This presentation/session covers "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. This presentation /session also emphasizes to link (also how to link) business value to Epics and Features related to product to maximize impact of product at earliest launch.

1. Aligning Agile to business value
Rajneesh Verma
Delivery Transformation and Operational Excellence
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2. Content
 Fundamental need to link value
 What is Business Value* ?
 Some stats on Organizations that adopt Agile
 Stats -Does every thing delivered to customer is of value to the customer ?
 What does companies do to improve and align Agile to Business value
 Methods for determining Business Value
 Business Value Game
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3. 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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4. Any Feature, Solution, Product or Service with Business Value will help
• Add New Business
• Up Sell
• Retainment
• Operational Efficiency * Source : Scruminc., Calculating Business Value, Agile 2014
Business Value* ?
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5. Study by Forrestor Consulting, 2017, USA, suggests that:
Organization that adopt Agile - stats
80% agree that it should focus on driving business value.
Most Organizations believe that Agile practices provides
value to the Business.
Large number of organizations recognize that “development
practices” must primarily focus on delivering more value to
the business, such as
- improving the customer experience of the software, or
- delivering new services to acquire new customers.
BUT THAT VALUE GOES UNMEASURED AND
UNRECOGNIZED
In reality, 62% still rely on speed to determine the success of
these efforts, and only 45% focus on value as a metric. Most
Organizations are challenged to move beyond typical IT
focused metrics like speed and quality to business-focused
metrics like CSAT, competitiveness, and so on.
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6. Does all Epics and features add Business Value* ?
* Source : Scruminc., Calculating Business Value, Agile 2014
How do you tell which features add Business
Value* ? What should you do?
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7. Prioritizing EPIC and Features can deliver radically more Business Value ?
* Source : Scruminc., Calculating Business Value, Agile 2014
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8. Steps taken to improve and aligning Business value to Agile
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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9. Methods for determining the Business Value
* Source : Scruminc., Calculating Business Value, Agile 2014
 CFA 9

10. 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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11. • 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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12. 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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13. Appendix 13

14. * Source : Scruminc., Calculating Business Value, Agile 2014
 Back
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