Is it possible to achieve "Business Agility" without moving to a Lean Portfolio Management model?

All answers to this question.

To be blunt: No, you cannot have true Business Agility with traditional annual budgeting. That is the "ceiling" of most transformations. Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) is the final boss of SAFe. You need to show Finance that "Project Funding" encourages teams to spend the whole budget even if the value is gone, whereas "Value Stream Funding" allows for "Pivot or Persevere" decisions. Start by creating a "Portfolio Canvas" to visualize current investments. When Finance sees that 40% of their "High Priority" projects are actually low-value, they will be much more open to the flexibility that LPM provides.

   Answered 2024-09-14 by Kimberly Reed

How do you handle "Guardrails" in LPM? Our Finance team is terrified that "Agile Funding" means the teams will just spend money on whatever they want without oversight.

   Answered 2024-09-18 by Larry King

• Larry, that’s a common misconception. SAFe LPM actually has stricter guardrails than traditional models. We use "Investment Horizons" (determining how much goes to new ideas vs. maintaining the core) and "Capacity Allocation." We also have "Participatory Budgeting" where stakeholders collectively decide on the best use of the funds for the next quarter. It provides more transparency and accountability than an annual budget ever did, and once Finance saw that, they became our biggest supporters.

     Commented 2024-09-21 by Ronald Green

Business Agility requires every department—HR, Legal, Marketing—to move to a Lean-Agile mindset. It’s not just an "IT thing" anymore; it’s a survival strategy.

   Answered 2024-09-24 by Susan White

• Well said, Susan. If Marketing is planning campaigns 12 months in advance while IT is changing features every 2 weeks, the customer experience is going to be disjointed and confusing.

     Commented 2024-09-26 by Amanda Roberts