Uncertainties and market volatility are today the norm Setting a vision and strategic plans able to survive to such a situation is a complicated exercise for any companies C-Levels must navigate this continual and perpetual changes; they must provide themselves with tools capable of tackling this complexity, adapt quickly, engage and keep the whole company connected Exploiting the huge potential of OKRs and Lean Portfolio Management and then connecting them to exploit each other, is the best response to face these challenges

1. Emiliano Soldi
AgileTriathlete
https://www.EmilianoSoldi.it
Agile Open Day
19 Maggio 2023
Napoli
ADAPTIVE STRATEGY
Combining OKR and Lean Portfolio Management
Business Agility Practice Lead
Accenture Italy, Central Europe, Greece

2. Levels of disruption increased
by 200% from 2017 to 2022,
while it rose only 4% from 2011 to 2016
Source: Accenture Global Disruption Index is a composite measure that covers economic,
social, geopolitical, climate, consumer and technology disruption

3. 3
Copyright © 2023 . All rights reserved.
Technology innovation, Climate change, Energy Crisis,
Inflationary pressure and overall geopolitical uncertainties,
created a context where organizations need
to simultaneously reduce operative and production costs,
while increase levels of innovation and adaptability
Source: Total Enterprise Reinvention Report

4. Will we survive?!

5. «The future always comes
too fast and in the wrong order»
Alvin Toffler
«The pace of change we are
experiencing today will be
the slowest we will experience
in the rest of our lives»
«Future belongs to those who
understand the pace of change
and are able to adapt to it»

6. Yeah, we can do that! We do have Agile …don't we?!

7. …however, bottom-up Scrumming is not enough

8. Value
Priorities
Alignment
Focus
Fast-feedback
Vision
We have to turn things upside down

9. Adaptive organizations constantly evolve
and modify their own businesses
They try new approaches, identifying
the most promising and, once found,
they scale it up
Then, they repeat the cycle again and again…

10. Yes…And?

11. OPEN STRATEGY
An open approach for strategy
exploration and definition
OKRs
Collaborative goal setting approach
for vertical and horizontal alignment
LPM
Aligning strategy and execution
by applying Lean-Agile approaches
AGILE
An iterative and customer centric
approach for fast value delivery
Strategize
Coordinate
Execute
Adaptive Strategy
approaches allow
companies to
thoroughly sense
the market, collect
ideas, set goals and
prioritize by value
the initiatives to be
executed
This topic alone deserves an entire brand new talk…

12. OKRs
“A management
methodology that
ensures a company
focuses its efforts
on common
important issues in
the organization”

13. Travel Guide
STRATEGY
GPS
OKR
Dashboard
KPI
What’s the difference between
Strategy, OKR and KPI?

14. OKRs combine both qualitative
and quantitative elements to create
and define a goal in a comprehensive,
clear, and challenging way
OBJECTIVE
Ambitious statement
of intent, focus and
direction over time
KEY RESULTS
Tangible results that
quantify success over
a specific time period
Becoming the primary player in our industry
for lower post-consumer waste
➢ KR1: Reduce single-use plastic packaging by 50%
➢ KR2: Use 70% recycled material for new products’ packaging
➢ KR3: Launch «buy-back» program within 2023 Dec 31°
Visibility
Frequency
Focus
Definition
of Success

15. Copyright © 2023 . All
Corporate
Business
Unit
Team
OKR
1st Level
OKR
2nd Level
OKR
3rd Level
OKR
2nd Level
OKR
3rd Level
OKR
3rd Level
OKRs are firstly
created at the top
Each organization area
targets higher-levels or
lateral ones
OKRs alignment occurs
vertically and horizontally

16. OKR are checked-in regularly ensuring maximum alignment
16
YEAR X | Q4
NOVEMBER DECEMBER
YEAR X+1 | Q1 YEAR X+1 | Q2
Corporate
OKR
Business
Unit
OKR
Team
OKR
Brainstorming
and creation
Communication
Brainstorming
and creation
Communication
Communication
JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH APRIL
Check-In Check-In Check-In Check-In
Brainstorming
and creation
Preparation
Check-in is a quick meeting where teams review and reflect on their
OKRs progress and set any new priorities for the upcoming weeks
GOALS PROGRESS ACHIEVEMENTS ADJUSTMENTS

