the portfolio game

By Steve GarnettUnderstanding that the way we work influences our

behaviour and outcomes, and the importance of small

batch sizes

This work is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevegarnett

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/stevegarnett

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Purpose & Intent

Game Explanation

Facilitator’s Guide

Appendix A: Boards & Room

Appendix B: Example of Game Output

Appendix C: Team Portfolio ‘Blocks of Work’

Appendix D: Value Tokens

Pack Structure

The Portfolio Game, by Steve Garnett

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The context is that of leading incremental Agile adoption within a large enterprise. The challenge was to provide an initial introduction to Product Ownership and the benefits of an Enterprise Product Backlog to a Product team who were using traditional project planning methods. Set within a wider training session, the goal of the Portfolio Game is to help teams internalise some key principles such as reducing batch size, identifying value and the continuous nature of Product Ownership. The idea is to clearly highlight the relationship between ways of working and behaviour, that ultimately lead to performance, and to recognise the effect that can be created by adopting smaller batch sizes. (low work-in-progress & single piece flow). The game is not about teaching anything else e.g. Product Backlog refinement, User Stories or other methods. The purpose of the game is to help identify and comprehend the relationship between ways of working (process, tools, people) and behaviour and realise that by changing our ways of working, we can directly influence performance. In the course of the game, other learning that an experienced facilitator can highlight include: Product Ownership is a continuous process of prioritisation and planning Change is constant and so all plans must inherently be adaptable Identifying value needs focus, by decomposing items we can hone where the value lies Just because an item is in the same area, don’t “just do it because you’re changing that anyway” as this

detracts focus from other areas of benefit and represents sub-optimisationI hope that you find additional learning points as you use the game.

Purpose & Intent


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The game is a simulation of a full year of portfolio delivery. There are 2 teams, (Team A and Team B) and they are in competition to produce the most value for their respective portfolios. Value is attributed when a ‘block of work’ has been completed. There are 3 types of value that can be created: Revenue, Continuous Improvement and Regulatory Conformance. The team that creates the most value within the portfolio year wins!

The Teams run their portfolios in parallel in the same room on different tables. Once they have their plan, they place their ‘blocks of work’ on the same Delivery Board (Appendix A: Slide 18) to enable a real-time comparison of performance and ways of working. Each team is given a portfolio or backlog of items to prioritise in terms of value and effort. Effort in this game is an estimate in weeks. Each Block of work looks like this:

Game Explanation

E-commerce Project P1

I want an Agile bookstore available on phones and tablets with basic product selection, basket

and payment functionality to create revenue

20 weeks£8m

Title of Block of Work Description

EffortValue


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The company is facing considerable challenges from competitors and is starting to lose market share. In response to these challenges the executive board has identified 3 key strategic themes for next year: Improving our customer product to increase revenues by £18m Implement 10 regulatory changes to protect customers, ensure compliance and be a

leading trusted brand To adopt continuous improvement in everything we do to increase delivery

capability for the following year by 20%Each of the strategic imperatives above have the same weight in terms of prioritisation, we want progress across all three areas. Each team is therefore challenged to deliver 18 x £1m revenue value tokens, 10 x 1regulatory value tokens and 20 x 1% continuous improvement value tokens. With the constraint being the amount of time available to deliver the value which is defined by the estimate (in weeks).

Game Explanation – Strategy


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= £1m worth of value

Game Explanation - Structure

E-commerce Project P1

I want an Agile bookstore available on phones and tablets with basic product selection, basket and

payment functionality to create revenue

20 weeks£8m

£1m

%

The Delivery Board (Appendix A: Slide 18) itself is a view of an entire calendar year separated into weeks and the teams add their blocks of work to the Delivery Board as we simulate the year. If we take the previous example, we can see that this block has a value of £8m and will take 20 weeks to deliver. If the team places this on the delivery board they have to wait 20 weeks for delivery but then get to score £8m worth of value (so 8 x £1m value tokens). Value is added on to the Delivery Board as value tokens for either revenue, continuous improvement, or regulatory conformance (Appendix D: Slides 40-42).So for our example, once 20 weeks is complete, the Team would have 8 x £1m value tokens added at that point to the Delivery Board, the Value Scorecard (Appendix A: Slide 19) should be updated to show £8m of value realised, and the Product Burndown (Appendix A: Slide 20) should burn down 20 weeks of effort.

