4 Steps on How to Align Your Projects within an Organizational Agile Programme
By: Hajime Estanislao, PMP, CSM; Editor: Geram Lompon; Reviewed by: Dr. Michael J. Shick, MSPM, PMP, CSM
Are your projects delivering value or just checking off boxes? It is not enough to complete projects. You need to ensure they are contributing to your organization in moving forward. If you are managing multiple projects without a clear connection to your company’s strategic goals, you could be missing out on the potential of Agile Programme and
It’s important to take a strategic approach to Agile programs when leading projects. This helps ensure that the projects meet their objectives and align with your organization’s long-term vision. By doing this, you can transform your Agile
What if you could consolidate your efforts, streamline processes, and deliver value across your projects? Strategic alignment within Agile programs allows you to do just that. It enables you to flex resources where they matter most, promote collaboration across teams, and respond to changing requirements while keeping your organization’s goals in mind.
It is not just about managing projects. It is about a sustainable effort to elevate program and project performance and achieve business impact.
Do not let your projects operate in silos. Start thinking strategically about your Agile projects and how they align with your organization’s bigger picture, goals, and strategies.
What is an Agile Programme?
An Agile program is a coordinated set of multiple, interrelated projects managed under a unified strategy. It utilizes Agile methodologies to deliver value incrementally and continuously.
Unlike traditional
Agile Projects vs Agile Programmes
An Agile project is a single, focused initiative to deliver a specific product, feature, or outcome within a defined scope. It operates through frameworks like Scrum or Kanban, incorporating agile practices. Cross-functional teams work in iterative cycles (sprints) to deliver incremental value. The primary focus is on achieving a particular goal efficiently, with success measured by the value delivered and the project’s adaptability to changing requirements.
In contrast, an Agile program encompasses multiple interrelated Agile projects working together to achieve broader business objectives. The program coordinates these projects under a unified strategy, ensuring alignment with the organization’s long-term vision. This agile approach also requires higher coordination and management, as it integrates various projects to deliver cohesive outcomes.
Reasons Why You Need to Have Strategic Alignment with Agile Programmes
Strategic alignment in Agile programs is an expectation because it ensures that projects within the program are working towards the same business objectives, maximizing the value delivered to the organization.
By aligning Agile programs and projects with strategic goals, organizations can better prioritize resources, respond to market requirements and changes, and achieve a higher level of performance. Below are a few reasons strategic alignment is relevant for program and project managers:
- Ensures projects contribute to the organization’s long-term vision and goals.
- Improves resource allocation by focusing efforts on high-impact initiatives.
- Enhances coordination across multiple projects, reducing redundancy and inefficiencies.
- Increases the ability to respond quickly to changing customer needs.
- Maximizes performance by aligning project outcomes with strategic business objectives.
- Facilitates decision-making by providing priorities and direction for teams.
- Sustaining and advocating the agile mindset.
Your Four Steps as an Agile Programme Manager
Your role as an Agile Programme Manager is to ensure that projects within a program are well-aligned, efficient, and delivering maximum value to the organization.
The following four steps—Vision Alignment, Synergy Building, Continuous Calibration, and Value Realization—will guide you through managing an Agile program from start to finish.
1. Vision Alignment
Vision Alignment ensures projects align with the organization’s strategic vision. It involves understanding the long-term goals and communicating them to the teams involved.
As the Agile Programme Manager, you work closely with stakeholders to establish a shared understanding and set clear, measurable objectives for the program. Regularly revisit this vision with your teams to ensure projects remain focused on contributing to these overarching goals.
Example: Suppose your strategic goal is to expand into new international markets. As the Agile Programme Manager, you identify this objective and communicate it to the project managers and teams involved in various aspects such as product development, marketing, and customer support.
You collaborate with stakeholders to set clear, measurable objectives, such as introducing the product in new countries. You regularly review this vision with your teams to make sure that each project is progressing as planned and actively contributing to the goal of expanding internationally. For example, the product development team might focus on adapting the product for specific regions while the marketing team works on creating campaigns tailored to those areas.
2. Synergy Building
Once the vision is aligned, the next step is building synergy among various program projects. It means cultivating and promoting collaboration between teams, ensuring that knowledge and resources are shared, and avoiding duplication of effort.
Arrange meetings and workshops with different teams to promote communication and the sharing of ideas. Look for opportunities to combine efforts across projects so that the program delivers more value than the sum of its parts. To build synergy, include software development teams, stakeholders from other projects, fellow project managers, scrum masters, and program managers.
Example: Within your Agile program, you manage multiple projects, including a new product development initiative and a customer service enhancement project. To build synergy, you organize regular cross-team workshops where product development teams and customer service teams can share insights.
During one of these workshops, the product backlog and customer service team shared customer feedback, leading to improvements in the user interface. By integrating efforts across these projects, you avoid duplication of effort and enhance the quality of the final product, creating a seamless experience for users and increasing customer satisfaction.
