Supporting Scaling Agile with Portfolio Management: Case Paf.com

This paper is a descriptive case study of how one department at Paf, Paf.com, introduced portfolio management to help support scaling agile software development. Paf.com had experienced problems with long time-to-market due to thrashing, which was caused by frequently changing priorities due to an ad-hoc prioritization process and handovers. Also, there was lack of visibility into projects entering and progressing in the development pipeline. No structured way of starting projects was enforced company-wide, and too many parallel projects got started. As a result of introducing a structured portfolio management process, the number of ongoing projects has dramatically reduced, from over 200 to 30, reducing thrashing. Listing all projects in priority order in the Paf.com backlog provides visibility into what is currently ongoing, helping coordinate the work of multiple Scrum teams. The portfolio follow-up function provides progress data on the projects, helping managers make more informed decisions, considering the whole portfolio.