From PMO to VMO: Managing for Value Delivery

by Sanjiv Augustine, Roland Cuellar, Audrey Scheere

Overview

“By the end of this book, you will understand what is valuable, how to measure value, and how to optimize the flow of value—from idea to your customer.” —Evan Leybourn, co-founder and CEO, Business Agility Institute

Agile methods have brought about dramatic changes in how organizations manage and deliver not only IT services, but their entire product and service value streams. As legacy organizations transition to newer, end-to-end agile operating models, the Project Management Office (PMO) needs to redesign its mission and operation to be more in line with these modern ways of working.

That requires being more customer-focused and value-adding, and less hidebound, bureaucratic and tied to antiquated processes and mindsets. Visionary leaders are transitioning into enablers of this change, and maximizing value through the entire organization. Middle management, including program and project managers (PMs), are racing to maximize their professional relevancy in this new world.

This book defines the role of the agile value management office (VMO), using case studies and a clear road map to help PMs visualize and implement a new path where middle management and the VMO are valued leaders in the age of business agility.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781523091362
Publisher:	Berrett-Koehler Publishers
Publication date:	09/07/2021
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 9.06(h) x 0.49(d)

About the Author

Sanjiv Augustine is founder and CEO of LitheSpeed LLC and the Agile Leadership Academy. He is an entrepreneur, industry-leading agile and lean expert, speaker, management consultant, and trainer. Augustine has served as a trusted advisor over the past twenty years to executives and management at leading firms and agencies. He is author of the books Managing Agile Projects and Scaling Agile.


Roland Cuellar was the senior vice president of business agility at LitheSpeed, where he helped large organizations move towards end-to-end agility. For the last fourteen years, Cuellar focused exclusively on agile software development and lean business process improvement.


Audrey Scheere is the senior vice president of marketing and training at LitheSpeed, where she directs the team’s strategic initiatives and portfolio of services. Scheere has been a project consultant for ten years, focusing on media and communications.

