Effectively Transition PPM Activities to Product Owners

Overview

The shift from “projects to products" is accompanied with distributing project and portfolio management (PPM) activities
away from the PMO to new roles such as product owners. However, too many competing priorities often overload new-to-
role product owners and surface execution challenges. PurpleFlag’s* Agile Transformation Office (ATO) takes a phased
approach to handing over these activities to product owners while offering oversight and support to build product owner
maturity.

Solution Highlights

• Build PPM Foundations For Product Owners: Rebalance activities transferred to product owners by providing
required oversight and support across product lines.
• Incrementally Increase Product Owners’ PPM Maturity: Transfer activities and ownership to the product owners
incrementally to avoid overloading them.

Scenario

PurpleFlag is on an Agile transformation journey to enable faster delivery and customer centricity. Through this Agile
transformation, PurpleFlag had to determine what PPM capabilities are needed in product management, who is best
positioned to own those capabilities and finally how their PMO must evolve to better support these two shifts.

About the Company

PurpleFlag

* Industry: FMCG Employees: >50,000

Revenue: > US $10 B

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Six Key Capabilities to Support Agile Transformation
ATO’s Mandate Focuses On Six Key Capabilities

ATO Mission Statement: ‘Become the PurpleFlag* expertise centre for organizational agility, by providing
agile standards, knowledge and expertise to enable sustained business growth throughout PurpleFlag.

1. Agile Transformation 4. Agile Operations

Consultancy
Provide knowledge and
Provide knowledge and expertise expertise to projects and
to drive the mobilization, initiation product teams on the IT
and shaping an Agile organization. foundation needed to move
from Dev to DevOps.
2. Agile PPM a
• Provide orchestration and 5. Agile Coaching
delivery to realize customer Agile
value at speed. Embed and mature Agile
Transformation leadership and mindset
• Provide change management Office throughout PurpleFlag.
support to enable Agile ways
of working.
6. Scrum Masters b
3. Agile Office a
Embed and mature the Agile
Provide actionable insights and ways of working within the
Agile standards (Playbook, P3M, Product Teams.
processes).

Source: Adapted From PurpleFlag

a PMO’s focus areas
b TemporaryATO capability to accelerate the transformation *
* Pseudonym
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PMO’s Evolution to Support Agile Ways of Working
PurpleFlag’s* PMO’s Journey to Support Agile Transformation

1. Agile
2. Agile Transformation Journey 3. Agile Enterprise
Experimentation
(Current State) (Desired Future State )
(Previous State)

GIS Techa 2.1 Initial approach 2.2 Redesigned approach

GIS Techa Other Business
PMO Domains
PM
O GIS Techa GIS Techa PMO
Deliver: Execute ATO
ATO
and deliver projects PMO PMO
ATO
ATO ATO
ATO
ATO Orchestrate:
Orchestrate large,
Shift: Guide: complex initiatives
• Narrow efforts around • Provide consultation and including change
portfolio-level visibility targeted delivery support management
• Shift ownership of PPM • Support product owner in
activities to product owners PPM activities with
coaching, automation and
streamlined processes

PMO’s focus initially shrinks and then broadens to support product owner maturity

PMO’s Focus
Source: Adapted From PurpleFlag
a Global Information Services Tech Domain *
* Pseudonym
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Product Owners Overextended With New Responsibilities
Transfer of PPM Activities to New-To-Role Product Owners in Product Management
Illustrative

Challenges Caused by
Key PPM Activities Devolved Overloading Product Owners
to Product Owners With Additional PPM Activities

Activity Transfer Scale: Inconsistent financial

PT 1a PT 2 PT 3 PT 4 PT n
Product Owners (PO) management and reporting
ATO ? ! ! ? ? ! leads to data quality issues.

• Sourcing and Contract Missed opportunities to

Management coordinate interdependencies
Self-Managed Product Teams across teams and products
• Financial Management
leads to collisions.
• Interdependency Management
• Change Management Excessive focus on
• Risk Management … “administrative tasks” leads to
frustration in product owners.
• Stakeholder Management
• Delivery Management GIS Tech
Infrequent portfolio-level
stakeholder communication
creates transparency
PMO
concerns.
ATO

ATO

Source: Adapted From PurpleFlag*

a Product Team 1
Initial Approach Redesigned Approach *
* Pseudonym
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Build PPM Foundations for Product Owners
Ways For The ATO To Help Ease The Transition To Product Owners
Illustrative

Rebalance of PPM Activities ATO provides foundational

Between Product Owners and ATO PT 1 PT 2 PT 3 PT 4 PT n PPM support to:
Interdependency Management
Orchestrate or deliver
PO
ATO on complex initiatives
requiring PPM expertise.
Financial Management
Self-Managed Product Teams
PO Provide insights/ metrics
ATO at the portfolio level.
Change Management
PO … Automate routine tasks
and eliminate redundant
ATO
processes.
Risk Management GIS Tech
PO Provide PPM coaching
ATO for product team
PMO
independence.
Stakeholder Management ATO
PO
ATO

Sourcing and Contract Offer support to targeted teams to

Management build product owner maturity with an
eventual goal of creating independent
PO
ATO and self-managed product teams.

