LPM Manager

Responsibilities:

Lean Governance:

• Assist with the following:
  • Economic decision-making by facilitating feature and capability estimation by teams and assist the roll-up to Epics and Investment Areas, where necessary (by ART)
  • Construction of the capacity view and capacity review exercise (by ART)
  • Construction, evolution and communication of Budget guardrails at the appropriate level
  • Adherence to Budget guardrails

• Support and facilitate decision-making on funding of ART's and Value Streams per Program Increment based on strategic objectives and Portfolio Kanban items
• Define collectively, track and improve the metrics and KPIs against targets that measure the performance of the ARTs and Value Streams and the contribution to BU strategic goals in alignment with BU PM (Common KPIs with extra BD ones)

Strategy & Investment Funding:

• Support Business Owners and Epic Owners in expressing alignment of EPICs with the overall BU Strategic Themes objectives and key results adapted to their unit’s context
• Support and facilitate decision-making on prioritization of EPICs

Agile Portfolio Management Operations:

• Support SPCs in running Value Stream Identification Workshops and helping define and launch Agile Release Trains (ARTs)
• Support for standard reporting patterns, shared best practices, and growth and spread of knowledge
• Coach and train leaders and people on LPM practices across the Business Domain and promote practices like agile contracting, lean budgeting, customer collaboration, etc. to enhance SAFe operating model
• Drive the continuous improvement of the LPM process in the BU/BD, implementing improvements over time
• Foster knowledge by participating in the Community of Practice (CoP) of Lean Portfolio Management within their unit and at BU level, helping increase overall maturity across the enterprise
• Continuously align practices to Lean Governance and Portfolio operations guidelines established across the ARTs and Value Streams, managing risks and dependencies internally and in collaboration with BU/BD PM
• Embody and educate on Lean-Agile and SAFe principles and values, and adhere to Enterprise Agility guardrails
• Work in collaboration with Business Owners, Product Management, System Architect, Engineering and STEs/RTEs to define and maintain a Portfolio backlog and Kanban that enables work to flow into the different Program and Solution backlogs of the relevant ARTs
• Drive the LPM towards implementing prioritization rules, Pull, WIP limit and flow throughout all Kanban layers
• Support the creation of artifacts to define Epics & continuously assess the right quality of information in Epics (MVPs, Lean Business Cases…)
• Collect data from the Portfolio Sync to aggregate metrics and data for LPM performance measurement and decision-making
• Normalize data collection across domains with aligned metrics
• Assist synchs between ARTs and Solution Trains with relevant portfolio data
• Manage frequency and cadence of LPM meetings, define agenda, objectives, calendars and share outcomes
• Be the chairman of the LPM meetings, mandated to accept/reject EPICs format

The responsibilities above support the following key outcomes:

• Capacity estimations per ART & Investment Area
• Updated budget reference (rolling forecast)
• Metrics and KPIs to measure performance and contribution to strategy
• EPICs statement linked to key results
• Lean Business Cases
• Business Domain Portfolio Vision, Roadmap and Canvas, SWOT/TOWS
• Synch support
• Continuous improvement of the LPM and SAFe processes in the BU
• Portfolio Kanban, Backlog and Flow
• Artifacts for Portfolio Kanban
• LPM meetings preparation & facilitation

Required Skills

• Animation & Facilitation – Must be able to animate and facilitate discussion and alternatives or different approaches. Encourage the flow of information and creativity between individuals and through the train.
• Assertiveness – Must be able to ensure Agile concepts and principles are respected, must be able to be a voice of reason and authority. Be able to act as a Guardian of the Agile Manifesto
• Feedback and continuous improvement attitude – Ability to foster feedback exchanges, break habits and foster experiments
• Communication – Ability to express ideas / views and passes on information in an open and honest manner which is clear and which others understand.  Receptive to others’ ideas / views. Able to promote Feedback Culture – Be able to talk as a train. Ability to communicate effectively with people
• Working together: Understanding ourselves and moderating our responses – Talking effectively and empathizing accurately, - Building relationships of trust, respect and productive interactions – Promote balance team members participation/visibility
• Attitude of empowerment – Must be able to encourage teams to self-organize and all contributors to empower the group
• Situationally Aware – Must be aware to coordinate and anticipate potential issues as they arise, coordinating their solving with the teams[s] (even outside the train) and elevate them to management if needed
• Attitude of transparency – Must desire to bring disclosure and transparency to the stakeholders [R&D and Business] about development and foster trust
• Motivator/Perseverance – Ability to maintain effective motivation in the face of setbacks or difficult situations
• Conflict and Change Management: Demonstrates capacities to handle conflicts within the train and to support the group in the agile journey

Education & Experience:

• BS or MS degree in computer science, engineering or related discipline
• 5+ year of hands on experience with agile development methodologies
• 3+ years’ of SAFe experience, preferably as a Product Owner or Product Manager
• SAFe certification required, SAFe LPM certification or SAFe SPC certification preferred