In previous blog, I mentioned about Strategic alignment and investment funding practices. We have also discussed about traditional approaches Vs new approaches with respect to people vs work. If you have missed it then I request you to have a look on previous blogs –
1 – Need for the Lean Portfolio Management
2 – Strategic Alignment & Investment funding
Traditionally, to maintain alignment between organization, portfolio, programs we used to have dedicated PMO’s like Portfolio Management Office, Program Management Office etc.. In the Agile approach, to support Lean Portfolio Management Operations power of planning and execution shifted to self sufficient Agile Release Trains (ART’s) and it also supports decentralized decision making.
Now to maintain an alignment between independent ART’s and organization we do have operational functions as Agile PMO or better term as Agile Value Management Office (AVMO) and Lean Agile Center of excellence (LACE). I prefer calling it Lean Agile Center of enablement (LACE).
So, what are responsibilities of AVMO or LACE?
Their primary responsibilities are to support and enable Program execution, co-ordinate value streams and drive Operational excellence.
In any Agile Transformation, it is very important to be aligned and productive. Most of the times, it is better to dissolve traditional PMO’s and transitioned team to Agile PMO or AVMO. They can really focus on enabling and supporting strategy alignment, funding, Agile contracting process, Training’s etc. They also support Communities of Practice (CoP’s) which collaborate regularly to share information, improve their skills, and actively work on advancing the general knowledge of the domain. These CoP’s can be role based CoP’s like Community of Practice for Scrum Masters, COP for RTE’s. and topic based CoP’s like CoP for DevOps, CoP for Quality Engineering etc.
next term is Lean Agile Center Of Enablement (LACE)
It can be standalone group or part of AVMO, who are supporting and promoting Lean Agile – new ways of working. This group should bring strategic transformation vision with thought leadership. The responsibilities of the LACE includes effective communication of need and urgency for change, facilitating Lean-Agile training, reporting on the progress of Lean-Agile initiatives, and assessing progress.
I kept this blog short as next one will be last blog in this series and will discuss Lean Governance as part of blog 4. So please stay tuned and wait for next Article..Happy reading !
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.
– Lao Tzu