= 1% continuous improvement

= 1 item of Regulatory conformance


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Goal: To deliver as much value from the portfolio as you can through prioritising and planning to achieve strategic imperatives. Rules:1. When you start a ‘block of work’ put it on the Delivery Board (Appendix A: Slide 18)2. You can only have one ‘block of work’ going at a time3. Once you start a ‘block of work’ by putting it on the Delivery Board, you cannot stop or

change the activity until it is completed. i.e. must run for estimated period. 4. Upon completing a ‘block of work’, add the value created to the Delivery Board (Appendix

A: Slide 18) by sticking the tokens on to the Delivery Board at the time of completion, reduce the Product Burndown (Appendix A: Slide 20) by the amount of effort (weeks) and update your Value scorecard (Appendix A: Slide 19) with the value amount (same as number of tokens)

5. You can reprioritise the plan during the year, but anything in progress cannot be re-prioritised.

6. Estimates will not change during this year, any velocity change will not be felt until 2017

Portfolio Rules


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Facilitator’s Guide


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Team B 23 x Team B Portfolio ‘Blocks of Work’ A Product Burndown Value Scorecard Post-Game Review Area 24 x Revenue Value Tokens 10 x Regulatory Value Tokens 20 x Continuous Improvement Value Tokens

Team A 6 x Team A Portfolio ‘Blocks of Work’ A Product Burndown Value Scorecard Post-Game Review Area 24 x Revenue Value Tokens 10 x Regulatory Value Tokens 20 x Continuous Improvement Value Tokens

Preparation & Materials

Delivery BoardA large area, likely to be an entire wall. Enough space to represent 52 weeks of the year as a calendar view upon which to run the game. (Template at Appendix A: Slide 18)

Set up the room with Team A and Team B on separate tables. Keep a hold of the pink Loan Portfolio ‘blocks of work’ cards and 6 x £1m tokens from each table until later in the game. Put the remaining ‘blocks of work’ cards for each team on their respective table with their tokens. On the walls, ensure there is an area for each team with their Product Burndown, Value Scorecard and space for Post-game review. Finally, on the largest wall in the room, create the Delivery Board. (Room Layout at Appendix A: Slide 21)

NB: Italics indicate team specific artifacts


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To start the game, present the Game Explanation slides to the teams (Slides 4-7).

Step 1: Planning - Timebox = 10 minutes. Review and understand the portfolio of work. The team should then prioritise the portfolio and plan how they’regoing to delivery the ‘blocks of work’. By the end of the 10 minutes the following should be true:

The portfolio blocks of work are in a prioritised list

The Product Burn-down has been updated to show the total amount of work for the portfolio (e.g. everything is included)

January activities i.e. first items have been placed on the Delivery Board.

Step 2: It is now the end of January. Use a cursor/indicator to show on the Delivery Board that it’s the end of January.

Team A: What has been completed, what is in progress, what are you doing next month, update your boards please.

Team B: What has been completed, what is in progress, what are you doing next month, update your boards please.

Management Update: As facilitator provide an ad-hoc update on January e.g. welcome to the new year.

Finally – 2 minute timebox to re-assess your portfolio and re-prioritise any work and update any boards (Product Backlog, Value Scorecard, Delivery Board)

This is the basic structure for the game, and the monthly updates are provided on the following slide.

Monthly Cycle: It is now the end of <month>. Use a cursor/indicator to show on the Delivery Board that it’s the end of <month>.

