Just as you want to see your calendar in high-level views (yearly and monthly) and in more detailed views (weekly and daily), you’ll need to look at your portfolio the same way. Sometimes, you need to see the big picture for the whole organization to see where people are working.
Sometimes, you need to see the details to understand who is doing what and when.
Throughout this book we’ll look at a variety of tools for working with the information you store in your portfolio. You often have to decide whether you need to take a high-level look at your portfolio to get a feel for all of the projects you have working or a low-level view that shows you more of the details but less of the overall pattern.
The following is a high-level picture of the portfolio for the organization.
You can see when the projects start and when everyone expects them to finish. This portfolio is at too high a level to see who’s doing what.
But, if you are looking at the chart in January, you can see which projects have actually started, which ones you want to start (Project3), and which ones are scheduled to start.
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Unstaffed Work Month/
Projects
Project5 Project5 Project4 Project4 Project4 Project3 Project3
Project3
Project2 Project2 Project2
Project1 Project1
Project1
May April
March February
January
I like using “unstaffed” for projects that haven’t started yet or for ones I wish I could start but don’t have the staff to start yet. That’s because I want to know the following:
• Have we started to work on this project at all? If so, can the project team measure its velocity and use that as a prediction when we’ll be done enough with this project?
• Do we need to reevaluate the portfolio if we have not yet started this project?
• Based on changing market or business needs, do we need to change who is assigned to the project, whether we should staff this project, or whether we should change the project?
Answering yes to any of these questions means it’s time to rethink your management decisions about projects.
If you use an agile life cycle, see how your portfolio might look, espe- cially if you have to support already-existing projects:
Project 3 Project 3 Project 3 Project 3
Unstaffed work Project 3
Week 5
Project 4 Project 1
Project 2 Support Work
Irene, Stuart, Steve, Sandy, Betty, Brian
Project 4 Project 2
Project 1 Support Work
Tina, Tristan, Isabel, Inge, Sebastian
Project 1 Project 1
Week 4 Week 3
Week 2 Week 1
Week Team
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In this portfolio, you can see that the teams work on one project for a two-week timebox, do a week of support, and then work on a project for another two-week timebox.1This is not the only way to manage support work, but the portfolio makes that decision transparent.
This next figure is another view of a low-level portfolio, where you can see who is assigned to which projects and, in this case, features for the projects.
This organization is using an incremental life cycle, not an agile life cycle.
Week1 Week2 Week3 Week4
Tina Project1 Feature 1 Project1 Feature 1 Project1 Feature 4 Project1 Feature 4 Terri Project1 Feature 1 Project1 Feature 1 Project1 Feature 4 Project1 Feature 4 Tristan Project1 Feature 2 Project1 Feature 2 Project1 Feature 5 Project 2 Feature 1 Isabel Project1 Feature 2 Project1 Feature 2 Project1 Feature 5 Project 2 Feature 1 Irene Project 3 Feature 17 Project 3 Feature 17 Project 3 Feature 17 Project 2 Feature 1 Inge Project 3 Feature 17 Project 3 Feature 17 Project 3 Feature 17 Project 1 Feature 7 Stuart Project 3 Feature 17 Project 3 Feature 17 Project 3 Feature 17 Project 1 Feature 7 Steve Project 1 Feature 3 Project 1 Feature 3 Project1 Feature 6 Project 1 Feature 7 Sandy Project 1 Feature 3 Project 1 Feature 3 Project1 Feature 6 Project 1 Feature 7 Betty Project 1 Feature 3 Project 1 Feature 3 Project1 Feature 6 Project 1 Feature 7 Brian Project 1 Feature 3 Project 1 Feature 3 Project1 Feature 6 Project 1 Feature 7
Mary Man Management Management Management Management
Unstaffed work
Project 3, Feature 18 Project 3, Feature 18 Project 3, Feature 18 Project 2, Features 2, 3, 4 Project 3, Feature 18
This portfolio reflects who’s working on which feature in an incremental life cycle. It’s clear who is assigned to which feature and what work this group cannot start until some people finish what they are doing—or until someone in management changes the priority of the work.
Connecting Management’s Desires with Reality by Vijay, Development Manager/Project Manager
My manager came to me with yet another project. So, I showed him my monthlong project portfolio, with all the unstaffed work. He said, “But we want these three projects done,” as he pointed to the high-level portfolio. I swallowed and said, “Well, we can’t do them in this time with the other work we have.”
He sighed. With the evidence in front of him, in a picture with colors, he couldn’t argue. Well, he could, but it wouldn’t have helped. I said, “Look, we can work in shorter timeboxes. We can start—and finish—fewer
1. Notice that all of these portfolio pictures start and end neatly on month or week boundaries. That’s not because portfolios work like that but because it’s easier to show the month or week boundary in a picture. If you finish a project or a feature on a Wednes- day, your next project or feature would start on Thursday.
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features. You could even give me more open reqs so I can hire more people. I guess we could incur some technical debt, but that would anger Major Big Customer. Have you really ranked the projects in the order you want them? If you have, we need magic. But maybe you can rerank and haveeveryonein the group work on just one project. We could finish that one and then go on to the next one.
Having the high-level perspective helps the whole organization see what the company expects each group to do. Having the low-level perspective helps the project team and first-level managers make the current reality match expectations.
There is nothing like showing your manager data to help set their expec- tations about what you can—and cannot—do.