Epic Portfolio Planning
Epic Portfolio Planning
The Epic Portfolio Planning capability’s enablers include Intake and Lean Business Case Development, Epic Financial Planning, and Portfolio Backlog Management. Each capability within the Planview Capability Framework has a distinct set of features and functionality, business processes, best practices, and analytics and reports that deliver value to customers in the form of specific business outcomes.
Epic Portfolio Planning Business Outcomes
Intake and Lean Business Case
- We can initiate new epics to deliver solutions defined in the value streams and achieve portfolio outcomes.
- We can collect the relevant descriptive and categorization information required to develop each epic’s Lean business case.
Epic Financial Planning
- We can capture the epic’s high-level costs.
- We can estimate the size, benefits, and desired results associated with each epic to support the Lean business case.
- We can track agile teams’ completed work, and use that data to automatically create timesheet entries for financial planning, including categorizing the work into capitalization (CAPEX) or operational expenses (OPEX).
Portfolio Backlog Management
- We can visualize all approved epics on a portfolio Kanban board.
- We can customize Kanban boards to reflect existing portfolio processes.
- We can sequence epics by size, value, and team capacity/velocity considerations.
- We can create aligned autonomy by associating work on team and program boards to the portfolio Kanban board.
Epic Portfolio Planning Processes
Epic Portfolio Planning allows you to manage your portfolio of existing and backlogged agile epics, from intake and creation to planning, development, and financial management.
Intake and Lean Business Case Process Steps
Intake and lean business case supports the creation, initial planning, and lean business case development of epics that will deliver and operate our products, services, and systems and their corresponding business outcomes.
Intake and lean business case process flow
| Process Step | Description |
|---|---|
| Create epic |
Create a record of the new epic in Planview Enterprise One – PRM. Epics are created at the PPL level of the work structure. There are two main types of epics: business epics and enabler epics.
|
| Describe and categorize epic |
Populate configuration-specific description and categorization attributes into the new epic as determined by the data and information needs of the organization. |
| Capture prioritization information | Capture prioritization information either within fields or directly on the financial plan. Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF) is an example of a prioritization model to sequence both epics and features. Using WSJF, work items that can deliver the most value and take the shortest length of time are chosen first. |
| Capture additional business case information | Capture financial information on the epic or directly on the financial plan. Other types of governance information may include sizing, priority, or other aspects of a lean business case. |
Epic Financial Planning Process Steps
Epic financial planning supports planning and management for all financial information associated with an epic, including:
- High-level estimates
- Approved or baseline budgets
- Actual costs to date
- Forecasts to complete costs
- Variance reporting
Epic financial planning process flow
| Process Step | Description |
|---|---|
| Estimate size/ART capacity to deliver epic | Coordinate with other teams if there are any dependencies, redundancies, or obstacles that could affect the completion of the features for all teams. |
| Manage epic costs |
Capture capacity targets in terms of units at the Agile Release Train (ART) level. Enter capacity targets in the Units-Points account or a similar account, adding lines as needed. Then add velocity or capacity units in terms of points for each row. |
| Manage epic revenue/KPIs |
Enter benefits and revenue targets into the Benefits or Revenue Targets accounts, adding lines as needed. Examples of benefits may be cost savings or incremental sales. This data is often entered in the currency format, by quarter. |
Portfolio Backlog Management Process Steps
Portfolio backlog management supports visualizing all work on a portfolio Kanban board aligned to a preferred work methodology and process.
Portfolio backlog management process flow
| Process Step | Description |
|---|---|
| Key prioritized epics |
The output from the prioritization event will be the key prioritized epics, sequenced into sprints within the PI. Publishing these may trigger steps within a lifecycle. |
| Sync epics to Portfolio Board |
The sync process is often completed as part of a lifecycle. The following diagram shows the data sync at different steps in the process. The blue boxes show the sync of epics at the PPL level of Planview Enterprise One to the portfolio board in LeanKit.
Planview Enterprise One PRM - LeanKit connector example
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Sequence epics into appropriate timeboxes (e.g., Program Increment) |
Sync key prioritized epics into LeanKit, and make any adjustments if necessary. Even if epics were sequenced as part of investment and capacity planning, they will need to be put into the correct sprint in LeanKit. |
|
Deliver epics through underlying features and stories |
Build out the appropriate features and stories for each epic on the program and team program boards. Move epics toward completion as underlying work is accomplished. As the organization goes through the cyclical process of delivering epics through the underlying features and stories, the leading and lagging indicators will collect data. Based on the epic's performance against projected delivery forecasts, persevere or pivot decisions will need to be made. Making these decisions each quarter instead of each year as part of annual planning increases agility at the enterprise level. This cyclical process will roll data back into the next PI Planning when investments are re-analyzed. |
Related Capabilities
Agile Program Management
This capability supports team of teams program backlog management, quarterly planning, and program planning using Kanban boards. Teams can see backlogged and current work and coordinate organizational initiatives effectively and with clarity into the value delivered.
Read moreEpic Prioritization & Scenario Analysis
This capability provides the ability to collect all potential and existing epics, prioritize them based on an organization’s desired outcomes, and compare the impact of trade-off decisions using various hypothetical scenarios before approving the overall portfolio plan.
Read moreTeam of Teams Capacity Planning
This capability provides the mechanism to set time-phased capacity budgets or targets, and sequence epics across defined timeboxes to align with team capacity. This provides a framework to analyze demand and make assessments on the ability to continue with or take on new epics.
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Supported Solutions
Agile Program Management
Designed with the growing agile organization in mind, Planview’s Agile Program Management solution gives your agile teams a way to visualize, plan, coordinate, and deliver your organization’s biggest initiatives in an accelerated and predictable way.
Read moreEnterprise Agile Planning
Planview’s Enterprise Agile Planning solution provides a scalable enterprise-level lean portfolio management, agile program management, and agile delivery platform that enables planning and value delivery from the strategic portfolio level to the agile team.
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