Team A: What has been completed, what is in progress, what are you doing next month, update your boards please.

Team B: What has been completed, what is in progress, what are you doing next month, update your boards please.

Management Update: As facilitator provide <ad-hoc update on month> <complete facilitator action>

Finally – 2 minute timebox to re-assess your portfolio and re-prioritise any work and update any boards

Facilitator’s Brief - Instructions


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Facilitator’s Brief – Monthly UpdatesMonth Management Update Facilitator Action

January “Welcome to the New Year…” No additional action

February “There’s been a few early challenges in the new year but we’re all pulling together.” No additional action

March “Q1 not very successful, please focus on revenue generation in Q2.” No additional action

April “Continuing revenue challenges…” No additional action

May “We’re seeing an up-turn in the market, great effort everyone…” No additional action

June “We need to get the regulatory work done, its got to be completed by the end of September…”

No additional action

July “We hope the holiday period doesn’t impact delivery!” No additional action

August “Where did you go on holiday? I went…” No additional action

September “We need to launch the New Loan Product as soon as possible” Give Team A their New Loan Product ‘block of work’ and 6 x £1m revenue tokens.Give Team B their Get Loan, Mobile Loan, Change Term and Compare Loan ‘blocks of work’ and 6 x £1m revenue tokens.

October “The End of Year freeze is at the end of November, so there’s no deployments in December although you can still carry on working in December no value can be realised in that month.”

No additional action

November “Its now deployment freeze until January.” No additional action

December “Merry Christmas everyone, its been a challenging year so lets review our results.” No additional action


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Step 1: Conduct a comparison of the Product Burn-downs and Value Scoreboards. Typically Team B far out-performs Team A, by a factor of 3 or 4.

Step 2: Then highlight to the teams that the portfolios were exactly the same in terms of value and effort by showing the next slide. The tables are colour-coded to match the ‘blocks of work’ on the Delivery Board.

So for example The Technology Refresh for Team A, has the same value and effort as the Integration Refresh and the Technical Debt Removal for Team B.

Facilitator’s brief – Post Game Review


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Portfolio ComparisonTeam A - Block of Work Value Effort

Customer Experience 2.0 £10m 24 weeks

Team B – Block of Work Value Effort

Social Media £1m 4 weeks

Paypal Service £2m 8 weeks

Responsive UI £1m 2 weeks

Relevancy/ Personalisation £1m 6 weeks

Merchandising Capability £5m 4 weeks

Team A - Block of Work Value Effort

Operations Upgrade 12% 8 weeks


LiveChat 0 2 weeks

Workflow Automation 4% 3 weeks

Real-time Data Implementation

8% 3 weeks


Regulatory Requirements 10 16 weeks


Sanctions Update 8 2 weeks

SDLC Traceability 1 8 weeks

Basel 2017 1 1 week

Trading Regulations 0 5 weeks


Mobile First £8m 10 weeks


iOS v1 £3m 2 weeks

Android v1 £2m 2 weeks

iOS v2 £1m 2 weeks

Android v2 £1m 2 weeks

Windows v1 £1m 2 weeks


Technology Refresh 8% 24 weeks


Integration Refresh 7% 12 weeks

Technical Debt Removal 1% 12 weeks


New Loan Product £6m 8 weeks


Get a Loan £3m 2 weeks

Mobile Loan £1m 2 weeks

Change Term £1m 2 weeks

Compare Loans £1m 2 weeks


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Timebox = 10 minutes

In your teams you have 10 minutes to discuss the positives and negatives of your approach. At the end of the 10 minutes please be ready to share the following:

List of positive about your approach

List of negatives about your approach

What you have learnt from the game

Team-Level Review


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Summary Smaller batch sizes decrease complexity, increase visibility and allow flexibility Smaller batches mean shorter feedback loops, so more opportunities to inspect and

adapt! This requires continuous planning v 1-stop up-front planning Structure influences behaviour and therefore output

Call to Action!IF we’re in agreement that our ways of working (i.e. process, batch size, rules, people, tools) influence behaviour and outputTHEN how we manage the [company] plan and portfolio for 201x will have a direct impact on how much value is created during that yearAND therefore, what do you think needs to change in how we manage [company product] for us to create more value next year?

