Mary Henson (CEO of the DSDM consortium) introduced Dr. Islam Choudhury (Ass. Professor Kingston University) who then explained the ‘DSDM’ project framework. DSDM has a venerable pedigree, pre-dating the Agile Manifesto by many years. Recently it has been recognised as a useful project and framework, and Islam explained how it can provide a project layer around team level methods such as Scrum.

1. DSDM – Linking Agile program
management, Agile project
www.dsdm.org
management
and Agile product delivery
management Dr Islam Choudhury
Director DSDM Consortium
Associate Professor Kingston University

2. DSDM Agile Framework incorporating
Agile Program
Management
Characteristics
www.dsdm.org
SCRUM and the PMO
6
Agile Project
Management
Agile Product
Delivery
Management
Agile PMO
Roles
Agile Project
Management
Roles
Agile Product
Delivery
Management
Roles

3. www.dsdm.org
Agile Project Framework -
Incorporating Scrum as the Product Development
Framework
Build incrementally
from firm foundations
Business Foundations: Business
case, costs/benefits, benefits
realisation strategy
Management Foundations
Solution Foundations
High Level Prioritised Requirements
List (Product Backlog)

4. Agile Project Management – Roles and
www.dsdm.org
Responsibilities
• Defining the vision
• Steering towards a vision
• Reviewing
• Stakeholder Management
• Demonstrating Control
• Team empowerment at the
appropriate level
• Repeatable, Auditable
process

5. www.dsdm.org

6. Planning the transition to Agile PMO
proactive
clerical
reactive
empowered
experts / advisors
rule-based
administrators
www.dsdm.org
The
Place
to Go
facilitative
responsive
focus on assurance
ensuring
incremental
delivery
encouraging small
chunks of work
continuous support
& monitoring
measures arising
from projects
close to the business
and projects
responsive to
business change
collaborative
respecting
resource
constraints
The Place to Avoid
bureaucratic
periodic spikes
of demand on
projects
distant from business
or projects
avoiding change
to projects
staid and
traditional
championing
“big bang”
doing it all (context-switching
for people,
pet projects, etc.)
measures a significant
overhead for projects
focus on compliance
dictatorial

7. www.dsdm.org
Questions to answer
PMO specialists ask:
1. How do we cope with less precise business cases?
2. How do we priorities projects against each other if
you can’t tell in advance what the benefits are?
3. How do we recognise and report that an Agile
project is going wrong?

8. Annual vs. Agile Portfolio Management
Factor Annual Agile
Basis for funding
decisions
www.dsdm.org
The known state of the organisation at
the end of the financial year and the
prediction for the next year
The known state of the organisation at
any point during the financial year
Capacity for change Limited by the allocated budget Enabled through continuous monitoring
Commitment to
spend
“Once and for all” decisions made
annually
Discretionary funding decisions enabled
throughout the year
Use of funding Potential for holding back on using
resources early in the financial year,
because “they might be needed later”
Funding used to the full when allocated to
move the organisation forward
Exceeding budgets Reported at fixed points, e.g. quarterly –
leading to disaster recovery
Reported at the time when it becomes
apparent - enabling better control of
financial risks
Benefits delivery May well be aligned to the annual cycle
for ease of measurement and overall
governance
Aligned to the ability to deliver
Risk assessment Based on the known state at the start of
the financial year
Based on the state of the portfolio in its
incremental delivery

9. www.dsdm.org
Questions to answer
PMO specialists ask:
1. How do we cope with less precise business cases?
2. How do we priorities projects against each other if
you can’t tell in advance what the benefits are?
3. How do we recognise and report that an Agile
project is going wrong?

10. Portfolio Prioritisation
www.dsdm.org
• Portfolio-level MoSCoW rules
–Must have – at the core of business change
–Should have – would be must have if there were
no issues with resourcing, etc.
(will be a Must Have soon!)
–Could have – icing on the organisational cake
–Won’t have this time – accepted as valid Business Cases but
for later consideration
• Assessing individual project’s suitability to Agile approaches

11. www.dsdm.org
Questions to answer
PMO specialists ask:
1. How do we cope with less precise business cases?
2. How do we priorities projects against each other if
you can’t tell in advance what the benefits are?
3. How do we recognise and report that an Agile
project is going wrong?

12. KPIs for Agile work
• Velocity – one team’s productivity
www.dsdm.org
• Cycle time –
from customer request received to solution delivered
• Boomerangs –
things that bounce back from delivered solutions
• Customer involvement –
time spent working on the project
• Customer satisfaction –
captured during the project, e.g. at Timebox Reviews

13. www.dsdm.org
Summary
• The Agile Framework can be
divided up between the program
level, project management level
and the product (solution) delivery
level.
• There is still a requirement for a
transition to Agile Governance and
Program Management
• The DSDM Agile PMO
Framework has just been
published.
• www.dsdm.org