I’m probably committing heresy within the Agile Community by even mentioning Projects, but there is nothing wrong with Projects.
“Projects are not inherently evil, - they’re abused”
Projects are a funding mechanic that brings together People and Work in order to achieve an Outcome. Once the outcome is achieved, the work is done and the people are released to go elsewhere.
Projects
Value Streams
Value Streams make good entities for investment decisions; it’s easy to ask a group of executives “How much of your budget do you want to invest in keeping this value flowing?”, “How much extra do you want to invest in order to be able to improve that flow of value?”
Participatory Budgeting
Having researched Participatory Budgeting, and having had the opportunity to question Luke Hohman on it, I am now convinced of its usefulness. This blog post intends to explain some of the back-story behind Participatory Budgeting; to explain the “Why you should do” and to look at some of the challenges.
The Flow of Money
Over the last few weeks I’ve been trying to explain to a customer how the money flows in a SAFe Portfolio and what the money does; in particular they were confusing spending on internal staff and mistakenly equating it with the capacity reservation for support and operations.
Estimating Effort or Expense?
One of the other disconnects within Participatory Budgeting has been that Participatory Budgeting discusses investment in terms of monetary Expense whereas Roadmaps need Effort estimates.
Which should it be?
