Practical advice for Re-Planning your project portfolio

1. Re-Planning in Force-Majeures
what is good to do with your projects in extreme circumstances
04-2020

2. Goal and main outcomes
You must be able to adapt your Project Portfolio to the current uncertain situation!
We’re going to discuss:
How to Re-Prioritize your projects Portfolio
What are useful advice to Re-Plan Projects with the highest priority
How to focus your limited resources on the most important tasks

3. Sergiy Potapov
Capacity builder – Achieve more. Faster!
15+ of managerial experience.
CCPM in Ukrainian IT.
Scrum in Ukrainian reforms (Prozorro)
Effectiveness for business,
Couching for NGOs,
Developing of Civil society,
Support for reform teams,
through the Project Management Systems
implementation.
Lecturer at LvBS, KSE, A-DTEK and more…

4. Example of «Black Swan»:
small probability ≠ impossible
• Why your Risk Management didn’t work?
low probabilities and avalanche impact
• Will your business model survive?
Concert tickets or FFP3 respirators
• Did your strategic goals change?
5* Hotel or Food Delivery service
• How Environment influences your business?
where are your goods in today’s supply
chains
• Are you able to adapt extremely fast?
Nobody is guilty,
But we have to react!

5. How does current reality impact your project Portfolio?
• What is with your clients?
• What do we have to deliver? What should we add?
«if the horse is dead, dismount!»
• What is your planning horizon today?
2 days? 2 weeks? 2 months? 6 months?!!
• What are the requirements for the outputs?
do you still have to deliver the same scope and quality?
• What is the priority?
what can you deliver faster? No impediments?
cash-flow maximization (considering penalties)
• How alive are your suppliers/subcontractors?
can you use the force-majeure paragraph in a contract?
Re-Prioritize Portfolio &
Freeze its bottom!

6. Changing Project Scope (What?)
• Value Breakdown Structure (VBS)
what is Mandatory to deliver Value?
• Requirements to the Deliverables
what is Good Enough today?
• Network Diagram
Break dependencies – try to parallel execution
Overlap tasks – intermediate result usually is enough
Reduce Quality – until it impacts the Value
Add resources – try to intensify execution
• Prototypes and Hypothesis
Tasks with the highest uncertainty we’ll try to deliver “tomorrow”
• Closure / Finish / Go Live
Try to re-define DoR/DoD with clients Re-Design WHAT!

7. Changing resources (Who?) — 5 focusing steps in TOC
• Does the delivery and execution depend on…?
it is hard to find a constraint if you are overloaded
• 100% value-add activities
the case of “Blue Light”
Matrix “I want – I must”
• Maximum help to the critical resources
what you CAN NOT delegate, why?
• Skill is more important than Qualification
would you prefer to wait for the senior or help to the
middle?
• Focus on speed
meetings, e-mails and messengers, task switching,
remaining duration units, “how can we help you?”
Effectiveness or
Efficiency?

8. Work during Quarantine
• What can you not deliver remotely?
Offices and office work were overvalued 
• Does your infrastructure let you work remotely?
Modern priority in IT-architecture requirements
• Online interactions
Personal findings: Discord, Miro
• Safety and Healthcare
Additional safety initiatives from employers
• Bus-factor ≠ 1
Plan to share project expertise through the company
A dedicated team is not the best solution at this time WHO must work
safely?

9. Changing Time estimates (When?)
• Check complexity of tasks with Cynefin
• Synchronize complexity and Qualification
Obvious – junior (delegation?) + instruction
Complicated – middle + mentor
Complex – a group of experts with parallel
hypothesis testing
• Be sure work is in a single-tasking mode
• Concerted DoD (Good Enough) and Full-Kit
agreed Exit Criteria by all parties
all needed for execution prepared in advance
• 3-points estimates and risks minimization
“Longtail” between the median and safe time
you can “cut the tail” by preparation
We have some tools to
push WHEN to the left!

10. Work during Quarantine - 2
• Decrease the number of meetings
do you really need a group discussion?
• Agility for employees with children
I really love schools… with the current level of learning
• Asynchronous and Synchronous channels
a structured e-mail with check-boxes or
the mind-flow in slack/viber/…
• Group-work on a single task
usually, the task could be decomposed deeper to the
operations and than assigned considering qualification
• Early problem finding and escalation
everyday monitoring of Remaining Duration Units with
an immediate decision about support/escalation
Foster
productivity

11. Changing Budget (How much?)
• Will you get money for the project? When?
Payment delays influence your decisions
• Do you need additional purchases?
Usually, you have to pay to suppliers earlier
• Can you buy speed up today?
It is important to finish the project earlier!!!
• Compare VBS with project Cost and Price
What if you will deliver just mandatory elements?
• Remember «sunk costs»
«a sum paid in the past that is no longer relevant to
decisions about the future!»
How much tomorrow ≠
How much in one month

12. Summary
• Re-Prioritize your project Portfolio (due date, cash-flow, value)
• Re-Design Project Scope (mandatory, good enough, DoR/DoD)
• What is your constraint (100% blue light, skills, focus on velocity)?
• Aggressive time-estimates (cynefin, 3-points estimates, full-kit)
• Try to buy speed-up for your projects
Freeze non-priority projects until you get single-tasking operations in constraint

13. Q&A
Sergiy Potapov
s.potapov.gm@gmail.com
@potapovsergiy
@potapovsergiy
@spotapov
“Your persistence to ensure your
resources are busy is one of the
biggest generators of waste”
E. Goldratt
Achieve more
Faster