Source: Adapted From PurpleFlag* *

Initial Approach Redesigned Approach
* Pseudonym
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Incrementally Increase Product Owners’ PPM Maturity
Four Phases of Transferring Selected PPM Activitiesa to Product Owners
Illustrative
1 2 3 4
Doing it
How? Showing Simulating Handing Over
Together

Who? Product Owners

ATO

What? ATO holds awareness ATO provides • ATO shadows • Product Owners take
trainings to illustrate experiential product owners to complete ownership
the benefits and opportunities for ensure learning. of PPM activities.
guidelines for product owners to • ATO demonstrates • ATO supports and
effective PPM practice key PPM activities across orchestrates
activities. activities. product lines at an continuous
enterprise level. improvement.

Examples • Guidelines and • Workshops • Consulting • Product team

best practice on Sourcing sessions on level ceremonies
documentation Management Contract
on Financial Management
Management

ATO also provides continuous consultancy support,

automates routine tasks and eliminates process redundancies.
Source: Adapted From PurpleFlag*
a Selected
PPM activities include Financial
Management and Sourcing and Contract Management *
Initial Approach Redesigned Approach
* Pseudonym
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Results
Impact of Shift of PPM Activities at PurpleFlag*

Roles responsible for Delivery in Product Management Shift in PMO’s Value-Add Activities

Product Owners/
Scrum Masters Automation of PPM Process redundancies
activities for product
0.56x
Agile Project owners Administrative PPM
Managers tasks
1x
Demand
management via Agile Stage gates and
0.44x portfolio management checkpoints

Cultural change Coaching and support

Before Agile Redesigned management for project managers
Transformation Approach in Agile
Transformation
Source: Adapted From PurpleFlag

““While product teams own value delivery, we still find Agile project managers' role and
support to be critical in achieving better value. Agile project managers typically take on high-
complexity initiatives with product dependencies and where multiple stakeholders need to
be aligned or where we achieve efficiencies by repetitive implementations of a standard solution.”
- Portfolio Owner, PurpleFlag

*
* Pseudonym
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 Implementation
Guide

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Implementation Guide

Catalogue for ATO’s Coaching and Consultancy Services

Snapshot of ATO’s Consultancy Services

Source: PurpleFlag* *
* Pseudonym
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Implementation Guide

Phased Approach for Transition of PPM Activities

PurpleFlag’s* Four-Phased Approach

Source: PurpleFlag

*
* Pseudonym
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Implementation Guide

Agile Project Managers’ Value-add Across Initiatives

Initiatives Where An Agile PM Could Add Value

IPM/DDT initiatives Cross-portfolio initiatives

Scaled Senior stakeholder management, Complex dependencies with other Scaled

high visibility/expectations, multiple Separate platform teams, vendors,
Agile Agile
products. Guide business and Governance product/project teams in the
approach approach
protect teams. functions and/or OpCo’s

Agile
PM

Product renewal Large scale deployments

Complex upgrades or
Hybrid implementation of new solution with User Agile Repetitive implementation of Phased
approach multiple vendors and/or coordination Governance standard solutions to many OpCo’s approach
between product teams. with significant change
management effort

Pre-requisites: clear assignment with start and end date and value to be delivered (outcome vs. output). Budget secured in AP/LE.

Source: PurpleFlag*
*
* Pseudonym
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Implementation Guide

Agile Project Manager As A Co-pilot Of Product Owner

Creating Awareness on How Agile Program/Project Managers Partner with Product Owners

Agile Program Product lifetime vs. Temporary Assignment

Portfolio Owner
Manager Accountable vs. Responsible
PO and APM both not part of the product team
Product Owner
Flexibility in approach: Agile, Phased & Hybrid
Agile Project
Specific
Manager
assignment
Makes use of
Backlog …

Optional:
Optional:
Temporary Optional:
Product Team Optional:
Other Product
Project Other Product
Team(s)
Other Product
Team(s)
Team
Team(s)

Source: PurpleFlag*

*
* Pseudonym
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Implementation Guide

Roles and Responsibilities

Division of Responsibilities Between Agile Project Manager and Product Owner

Product Owner Agile Project Manager

Key Responsibilities: Key Responsibilities:

• Ensure solutions meet business and/or
customer needs.
• Gain solid understanding of current state
across the enterprise.
• Collaborate with the Scrum Master on
a regular basis to identify and prioritize
features to be delivered.
• Determine and resolve dependencies
on other teams.
• Facilitate the relationship with the end
customer and business leadership/owners.
• Understand the business strategy and
communicate it effectively to the
development team.
• Contribute to solution vision, roadmap,
and content presentations.
Source: Adapted From PurpleFlag*
• Define and create project plans for
projects/initiatives.
• Create plans for initiatives across several
product teams.
• Support creation of new product teams.
• Partner with business sponsors to define
success metrics and criteria.
• Assess and resolve all high priority project
risks as they are encountered.
• Alleviate friction governance and reporting
expectations distract delivery teams from
their core responsibilities.
• Orchestrate workflows across teams and
complex portfolios in shifting operating
models.
• Contract and manage the selected
partners/ vendors to ensure seamless
delivery in an outsourced model.

*
* Pseudonym
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