Wrap-up & Call to Action


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Upon initial set up, do not lay out the New Loan Product block of work for Team A and for Team B do not lay out Get a Loan, Mobile Loan, Change Term or Compare Loans – these are introduced to the teams during the simulation.

The LiveChat item has no value assigned to it, so Team B probably ignored it. However Team A had LiveChat embedded within the Operations Upgrade block of work, so there’s less visibility of waste in large batches.

For Team A the whole of Regulatory Changes had to be implemented by September. For Team B only the Sanctions Update needed to be implemented by September because the Trading Regulations had no value so should never have been implemented as they’re not part of the strategic imperatives.

You don’t have to cut out all the tokens if you can buy some small coloured shapes and write on the values.

Don’t forget to only layout out 18 x £1m tokens at the beginning to each team. The final £6m of tokens belong to the New Product Loan item(s).

Additional Coaching Notes


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Appendix A contains the following:

Delivery Board Template

Value Scorecard

Product Burndown

Room Layout

Appendix A – Boards & Room


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Delivery Board Template

Team

Janu

ary

Feb

ruary

March

Ap

ril

May

Jun

e

July

Au

gu

st

Sep

temb

er

Octo

ber

No

vem

ber

Decem

ber

week

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52

Team

AT

eamB


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Team _ Value Scorecard

£ %

5

10

15

20

25

When the team completes a ‘block of work’, whatever value is in the left hand corner should be added to this scorecard in the appropriate column i.e. £s, %, or


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When the team completes a ‘block of work’, whatever effort is in the right corner should be subtracted from the burn-down.

Team _ Product Burndown

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

20

40

60

80

100


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Typical Room Layout

Team B TableTeam A

Table

Delivery Board on the Wall

Team A Product Burn-down, Value Scorecard, & Review Area

Team B Product Burn-down, Value Scorecard & Review Area

Team A Blocks of

Work

Team B Blocks of

Work

£1m £1m1% 1%1 1


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Appendix B contains following:

An example completed Delivery Board

Comparison example of Team A and Team B Output

An example of Team A and Team B Review

Appendix B – Example Output


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Example of a Completed Delivery

Board


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Team BTeam A

Comparison of Product Burndown & Value ScorecardsTeam Revenues £ Continuous

Improvement %RegulatoryChanges

Team A £8m 0 10

Team B £17m 18% 10


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Positives Negatives Learning

Managedstakeholders’ expectations

Didn’t achieve all the goals

Can see progressearly and often

Fun Prioritised in silos (time constraint)

Not to be in Team A

Consensus of approach

Learn to identifytrue value

Able to react to change

Continuousplanning & prioritisation

Form of prioritisation easier to manage

Delivered a lot 75%+

Team B

Positives Negatives Learning

Prioritisation was relatively easy

Less meaningfulupdates / reporting

Scope of delivery was too broad

Calm Sunk cost, no return Unable to track effectively

Stability of environment

Delivery risk –changes, delay,resource

Less overhead Less adaptable – not Agile

Easier to control Didn’t meet target

Team A

Example of Review Output


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Appendix C contains the following:

6 x Team A Portfolio ‘blocks of work’

23 x Team B Portfolio ‘blocks of work’

Appendix C – ‘Blocks of Work’


