Managing Dependencies for Enterprise Agility

Managing Dependencies for Enterprise Agility

Using Dynamic Reservation Systems, Capacity Allocation and Classes of Reservation 
A lightweight, probabilistic, risk managed approach to capacity management and anticipating dependencies 

Managing dependencies effectively is often the key to unlocking enterprise scale agility. However, existing Agile doctrine doesn’t provide a good solution, often resorting to “big planning up-front”, large, expensive meetings, the use of copious balls of string, only to find later that many dependencies remained hidden and emerged later only to disrupt plans and delay deliverables.

Enterprise Services Planning has an elegant solution to managing dependencies in large-scale businesses, and it is a solution tried and tested in many other environments where uncertainty and risk are prevalent: the use of dynamic reservation systems, capacity allocation, and classes of reservation. If you’ve ever held a “stand-by” ticket, or a “shuttle service” ticket, or ever paid extra for a fully refundable, changeable ticket, or ever pre-paid a hotel reservation to save money but the conditions stated that your booking wasn’t changeable or refundable, then you’ve already experienced the use of a dynamic reservation system, to manage risk and uncertainty. Such systems can be used to elegantly manage dependencies in enterprise services work, and product development. This compact 1-day class will teach you how!

Learn how to manage dependencies better using probabilistic approaches to risk and reduce or completely eliminate your existing, expensive, time-consuming and unreliable, deterministic approach. Using techniques, pioneered, tested and evolved at the large online travel business, eDreams Odigeo, you’ll learn a better way to enable enterprise agility and Agile at scale. Learn to manage dependencies with classes or reservation based on risk assessment, dynamic reservation systems and capacity allocation linked to patterns of demand.

Learning Objectives:

• Understand demand analysis by work item type and cost of delay
• Understand historical patterns of delivery with lead time probability distribution
• Understand probabilistic analysis for dependency risk (also known as “delivery risk”) assessment
• Understand how cost of delay maps to sensitivity of dependency risks
• Understand how cost of delay is related to scheduling, “when to start,” and class of service, “how something should be treated while in progress”
• Understand how classes of service relate to dependency management
• Learn to describe a dynamic reservation system
• Understand how capacity allocation may be enough to provide reassurance that dependent capacity is available when needed
• Learn the five common “classes of reservation” used in ESP dependency management and why a traditional deterministic approach to dependency analysis and management is only ever required in more extreme risk and cost of delay circumstances.
• Learn how the ESP approach to dependency management was used at eDreams Odigeo
• Learn the simple ways to implement dynamic reservation systems using visual boards
• Learn how to build feedback into your use of dynamic reservation systems by incorporating them into retrospectives, service delivery reviews or operations reviews

Who Should Attend?

This class is for delivery and function managers in the front-line of managing enterprise services work on a day-to-day basis. It is appropriate for anyone performing in any of the following roles: delivery manager; function manager; team lead; scrummaster; product owner; project manager; program manager; business analyst; portfolio manager.

This class is useful for anyone who wants to understand how to manage enterprise scale dependencies with confidence, without significant overhead and cumbersome up-front planning. It’s useful for those facing the challenge of optimizing when to start work, and how to insure sufficient capacity is available when it is needed. It is essential for anyone responsible for the “definition of ready” or the application of “entry criteria” for professional services, knowledge work requests typically found in high technology product development, IT systems development, and design and creative industries.

Prerequisites:

There are no specific prerequisites for this class. It is recommended that attendees have a business background or a role in marketing, strategic planning or portfolio management, or a background in project, program and portfolio management. Some prior exposure to statistical methods and the mathematics of probabilistic systems may be useful. Experiencing working in the travel or hospitality industries where use of similar reservation systems is commonplace will prove useful.

Course Outline:

Agenda

• Demand analysis and exercise
• Understanding lead time
• Delivery risk assessment – probability of a dependency existing

Break

• Understanding cost of delay – basic qualitative analysis
• When does something need to start?
• Relationship of cost of delay to classes of service including policy on dependency management
• Allocating capacity in shared service to cope with “dependent demand”

Lunch

• What is a dynamic reservation system?
• 5 common classes of reservation in a dynamic reservation systeme
• Dreams case study

Break

• visualizing dynamic reservation systems
• Discussion: Insights from today’s lessons. From #NoDependencyManagement through to traditional fully analyzed, planned and scheduled up-front, what new insights have you gained in risk management and how might the techniques you’ve learned today greatly reduce the pain of management dependencies in your organization? What challenges will you face implementing what you’ve learned today?

Class Materials:

All students will receive a read only student edit of the classroom Powerpoint, a copy of the 2nd Edition of the book, Fit for Purpose – How Modern Businesses Find, Satisfy & Keep Customers by David J. Anderson & Alexei Zheglov, and a printed copy of the Fit for Purpose infographic poster.