Lean-Agile Budgeting: A Conversation with Guy Beaver and Kelley Horton

Lean-Agile Budgeting: A Conversation with Guy Beaver and Kelley Horton Guy Beaver, Kelley Horton, and Jim Trott discuss Lean-Agile Budgeting, a critical, though often an overlooked, topic in Lean-Agile Transformation. Budgets are powerful statements about direction and levers for changing behaviors which is critical to realize transformation. The three key concepts for understanding Lean-Agile Budgeting are: Pool your annual dollars and fund capacity, not projects; focus on a 12-month roadmap of prioritized features and use a Rolling Quarter Lock. Do your locked down planning and iterations just on the next quarter, not the entire year. Let the rest of the roadmap adjust to market needs; and never fund work that you cannot complete. Guy and Kelley have been able to implement Lean-Agile Budgeting in large banks and other organizations. It isn't easy but it is critical in the transformation. Here are topics and questions we covered: The key concepts in Lean-Agile Budgeting The annual funding cycle: Good intentions and Bad behaviors How systems thinking applies The importance of being able to respond to current market conditions and new customer requirements The danger of funding that causes people to "game the system" How Lean-Agile Budgeting both impacts and works with the PMO, especially when you move away from "projects" Putting Lean-Agile Budgeting into practice in a Lean-Agile Transformation The cost of moving people around and multi-tasking, and the 20% performance hit that this causes Lean-Agile Budgeting and assessing Business Value and ROI: Story Points are the "I", not the value This show is part of an ongoing series of conversations with Net Objectives consultants and thought-leaders on a variety of topics. We call this series, "The Doctor Is In!" Recommendations - Reading and Sites You can use the forums on the Net Objectives Portal to ask questions about the webinar.  Note, you will have to register on the portal to do so. Principles of Product Development Flow by Don Reinertsen Music used in this podcast: “And So It Begins” and “Easy Lemon” by Kevin MacLeod © Incompetech Inc. Blog Type: Podcast   Transcript Introduction In this show, Guy Beaver, Kelly Horton, and Jim Trott talked about Lean‑Agile budgeting. It's a critical, though often overlooked topic in Lean‑Agile transformation. View Full Transcript Jim Trott:  It's July 27th, 2016. This show, "The Doctor Is In. The conversation on Lean‑Agile budgeting with Guy Beaver and Kelly Horton." [background music] Jim:  Hello, and welcome to another edition of "Lean‑Agile Straight Talk," a regular podcast series from Net Objectives. I'm your host, Jim Trott. In this show, Guy Beaver, Kelly Horton, and I talked about Lean‑Agile budgeting. It's a critical, though often overlooked topic in Lean‑Agile transformation. Budgets are powerful statements about direction and leverage for change in behaviors, which is critical to realize transformation. Guy and Kelley discussed three key concepts for understanding Lean‑Agile Budgeting. They are pull your annual dollars and fund capacity, not projects. Focus on a 12‑month roadmap of prioritized features and use a rolling quarter lock. You do your lockdown planning and iterations just on the next quarter, not the entire year. Let the rest of the roadmap adjust to meet market needs. Never fund work that you cannot complete. Guy and Kelley have been able to implement these in large banks and other organizations. It isn't easy, but it is critical to see transformation happen. It's a pretty interesting conversation. You'll enjoy this. Before we get started, I want to remind you that you can explore more about this topic by jumping over to the resources section of www.netobjectives.com. In Net Objectives we're committed to discovering effective software development methods so that we can assist organizations in becoming more successful. We combine our experience to continuously extent the capability of what is possible in creating e