This presentation provides a view into AgileEVM and how people can use this decision support tool along with good judgement to address recurring problems in software project portfolios today.

1. Portfolio Management
with AgileEVM
Getting toValue Faster
Brent Barton & Chris Sterling

2. Brent Barton - AgileEVM Inc.
President,AgileEVM Inc.
More than 15 years software development in many roles
as both employee and consultant for organizations from
small start ups to multinational corporations
Former CTO. Active Agile Coach, Mentor, Certified
Scrum Trainer
Actively involved in Agile Rollouts from small Product
companies to very large IT organizations
Scrum Articles
“AgileEVM – EarnedValue Management
in Scrum Projects”, IEEE
“Implementing a Professional Services
Organization Using Type C Scrum”, IEEE
“Establishing and Maintaining Top to
Bottom Transparency Using
the Meta-Scrum”,AgileJournal
“All-Out Organizational Scrum as an
InnovationValue Chain”, IEEE
www.AgileEVM.com
Email: brent@sterlingbarton.com
Web: http://www.sterlingbarton.com
Blog: http://www.gettingagile.com
Follow me on Twitter: @brentbarton

3. Chris Sterling – AgileEVM Inc.
Developer of AgileEVM ( www.AgileEVM.com ), a
project portfolio decision support tool
Technology Consultant,Agile Consultant and
Certified Scrum Trainer
Consults on software technology,Agile technical
practices, Scrum, and effective management
techniques
Innovation Games® Trained Facilitator
Open Source Developer and Consultant
Software technology, architecture, release
management, monitoring, and design consulting for
Agile Teams
Publishing book with Addison-Wesley called
“Managing Software Debt” - due out Dec 2010
Email: chris@agileevm.com
www.AgileEVM.com
Web: http://www.sterlingbarton.com
Blog: http://www.gettingagile.com
Follow me on Twitter: @csterwa

4. In the next 90
minutes...
• Describe Project Portfolio Management
• Why Agile challenges business
• Compare EarnedValue Management (EVM)
• Integrate into AgileEVM
• Workshop exercises
• Q&A
• AgileEVM demo (optional)

5. Project Portfolio
Management

6. Project Portfolio
Defined
A portfolio is a collection of projects or
programs and other work that are grouped
together to facilitate effective management of
that work to meet strategic business objectives.
source: PMI The Standard for Portfolio Management
— Second Edition

7. • We want to measure
outcomes, not outputs
• YES: BusinessValue
• not so much: Completed Projects
Project Portfolio
Management
Time
Business
Value

8. Effective Project
Portfolio Management
• Prioritization to maximize
BusinessValue
• Effective delivery to minimize costs
• Re-allocation of resources when costs are
too high or the benefit is too low
source: Cutter Journal

9. Agile...
from a business point
of view

10. Strengths of Agile
• Assertion of quality by self-organizing
teams
• Adaptive Planning

11. Weaknesses of Agile
• Cost management is (mostly) missing
• Uses abstract measures
• Relative points
• Ideal days
• Velocity
These create
business challenges

12. Uh oh,Time to go...
Maybe it’s Geoff...
Can’t I just know when we can
release and how much it will cost?
Earl, you can’t compare velocity of
one team with another! Estimates
are relative and team specific...
It depends...
Agile is a pain
in the @$$!

13. Agile partially supports
Portfolio Management
• Prioritize to maximize
BusinessValue
• Effectively deliver to
minimize costs
• Re-allocate resources
when costs are too high or
the benefit is too low
Agile
Agile

14. EarnedValue
Management (EVM)

15. ProjectedSlippage
Management Reserve
EarnedValue
(PV)
Total Allocated Budget
Time
Now
Completion
Date
$
PMB
EAC
Time
Over
Budget
PlannedValue
(AC)
Actual Cost
Project Management Baseline
Estimate at Complete
(EV)
EarnedValue

16. EVM Performance
Indicators
CPI < 1 CPI = 1 CPI > 1
Under Budget On Budget Over Budget
SPI < 1 SPI = 1 SPI > 1
Ahead of Schedule On Schedule Behind Schedule
Cost Performance Index (CPI=EV/AC)
Schedule Performance Index (SPI=EV/PV)

17. Strengths of EVM
• Integrates cost and schedule management
• Forecasts in financial units based on units
used for actual cost
• Decades of use
• Part of PMBOK (ANSI/PMI 99-001-2008)
• Part of EVMS (ANSI/EIA-748-B-2007)

18. Weaknesses of
Traditional EVM
• Expects everything
fully defined up front
• No assertion of quality
• Claiming value is earned
on intermediate
work products
Ugh!

19. Agile + EVM
• We want to measure
outcomes, not outputs
• Prioritize to maximize
BusinessValue
• Effectively deliver to
minimize costs
• Re-allocate resources
when costs are too high or
the benefit is too low
Agile
Agile
EVM
Agile
EVM
+

20. [Pause for Reflection]

21. AgileEVM

22. AgileEVM Background
• Mathematically proven that Release Dates
based on average velocity (story points)≡
estimate at complete (dollars)
• Key Assumption: The ratio of (story points
completed)/(total story points in a release)
is a good measure of Actual Percent
Complete

23. Scenario 1: Commit

25. Scenario 2:Transform

29. Quality Criteria
asserted by team

30. Scenario 3: Kill

32. Saturn RC-1 Forecasts
Mercury Forecasts
What are some options?

33. Q&A

34. If you want to look at
AgileEVM, we will
demo or catch us
anytime.