IDC 1225i D C C U S T O M E R SPOTLIGHT TAGILE PO

Idc 1225i D C C U S T O M E R S P O T L I G H Ta G I L E P O R T F

Idc 1225i D C C U S T O M E R S P O T L I G H Ta G I L E P O R T F

IDC 1225I D C C U S T O M E R S P O T L I G H T A g i l e P o r t f o l i o M a n a g e m e n t : G e t t y I m a g e s G a i n s V i s i b i l i t y a n d A l i g n m e n t w i t h K a n b a n P o r t f o l i o s December 2011 Sponsored by Rally Software

Introduction: Transitioning to Agile Planning

Gaining accurate, timely information about key project and portfolio progress is business-critical. It's also one of the toughest things we do as business and development leaders. Even more challenging is knitting together rapidly changing Agile projects and programs to gain the dynamic benefits of agile approaches to software and business development while providing coherent portfolio management.

Few companies have succeeded in moving beyond static, up-front timelines and road maps to manage work dynamically with Agile teams "pulling" in the work rather than having it "pushed" out to them. Getty Images provides an excellent example of a way to make the transition. Getty Images offers products and services for creative professionals and communicators by leveraging a collection of 80,000+ stock photographs and editorial images to 50,000 hours of film, video, music, and multimedia content. Getty Images' client base includes small and large businesses that rely on imagery as part of their work. Core target markets include entertainment, advertising, graphic design, print, and online media, and corporate marketing and sales for this 2,000-employee organization headquartered in Seattle.

Software projects drive company success, and the company's project and program management group works closely with its executive team to align technology with strategic business goals. One team of program managers (PMs) partners with specific line-of-business (LOB) stakeholders to break down ideas and formulate business cases to help ensure that they are working on the right things in the right order. Separate, coordinated project management staff focus on IT execution and delivery. The company's senior director of planning and program management, Nina Schoen, coordinates this effort. Although the program management teams collaborate with the information technology team, they are not "technical managers." Getty Images' program management organization (PMO) sits as close to the business as possible.

Solution Snapshot Organization: Getty Images

Operational Challenge: One-off approaches with poor visibility into the status of an agile Kanban IT project portfolio led to inaccurate project information and delayed delivery to the business with ineffective collaboration and little or no prioritization possible.

Solution: Rally Software's Agile ALM platform, Rally Portfolio Manager, and AgileZen

Project Duration: 3–6 months

Benefit: Getty Images now has the flexibility to deliver projects dynamically according to its own workflow and IT readiness to move forward while providing business executives with updated, accurate project and program status. The IT portfolio management team is able to effectively prioritize to align with business demand and to more quickly deliver targeted value.

©2011 IDC

The technology team at Getty Images transitioned to Agile and Lean practices approximately three years ago, creating 20+ scrum teams with approximately 200 application developers. The transition provided great benefits, including improved time to market. However, it also highlighted the need for Agile planning methods. The desire from the business was to improve predictability and visibility and to make better sense of the endless queues of work.

To address this, Getty Images chose to work with Rally Software as a beta customer on the development of Rally Portfolio Manager. This collaboration allowed Getty Images to be involved in creating product capabilities that support intuitive portfolio management for its Kanban needs, as well as enterprise rollups of Agile and other project information.

Implementation: Dealing with Predictability and Workload Visibility

Getty Images experimented with various tools for transitioning to Lean and Agile development. In early 2010, an Agile product used initially became insufficient as the company's scrum projects scaled. Evaluating alternatives, Getty Images prioritized principles of methodology and workflow over fixed, time-boxed processes. The flexibility of Rally's ALM platform to manage project work based on weekly team assessments rather than fixed commitments was highly valued. This adaptability allowed them to evolve their workflow as needed.

Over time, the Agile transition succeeded, leading to a focus on demand and portfolio management. The company aimed to enhance prioritization, visibility into technological work, and predictability. While their prior homegrown tools fell short, and traditional high-end IT project portfolio management (PPM) tools were too costly or overcomplex, their existing use of Rally software positioned them well to participate in beta development of Rally Portfolio Manager.

This new solution enabled Getty Images to manage efforts on Kanban boards with more accurate, current status visibility for the PMO and business. Eliminating rigid quarterly timelines, teams gained the flexibility to pull in work dynamically. The real-time, evolving updates shift planning from static roadmaps to dynamic, reality-based management, greatly improving communication and alignment with business priorities.

Schoen observed that this approach allowed their teams to pull projects into development upon readiness, separating planning from delivery. They now use Rally's tools to automate workflows, facilitating focus on "minimum viable features" to produce core business value. This minimizes churn and improves efficiency, with project teams only pulling in additional work once they're prepared.

Benefits include better strategy-execution alignment, increased project throughput (estimated at over 20%), and higher delivery efficiency. Visual dashboards, resource allocation graphics, and weekly reviews help prioritize work, manage resources, and provide up-to-date project data, leading to increased responsiveness and adaptability.

Challenges involved organizational efforts to standardize Agile adoption, along with dealing with the evolving features and beta status of Rally Portfolio Manager. Nonetheless, the collaborative development process resulted in tailored features that meet their needs, with ongoing improvements promised as the product matures. The process was not only less costly than building a custom solution but also resulted in higher user uptake, supporting strategic business goals.

In conclusion, Getty Images' case demonstrates how dynamic, Kanban-based Agile portfolio management can significantly benefit organizations by enhancing visibility, prioritization, and delivery speed. The company’s shift from static planning to continuous, real-time management exemplifies best practices in Agile transformation and strategic IT-business alignment.

References

References

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  • Schwaber, K., & Sutherland, J. (2017). The Scrum Guide. Scrum.org. Retrieved from https://scrumguides.org/
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  • Conboy, K., & Fitzgerald, B. (2004). Toward a Conceptual Framework of Agile Methodology. 14th European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS).

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