In the last blog we looked at the idea of scaling agile to more strategic levels of the organization and discussed the benefit that business capabilities and value streams can bring. Not only does a value stream-aligned investment approach focus efforts on optimizing performance, it provides a context against which any proposed changes can be assessed and decisions made. However, effective and efficient strategic decisions aren’t enough on their own.
The aforementioned decisions need to be implemented, and that’s where enterprise agility comes into its own. With value stream management, there is an increasing focus on digital product development. These may be customer facing products, or they may be standalone applications that form a part of a solution, or that support an element of internal operations. These digital products are supported by dedicated, permanent teams and directly align with one or more value streams, while delivery occurs continuously as features and functionality are completed.
When an external disruptor, or an internal strategic decision, impacts one of these products, the team needs to be able to adapt and adjust quickly – ensuring that the work that they are carrying out remains aligned with the delivery of optimum value. This requirement means that they must operate autonomously – with the freedom to make the changes that are deemed necessary without having to wait for approvals. This action helps to minimize disruption, and ensure changes can be implemented as quickly as possible to maintain close alignment between work and benefits.
All of this can only happen when agile product teams have the information that they need to make those decisions. This is where ServiceNow’s Now platform provides a unique advantage. The strategic, value stream-aligned investment decisions are driven through ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM), and teams operating with their Agile work tools have immediate access to necessary information, driving faster, better decisions across every piece of work the organization is undertaking – whether an agile product or not.
By utilizing ServiceNow SPM, organizations can effectively and efficiently adjust work on projects, programs, epics and any other work structure based on the evolving strategic priorities. Teams can adapt their work to maintain benefits alignment; portfolio and program managers can adjust resource assignments to reflect those changes; investment owners can move funding to focus on priority areas and so on.
With the Now platform providing a single data model and architecture, all stakeholders can see every moving part in a context that makes sense for them in real-time. Then, when things change again as they inevitably will, the cycle can be repeated. At no time is there confusion, misalignment or missed adjustments because the entire organization has insight in how value needs to be delivered, the work that is being done to deliver that value, and the progress that is being made.
For more information on implementation of Agile principles, join us on Thursday, July 27 to hear from experts on how you can manage strategic investment performance to equip enterprises with the business agility to respond to economic pressures in today's global economy. Sign up here!
