portfolio backlog

The trinity in LPM (Lean Portfolio Management) are S&IF (Strategy and Investment Funding), APO (Agile Portfolio Operations), and LG (Lean Governance). Essentially, the areas of concern are: S&IF connects the portfolio to the enterprise strategy and has the 'bag full of money' to fund value streams, provides flow of work of value; APO runs away with the money and concerns itself in the execution of the flow of work of value in the portfolio; LG measures portfolio performance, dynamically allocates budget and addresses compliance matters. Of course, there are more to these ... we are just scratching the surface... but...…

Xerox... mouse ... 'Windows'... Legend has it that, long before they were world famous, on their visit to Xerox, both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs had their first glimpse of a computer device that can move things on screen -- now called 'the computer mouse' -- and a Graphical User Interface -- the 'window frames' that you see on Microsoft and Apple computer systems today. These ideas came from the creative brains of some engineers from Xerox (Palo Alto) ... these were great ideas from the perspective of then young Gates and Jobs; but not so to the executives at…

It starts with an idea... from anyone in the enterprise. Did you know that you can scale-up Kanban? Yeah you can... from individual, to team, to team of teams, to the team of teams of teams, to portfolio, to the enterprise...see picture below for an example of a portfolio Kanban. The idea -- if were to track the workflow or journey of the idea via the portfolio Kanban -- goes into the 'Funnel' state... then flows from there... where it might get chucked out or might get implemented at the end of the flow. To be continued...

At the Portfolio-level, SAFe has three constructs: S&IF, APO, and LG. Which of these provide flow of value? Think about it. To be continued...