— investment decisions, limited resources, strategic business decisions, assessment of value, initiative termination

Speaker: Kevin Thompson, Ph.D. Agile Practice Lead, cPrime
Meeting Date: Thursday, April 3, 2014
Time: 6:00 pm Networking; 6:30 pm Management Forum/Guided Networking; 7:00 pm dinner; 7:30 pm Presentation
Location: RAMADA Silicon Valley, Sunnyvale

 
Summary:
Management Forum / Guided Networking: Bring Your Management Challenge; Arrive by 6:30 PM to join this exciting Management Forum. Following informal networking is a guided discussion typically related to the topic of the evening’s after dinner talk, or of general Technology Management interest.
Light Dinner: This month we’re continuing with our light dinner format — typically sandwiches, salad, drinks, and cookie or similar light dinner.

Presentation: Agile Portfolio Governance
Every organization that develops products needs to make decisions about how to allocate money for product development. As organizations grow and mature, the informal process for making investment decisions should likewise grow and mature into an effective Portfolio Management process. In reality, very few organizations manage portfolios effectively, and so fail to make the best use of their limited resources.

Dr. Thompson will present an Agile perspective on Portfolio Management. In this presentation, you will learn techniques for making quick and effective strategic business decisions about:

• The formulation of initiatives and the assessment of value, effort, and Return on Investment
• The approval and scheduling of initiatives
• The evaluation of the status of ongoing initiatives
• The continuation or termination of ongoing initiatives

These techniques are relevant not only to Agile projects, but also to hybrid, and classic plan-driven environments.

Bio:
Our speaker, Kevin Thompson has a doctorate in Physics from Princeton University, and extensive background in managing software development projects. He specializes in training individuals, teams, and organizations in Agile development. Dr. Thompson helps companies make the challenging transition to Agile development by working with development teams and business stakeholders to identify their needs, define the right process for the business, determine the steps needed to implement the process, and work through the steps successfully.