Table of Contents

List of Tables xiii

List of Figures xv

Foreword xix

Preface xxiii

1 Introducing the Agile VMO 1

Middle Management Is the Keeper of the Execution Model 6

PMOs Are under Attack 9

Transforming the PMO into an Agile VMO 10

2 Defining an Agile Process 19

Establish High Discipline as the Driving Goal for All Your Agile Processes 22

Take a Calibrated Approach to Defining Your Agile Processes 24

Define Metrics That Support and Drive Dynamic Transformation 31

Develop Process Controls as Natural Outputs of the Process 37

3 Organizing around Value Streams 48

Organize as Adaptive Networks of Teams 50

Define Flexible Value Streams by Customer Journeys 54

Establish the VMO as a Team of Teams 59

Fund Experience-Aligned Teams by Value Stream 60

4 Adaptive Planning 64

Large-Project Lock-In 65

Working the System 67

Negative Customer Outcomes 68

Conform to Value Rather Than Comply to Plan 68

Plan, Deliver, and Measure in Small Batches 69

Measure Business Outcomes, Not Stage Outputs 71

Sense and Respond to Business Conditions 72

Apply Adaptive Planning at Multiple Levels 75

Conduct Strategy Planning-Scenario Planning, OKRs, and MMPs 76

Conduct Portfolio Planning-Portfolio Kanban 84

Conduct Product and Release Planning-Product Road Map and Big Room Planning 87

Conduct Sprint/Iteration and Daily Planning 91

5 Tracking and Monitoring Program Flow 95

Understand Visual Management Systems 98

Track and Monitor Program Flow with VMSs 102

Drive Continuous Learning and Adaptation 110

6 Prioritizing and Selecting MMPs 113

Plan for a Fundamental Shift from Project to MMP Delivety 115

Select MMPs for Maximum Financial Impact 119

Use WSJF to Prioritize and Select the Most Impactful Options 125

7 Evolving a Funding and Governance Strategy 134

Budget, Predictability, and Outcomes 135

Flexible Funding: What Will Consumers Value? 136

Provide Fixed Funding for Value Streams 140

Strategize More Frequently; Annually Is Not Fast Enough 142

Monetize at the Feature Level 143

Devise a Fixed-Cost Model for Your Stable Agile Teams 147

Adopt Business Outcomes as Key Governance Controls 151

Utilize a Lean Business Case 153

Require Frequent Delivery, and Measure Incremental Business Results 155

Recognize That It Is Fundamentally about the Time Value of Money 157

8 Managing Organizational Change 160

Recognize That Change Is Extraordinarily Difficult 161

Design and Set Up a Holistic Change Management System 166

Position the VMO to Drive the Change 173

9 Setting Up Your Agile VMO 175

Create the VMO as a Cross-Functional, Cross-Hierarchy Team of Teams 176

Ensure End-to-End Representation with Clear Roles and Responsibilities 178

Establish the VMO's Meetings and Cadence 179

Launch the VMO 184

Manage the Agile Lite Cycle 186

Manage the Agile Life Cycle-Getting to Ready 186

Manage the Agile Life Cycle-Getting to Done 188

Scale Up the VMO to Multiple Levels with an Enterprise VMO 188

Notes 195

Acknowledgments 199

Index 201

About the Authors 209

Editorial Reviews

A thorough and thoughtful approach to harnessing the power of organizations to deliver at scale, drive demonstrable value, and realize organizational change in a fast-paced, agile world. A good and engaging read and a keeper reference for any organizational leader.”
—Scott Richardson, CIO, Enterprise Data and Analytics, Ally Financial
 
“How do we effectively transform from a few isolated agile projects to a large set of enterprise products? This is the essential problem addressed by From PMO to VMO. This book blends a firm conceptual base with a set of pragmatic practices to offer a powerful portfolio management process that delivers dynamic product value.” 
—Jim Highsmith, former executive consultant, ThoughtWorks, and coauthor of Edge
 
“In 2005, Sanjiv Augustine wrote one of the first books to address what it meant to manage an agile project with an empowered, self-organizing team. This new book is equally on the cutting edge in presenting powerful ideas and strategies for transforming project management offices into value management offices.” 
—Mike Cohn, cofounder of the Scrum Alliance and Agile Alliance

“From PMO to VMO provides a clear vision of how to make value tangible inside your organization—and more importantly, how to do so with the teams and capabilities that already exist. By the end of this book, you will understand what is valuable, how to measure value, and how to optimize for the flow of value—from idea to your customer.” 
—Evan Leybourn, cofounder and CEO, Business Agility Institute
 
“This book fills the knowledge gap that exists within so many companies of how to effectively manage a lean-agile delivery system at scale. It is a great achievement of balancing the need for portfolio management and discipline with nimble and fast-moving teams.”
—Thomas Paider, Fortune 100 technology executive and coauthor of The Lean IT Field Guide
 
“From PMO to VMO lays out a road map to expand your agile transformation well beyond the walls of IT. The book provides compelling evidence and concrete actions senior IT leaders should follow to improve the speed, quality, and efficiency of overall delivery.” 
—Kevin G. Fisher, former Associate Vice President, Lean IT, Nationwide Insurance
 
“A vision and a road map for transforming the traditional PMO into a refreshing model of Agile Value Management Office (Agile VMO) that focuses on measuring, prioritizing, and delivering customer value. If you are a project manager or work with a PMO, this is a must-read to help you navigate the future of organizational agility.”
—Dr. Rashina Hoda, “Voice of Agile Research,” Associate Professor, Monash University
 
“It is a challenge to keep up with all the significant developments from lean, agile, and design thinking and then see where they fit in a busy PMO. From PMO to VMO lays out all the major building blocks and explains how they fit together to create a modern, functioning VMO that adds value and supports both teams and the business.”
—Mike Griffiths, CEO, Leading Answers Inc., and author of Beyond Agile
 
“Once again, Sanjiv Augustine is at the vanguard of organizational thinking—always focusing on the why, not just the what and how. This book is a practical road map for adopting an agile, value-driven approach to managing the output of your organization.”
—Max Keeler, Senior Techie at Large, The Motley Fool
 
“I’ve been leading agile teams for over fifteen years. Each leg in my journey to learn and impart agility has felt like steps toward something better, but steps to what exactly? This excellent book finally explains, with much clarity, the point of it all.” 
—Don Sargent, CTO, Chronicle of Higher Education

“This comprehensive guide combines the distinctions of lean-agile processes and enterprise management science to create a value-driven engine for enterprise agility. As a bonus, it is easily applicable to any agile/scaling framework. Managers and leadership will learn how to shift focus from managing to maximizing value and how to utilize the existing structure for building the desired outcome. Highly recommended.”
—Deepti Jain, founder of AgileVirgin and India Agile Community Development Chief, Agile Alliance

From the Publisher