17. 17
Now you need speed-up funding and execution…

18. 18
✓ Stiff phase-gate demand management
✓ Overly detailed business cases are necessary
✓ Everything seems to be critical
✓ Finance is ruling the game (not IT nor business)
✓ Funding is assigned on yearly-basis
…but suddenly you find yourself like this

19. 19
Business
Outcomes
Focus is on value and
continuous prioritization
to maximize business
outcomes
Adaptive
Development
Exploits frequent delivery
by funding Minimum
Valuable Products (MVPs)
pursuing early assumptions
validation
Flexible
Funding
Budget is allocated
dynamically to fund
the most valuable
initiatives
Capacity Driven
Delivery
Long-lasting agile teams
pull high priority initiatives
according to their
competences and capacity
Building 4 key Lean organizational capabilities
is key to quickly tackle any market changes

20. 20
Customers
Value Stream 1
Value Stream 2
Value Stream n
Solutions
Dep A Dep B Dep C Dep n
Needs Lean
Portfolio
1
Lean
Portfolio
2 Initiatives
Value Streams represents the sequence of activities, the people
and the systems needed to create and end-to-end value to the
Customer, from customer need to the delivery of value to him/her
Lean Portfolios
receive budget to
realize organization’s
strategic themes
through value streams
First, arrange organizations around value streams
Now, organize them through Lean Portfolios

21. Monthly Sync
✓ Evaluate, prioritize and advance
Initiatives
✓ Take funding and go/no go decisions
for implementation
✓ Review / update Initiatives Roadmap
Quarterly Review
✓ Define / review investment Objs
✓ Define / review investment policies
✓ Review demand nmgm
performances
✓ Identify improvement actions
21
FUNNEL
Identify / Collect
new ideas
REVIEW
Pre-qualify
Initiatives
ANALYZE
Lightweight
Exploration
Waiting for
Implementation
BACKLOG
IDENTIFY AND QUALIFY PRIORITIZE EXECUTE AND MEASURE
Initiatives
Implementation
No longer
Portfolio concern
IMPLEMENTING DONE
Business
Requirements
Technology
Enablers
Month 1 Month 2 Month 3
LPT Team is a cross-functional one
made of decision makers that
collaboratively analyze and review
initiatives to take the best-informed
decision for the good of the companu
Finance
Business IT
LPM helps qualifying and approving initiatives, and
continuously assessing business results
Source: Adapted from SAFE - Scaled Agile Framework

22. 22
Amazing…but how can we align
the two practices to maximize
even further their value?

23. 23
Initiative 1
Portfolio
Backlog
Initiative 2
Initiative 3
Initiative 4
Initiative 5
Initiative 6
Initiative 7
Initiative 8
Initiative 9
Initiative 10
Teams, once they
have created their
own OKRs,
proceed to
identify the
activities with
whom to target
their goals and
achieve Key
Results
OBJECTIVE A
KR1 KR2 KR3
OKRs are being used to identify initiatives
that need to achieve expected results

24. Portfolios realize organization’s strategic themes and use OKRs as
well to set direction and measure results
Prioritization initiatives algorithm (e.g., Cost of Delay) can be used by
adding multiplier factors for the most important Key Results
OKRs can be used to describe initiatives’ objectives and results
that need to be achieved
OKRs check-ins meetings can be matched with Portfolio Review
events to have an holistic view of organization target achievements
24
OKRs and Lean Portfolios can be combined to tackle
any market changes and drive results achievement

25. THANK YOU!
Uncertainties and market volatility are today the norm
Setting a vision and strategic plans able to survive to such a situation
is a complicated exercise for any companies
C-Levels must navigate this continual and perpetual changes; they must provide
themselves with tools capable of tackling this complexity, adapt quickly,
engage and keep the whole company connected
Exploiting the huge potential of OKRs and Lean Portfolio Management and then
connecting them to exploit each other, is the best response to face these challenges