Abstract: This session will cover "What makes sense for Business Agility" and "How to achieve same", "What needs to be done to link Business value to Product and services" so as to maximize the business outcome and return over investment. This presentation also covers the various stats from market and methods for determining business value. Session will also emphasize to link (also how to link) business value to Epics and Features related to product to maximize impact of product at earliest launch of features. Key Takeaways: 1.What makes sense for Business and what brings value to Business? 2.What is Business Value? 3.What makes sense to deliver Business Value? 4.Determining Business value; Linking business value to product/services features

1. Aligning Agile to Business Value
Rajneesh Verma
Delivery Transformation and Operational Excellence
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Content
 Fundamental need of Business & What value Agile brings
 Defining Business Value
 Prioritize by Business Value
 What Industry is doing - Stats
 Determining Business value
 Appendix - Business Value Game

2. Role of IT
.
Solution
.
Threats
Competition
Demanding
customers
Ever
Changing
Market
Any Business
(Organization)
• Primary Purpose:
Make Money
• Survival dependent
on
• Sustainable
Business
• Profitability
Expectations:
Survival of the Fittest- What makes sense for Business
Deliver product and
services to:
• gain new customers
• beat market
competition
• improve Customer
experience
• Satisfy
customer needs
Innovation
• Products & Services
• Way
products/services
are developed &
delivered
• Deliver innovative
solutions to gain
new customers
• Deliver product and
services as quickly as
possible to beat
competition
• Deliver solutions to
improve Customer
experience
• Deliver Quality
products to satisfy
customer needs
Other aspects
• Efficiency
• Employee Work-life
Balance
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3. Study by Forrestor Consulting, 2017, USA, suggests that:
Organization that adopt Agile – What they say?
Large number of organizations recognize:
BUT THAT VALUE GOES UNMEASURED AND
UNRECOGNIZED
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 they/their product & services must focus on
driving & delivering value to the business:
 Improve experience of existing customer
 Agile practices provides value to the
Business.
 Acquire new customers

4. * Source : Scruminc., Calculating Business Value, Agile 2014
Business Value* ?
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Intersection of:
• Skills, Capability
• Customer segment –
needs & wants
• Passion – Vision and Mission

5. Prioritize deliverables by Business Value
* Source : Scruminc., Calculating Business Value, Agile 2014
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 Add New Business
 Up Sell
 Retainment
 Operational Efficiency
Play Business Value Game - Planning Poker Style
Rank and prioritize
Feature, Solution by
Business Value they can
offer

6. What industry is doing for aligning Agile to Business value
Defining better business-related metrics and measuring business
outcomes. Measuring the success of initiatives allows
organizations to understand where they need improvement. For
that reason, it’s important to specify the metrics that
demonstrate business value
Improving Agile management and scaling. Adopting more
advanced Agile techniques requires tools that support automation
and collaboration. Scaling Agile requires integration and
collaboration across PPM, requirements management, and PM
governance to facilitate team collaboration across the enterprise.
Modernizing legacy applications. Organizations must modernize
applications in order to keep up with customer demands for new
and better experiences. This means not only delivering new
applications but also updating older ones.
Improving requirements definitions and management. Clear and
concise requirements definitions enable companies to improve
customer experience and avoid costly rework. A more
comprehensive view of requirements is also essential at scale,
since Agile alone does not cut it.
Study by Forrestor Consulting, 2017, USA
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7. Methods for determining the Business Value
* Source : Scruminc., Calculating Business Value, Agile 2014
 CFA
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8. Appendix 8

9. Product Owner is the “ultimate” role that is in charge of defining product
priorities and owns the product but involving other stakeholders like Market
Experts, Customers, Key Account Managers to support will lead to:
Play Business Value Game Planning Poker Style
• common agreement between the Stakeholders
• prioritization based on business value anticipated or expected by actual
stakeholders
• priorities understood and defined for the company and not for individuals or
specific departments only.
• All Stakeholders are aware and participate in defining what is more valuable
to the company, without delegating the whole responsibility to Product
Owners.
• Product Owners and Stakeholders in sharing information related to Business
Values in relatively short time.
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Back

10. • Invite all Stakeholders to a meeting, generally time-boxed (2h-4h), called Product
Management Board, where they will have to vote what is the Business Value of
each of the feature that is at the moment defined into the Product Backlog
(prioritized List of EPIC / Features).
Rules of Play
• Business Value will be determined relatively and justified in one of the following
main categories(customize per need in agreement in terms of what makes
sense):
• New Business: every feature that will potentially bring new customers or new
markets, will also bring a fresh flow of money
• Up Sell: every feature that will potentially bring money from existing customers and
could be sold as add-on, upgrade or plug-in
• Retainment: every feature that will avoid losing customers and will avoid the company
losing money as well
• Operational Efficiency: every feature that will allow the company to save money
(costs) given a potential increase in any operation (installation, configuration,
customization...)
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11. The Product Management Board meeting proceeds as follows
• The Product Owner will give the Stakeholders an overview of the features present in the Product Backlog.
Product Management Board meeting Planning Poker Style
Role Responsibility
Moderator: Product Owner (PO) Readout on EPIC/Features
Attendees: Stakeholder/ Business reps/ Acc managers etc. Participate in game, ask questions, justify value assignment to EPICs
Logistics : Room, Business Value Game Cards carrying values (100, 200..Fibonacci series)
• Stakeholders may ask questions and clarification on the features without going too much in details.
• Stakeholders will have to choose a well understood feature as a baseline and agree on a Business Value to assign to it.
• This value is not a “normal” number, but is one of the Business Value points in the sequence: 100, 200, 300, 500, 800,
1300, 2100, 3400.
• After baseline item (reference) is defined, PO does readout on next EPIC/ Feature. Each individual owning a full deck
of Business Value Game Cards, will lay a card face down representing his/her own estimate.
• Everyone calls their cards simultaneously by turning them over (face up). People with high estimates and low
estimates are given a soap box to offer their justification for their estimate and then discussion continues.
• The justification has to be in respect to the aforementioned “Business Value” categories, often the value importance
is also represented by the order: New Business, Up Sell, Retainment and Operational Efficiency.
• Repeat the estimation process until a consensus is reached.
• An egg timer is used to ensure that discussion is structured; the Moderator may at any point start over the egg timer
and when it runs out all discussion must cease and a round of poker is played.
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12. * Source : Scruminc., Calculating Business Value, Agile 2014
 Back
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