3. Continuous Calibration
Continuous Calibration involves assessing and adjusting the program direction and processes to stay aligned with the strategic vision and the evolving needs of the product owner and market. This step is about being flexible in your approach, holding retrospectives, gathering feedback from teams, and making iterative and incremental improvements to how the program is managed.
As an Agile Programme Manager, you should monitor progress and make data-driven decisions to refine the program’s execution.
Example: Your program includes projects that develop new features for an existing software development platform. As the market changes and new technologies emerge, you notice that one of the projects is starting to fall behind due to outdated tools.
You hold a review and retrospective session and gather feedback from the team, identifying the issue early. Based on the data and feedback, you decide to pivot the project, adopting newer, more efficient tools. This adjustment ensures the project stays aligned with the strategic vision of maintaining technological leadership and excellence in the market, meeting customer needs.
4. Value Realization
The final step is to ensure that the programme’s value is realized and communicated effectively. It involves tracking the outcomes of the program manager’s various projects, measuring them against the strategic objectives, and reporting on the value delivered to stakeholders.
It is imperative to celebrate successes and learn from any shortcomings. By focusing on value realization, you ensure the program’s efforts translate into tangible outcomes, reinforcing the importance of Agile
Example: After completing a series of projects within your Agile program, you compile a report that measures the outcomes against the strategic objectives.
For instance, if the goal was to increase customer retention by 10%, you have metrics such as customer satisfaction scores and retention rates. The projects collectively led to a 20% increase in customer feedback and retention, surpassing the original goal. You communicate these results to stakeholders, highlighting specific projects that contributed most to this success. Additionally, you hold a celebration event to recognize the efforts and discuss lessons learned, ensuring continuous improvement in future programs.
Key Considerations for a Successful Execution
While following a structured, agile process is fundamental, successful execution depends on understanding the specific program and organization. One insight is cultural alignment.
Agile programs thrive in environments supporting collaboration, trust, and a willingness to embrace change. Ensuring that your culture aligns with Agile values can enhance the effectiveness of your program.
Another consideration is the balance between flexibility and structure for agile teams. While Agile programs are adaptable, they still require a framework to operate effectively. Striking the right balance between allowing teams the autonomy to innovate and maintaining enough structure or guardrails to ensure alignment and coordination are relevant for success.
Do not underestimate the importance of stakeholder buy-in. Ensuring that key stakeholders understand and support the Agile program’s objectives and approach prevents resistance and builds the path to successful execution.
Engaging stakeholders regularly, addressing their concerns, and demonstrating the value delivered will help maintain their support throughout the lifecycle.
Taking it to the Next Level: Agile or Not, Advocate Project Excellence
Whether working within an Agile framework or using traditional methods, project excellence should always be your guiding principle. Take your projects to the next level by focusing on continuous learning and improvement.
Encourage teams to meet project objectives and innovate, finding better ways to deliver value. Excellence in
Additionally, having accountability and ownership within your teams drives project excellence. When every team member understands their role in the larger picture and is committed to the project’s success, the quality of work improves. Empower your teams to take initiative, make informed decisions, and proactively address these challenges.
Never lose sight of the end goal: delivering value to your customers and stakeholders. It means meeting project requirements, anticipating the needs, and the delivery that makes a difference.
Alternatives: Strategic Thinking
While Agile
In scenarios where the scope and deliverables are stable, the Waterfall method allows for meticulous planning and resource allocation, ensuring completion of every phase before moving on to the next. This strategic clarity can be particularly valuable in industries with regulatory constraints or when dealing with complex, interdependent systems. Traditional
Another is the Hybrid model, which combines the elements of Agile frameworks and traditional
Strategic thinking in a hybrid model involves determining which parts of the project would benefit from iterative cycles and which would be better served by a more linear approach. This tailored strategy enables organizations to leverage the strengths of different methodologies, optimizing outcomes across project types.
Portfolio management offers a high-level approach to aligning projects and programs with organizational goals. Instead of managing projects in isolation, portfolio management considers the cumulative impact of projects on organizational strategic objectives.
This method involves prioritizing projects based on their potential to deliver value, allocating resources effectively across the portfolio, and continuously monitoring performance to ensure alignment.
Final Thoughts
Whether managing projects or overseeing complex Agile programs, strategic alignment with your organizational goals is essential for delivering value. Agile programs offer a framework for coordinating multiple projects, promoting collaboration, and adapting to change, but their potential is unlocked when strategic alignment is in place.
By ensuring that every project within a program contributes to business objectives, you boost the success of individual projects and drive long-term organizational growth. As you manage your projects, always keep an eye on how they fit into the broader strategy. Remember that aligning with this larger vision is like connecting pieces of the puzzle to achieve project excellence and sustained success.
There are many ways to implement agile
References
Appelbaum, B. (2024, August). What is Agile
Association for
Project Management Institute. (2024, August). Program management practices.
