If you ask most business leaders how they expect a particular piece of work to be completed, they likely won’t have a strong opinion. Whether something is delivered using a waterfall project or an agile epic is irrelevant to them – what matters is that the solution is delivered and that it is capable of enabling the business outcomes that drove the work in the first place.
This need to deliver an effective solution has been one of the major drivers of the adoption of agile methodology across organizations. Having two distinctly different ways to deliver work – traditional, plan-based or waterfall and agile, means that there is twice as much chance of having the most effective approach for each individual situation. But as technology continuously redefines what is possible, and as organizations commit to continuous evolution in order to keep priorities, work and outcomes aligned, these two approaches aren’t enough.
All of this is why hybrid work delivery is such an important evolution for business leaders. It isn’t just a third option for delivering work, it’s an infinite range of options, dramatically increasing the chance of being able to deliver work as effectively and efficiently as possible. Providing project managers and their teams with the ability to combine and adapt different elements of work delivery into a unique mix for each initiative enables those teams to focus on execution instead of compliance.
As long as there is a lean governance framework in place, providing teams with the ability to adapt and adjust their approaches within that framework means that they can always focus on delivering solutions that optimize the ability to achieve required business outcomes. Hybrid work delivery also acts as an enabler for autonomous teams, putting decision-making authority where the work is being done, rather than in the hands of sponsors or other stakeholders who are further removed from the work.
With these enablers business leaders get exactly what they need – teams of people who can consistently deliver what the business needs, even in a changing environment, without being restricted by process. There’s only one caveat – for this to succeed there has to be integrated management of all work to ensure that priorities, investments, work execution and outcome management are always aligned.
That’s where ServiceNow comes in. Our Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) solution provides organizations with a powerful way to seamlessly connect all aspects of strategy. Planning drives investments, which drives work, which enables benefits that can be validated against planned goals and objectives. SPM doesn’t care whether work is delivered using waterfall, agile, or some combination of both because it integrates with work management tools for all of those approaches. And because SPM is part of the Now platform, business leaders have complete transparency across all work, all functions and all departments. To learn more about the importance of hybrid approaches, check out the webinar here.