Team A - Customer Experience 2.0

Project to deliver social media integration, a paypalservice, implement a responsive UI, provide

relevancy/personalisation and merchandising capability

£10m 24 weeks27

4J Consulting Limited


Team A - Operations Upgrade

Project to implement livechat, workflow automation and synchronise operational data flows as part of lean

change within operations

12% C.I. 8 weeks28



Team A - Regulatory Requirements

Implement Sanctions update, SDLC traceability, Basel 2017 rules and the new trading regulations. Must be

implemented by end of September

10 16 weeks29



Team A - Mobile First

Go live with iOSv1, Androidv1, iOSv2, Androidv2 and Windowsv1 apps

£8m 10 weeks30



Team A - Technology Refresh

Overhaul our integration capabilities for SOA and remove technical debt

8% C.I. 24 weeks31



Team A - New Loan Product

Launch a new Loans product into the market including consumer getting a loan, changing term, mobile loan

capability and compare loans

£6m 8 weeks32



Team B - Social Media

Hook into Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn with authentication

£1m 4 weeks

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Team B - Paypal Service

Provide digital payments through Paypal

£2m 8 weeks


Team B - Responsive UI

Re-implement UI to cater for all browsers and devices

£1m 2 weeks


Team B - Relevancy / Personalisation

Tailored offers, people who bought this bought… etc.

£1m 6 weeks



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Team B - LiveChat

Providing customer service operations with livechat capabilities to enable real-

time, multi-customer, simultaneous textual comms with customers

No value 2 weeks

Team B - Workflow Automation

Create paperless, automated and configurable operational process

capabilities

4% C.I. 3 weeks

Team B - Real-time Data Implementation

Upgrade our systems integration capabilities to send data in real time across systems in order to remove batch updates, poor information, duplications and operational constraints at

month end

8% C.I. 3 weeks

Team B - Sanctions Update

Implement Sanctions update, SDLC traceability, Basle 2017 rules and the new

trading regulations. Must be implemented by the end of September.

8 2 weeks

4J Consulting Limited 4J Consulting Limited



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Team B - SDLC Traceability

Implement changes to all SDLC systems to provide full traceability of change

through the business unit

1 8 weeks

Team B - Basel 2017

Implement the Basel legislative changes for 2017 in 2016

1 1 week

Team B - Trading Regulations

Implement Sanctions update, SDLC traceability, Basel 2017 rules and the new

trading regulations. Must be implemented by end of September

No value 5 weeks

Team B - iOS v1

Go to market with our first iOS app

£3m 2 weeks




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Team B - Android v1

Go to market with our first Android app

£2m 2 weeks

Team B - iOS v2

Release 2 of our iOS app

£1m 2 weeks

Team B -Android v2

Release 2 of our Android app

£1m 2 weeks

Team B -Windows v1

Go to market with our first iOS app

£1m 2 weeks




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Team B - Integration Refresh

Overhaul our integration capabilities for SOA and remove technical debt

7% C.I. 12 weeks

Team B - Technical Debt Removal

Refactor and redesign our core systems to make us go faster

1% C.I. 12 weeks

Team B – Get a Loan

Launch new Loans product with basic digital experience

£3m 2 weeks

Team B – Mobile Loan

Implement basic Loans product experience on our mobile apps

£1m 2 weeks




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Team B – Change Term

Customer functionality to change the term of a loan

£1m 2 weeks

Team B – Compare Loans

Customer functionality to compare loans from competitors against ours

£1m 2 weeks



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Appendix D contains the following:

Set of 24 x £1m Revenue Tokens

Set of 20 x 1% Continuous Improvement Tokens

Set of 10 x 1 Regulatory Change Tokens

Appendix D – Value Tokens


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Revenue Tokens

£1m £1m

£1m

£1m

£1m

£1m

£1m £1m £1m £1m

£1m£1m£1m

£1m£1m£1m

£1m

£1m

£1m £1m £1m £1m £1m £1m


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Continuous Improvement

Tokens

1%

1%

1% 1%

1%

1% 1%

1%

1%1%

1%

1%1% 1%

1% 1% 1% 1%

1% 1%


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Regulatory Change Tokens

1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1


the portfolio game

Business

portfolio game

product team

terms of value

types of value

block of work

enterprise product backlog

team b

low work