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Wednesday, November 12, 2014 - 11:30am - 12:30pm
Product Definition
AW4

Simplify Project and Portfolio Planning with “Real Options”

Do you work in an organization that spends too much time budgeting, road mapping, and planning their project roadmap or portfolio? Do you ever feel like all this effort is pointless and wasteful? Do you think perhaps there might be a simpler, more pragmatic way? If so, this session is for you. After a brief overview of necessary strategic and budgetary inputs to an investment-like product portfolio, Matt Barcomb and David Hussman share practical ideas for generating and validating projects as Real Options. You’ll explore how to collaboratively create value models and consider risk to create a lightweight portfolio framework for prioritization and decision-making. Finally, Matt and David will wrap up by embracing the uncertainty of development planning using Starting and Stopping Triggers to begin or terminate a project. Ask them your questions on simplifying portfolio planning, and leave with answers and lightweight practices you can put to work immediately.

Matt Barcomb, DevJam

Matt Barcomb (@mattbarcomb) is passionate about cultivating sustainably adaptive organizations, coaches for DevJam, enjoys being out-of-doors, loves puns, and thrives—in roles from programmer to executive—on guiding companies toward more rewarding and productive self-organizing cultures. Matt believes that evolving companies to customer-focused humanistic systems is the greatest challenge facing businesses today.

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David Hussman, DevJam

Working with companies of all sizes worldwide, David Hussman teaches and coaches the adoption of agile methods as powerful delivery tools. Sometimes he pairs with developers and testers; other times he helps plan and create product roadmaps. David often works with leadership groups to pragmatically use agile methods to foster innovation and a competitive business advantage. Prior to working as a full-time coach, he spent years building software in the audio, biometrics, medical, financial, retail, and education sectors.

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