Value-based Planning and Enterprise Agility
In the first article in this series, we discussed three challenges standing in the way of Enterprise Agility:
- Lack of visibility
- Not being focused on value delivery
- Failing to train effectively
Assuming those challenges are being addressed, the next vital factor in the pursuit of Enterprise Agility is the formulation of an effective strategic plan.
Why planning is vital
“If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.”
That line is a cliche for a reason — it’s absolutely true and it applies to nearly every aspect of life. Looking at it from a business perspective, planning accomplishes some powerful things:
- Helps us clearly identify our goals
- Helps us understand the benefits of various potential actions
- Improves resource utilization so we can accomplish more
- Helps us understand the scope of effort required to reach an outcome
- Helps us identify the risks and roadblocks that may stand in our way
When organizations are pursuing Enterprise Agility, there are some specific aspects of planning that support that effort:
- A vision to plan against
- The scope of time in which parts of that vision must be executed
- A practical sense of how much work can be delivered in that amount of time
- A backlog of work items to be delivered in that time block
- The ability to prioritize those items so the most valuable items are completed first
- A buffer to allow for inevitable change
In some cases, organizations develop annual or quarterly plans without including some or all of these important facets. The resulting plan will certainly not support agility, and may not even support success.
How data drives “pivot or persevere” decision making
As a plan is developed, there are two basic ways to go about it:
- Hope and pray
- Base it on the data
The preferable method should come as no surprise. But it’s surprising how many companies choose door number one in a practical sense.
It doesn’t work to set up strategic plans based solely on what you wish you could accomplish in a year or a quarter. Rather, solid strategic plans that are going to guide value delivery and business success must be based realistically on historical data. Then, as you work the plan, real-time data should inform ongoing decision making to ensure you’re always heading in the right direction.
Data collection and radiation is a problem in most organizations
The classic data formats found in large organizations include:
- Spreadsheets
- Presentations
- Shared drives
All of these formats share some important weaknesses that can get in the way of effective data radiation:
- Human error (data entry, formula creation, inaccurate curation)
- Time delay (by the time the data is presented to decision makers, it’s already out of date)
- Confusion (version control issues, mixed formats, erroneous distribution)
When you add to these issues the fact that the modern organization relies on dozens of different apps and systems to collect the data they need, the situation compounds.
Tool consolidation supports rapid value-based decision making
When data is coming from these imperfect, disparate sources, it becomes very difficult to make effective decisions in a timely manner. Inevitably, the time it takes to properly collect, parse, analyze, and present the data renders it too old to effectively support decision making in a fast-moving environment that demands business agility.
Consolidating and integrating those tools that supply real-time data is absolutely essential for an organization to achieve Enterprise Agility and achieve what’s been laid out in their strategic plans.
Jira Align has proven to be an excellent tool custom-designed for that job.
Proper planning breeds predictable value delivery
When an appropriate vision has been established (we know what value we’re delivering and why) and data has shown roughly how many increments it has historically taken to deliver that value, you can achieve predictability.
Importantly, that doesn’t mean being able to perfectly predict productivity so that the teams turn into a factory. Change will still be constant and agility involves the ability to quickly and effectively respond to that change. But predictability does support robust planning within the context of an Agile workflow — at any juncture, the team knows roughly how much it can accomplish within a planning increment. And so, they can confidently commit to a volume of work and leadership can confidently expect that work to be completed.
Most importantly, predictability supports value delivery because knowing how much work can be done in a given period of time makes it possible to effectively balance prioritization and resource allocation. Every available resource will be working on the most valuable tasks throughout the entire increment.
If you’d like to learn more about value-based planning and Enterprise Agility — including how a framework and tooling can help — watch our webinar-on-demand, “Enterprise Agility with Jira Align: Planning for Value.”
Also, don’t miss the third and final article in this series, Work the Plan: Enterprise Agility With Jira Align.
Watch our webinar-on-demand, “Enterprise Agility with Jira Align: Planning for Value.”
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