Bimodal Portfolio Management (BimodalPfM) helps an organization manage both agile and traditional portfolios concurrently. Bimodal Portfolio Management – sometimes referred to as bimodal development – was coined by research and advisory company Gartner. The firm argued that many agile organizations still needed to run some aspects of their operations using traditional delivery models.
Understanding Bimodal Portfolio Management
Here, Gartner notes that “marrying a more predictable evolution of products and technologies (Mode 1) with the new and innovative (Mode 2) is the essence of an enterprise bimodal capability.”
Put differently, the enterprise does not need to choose solely between an agile approach or a traditional waterfall methodology. Both can be used interchangeably to achieve agility and stability, allowing businesses to successfully expand agile practices into other operations.
Bimodal Portfolio management principles
BimodalPfM combines principles from several existing approaches including DA, SAFe, and SfPfM.
Here are some of the more pertinent principles:
Senior management commitment
Upper management must champion the value of BimodalPfM by backing up their words with actions and not delegating their obligations to others.
Alignment of governance, customer, and strategy
Active involvement of key stakeholders is encouraged, but portfolio governance must remain aligned with the wider organizational structure.
Simplicity
The larger or more complex the project, the higher the chance that it will fail. Businesses should use the iterative and incremental nature of agile principles to their advantage.
Flexibility
To continuously re-evaluate opportunities, decision-makers should implement a rolling wave over an annual plan. Too many organizations create an annual plan in the knowledge that major changes are likely to render it obsolete. Agility in this area reduces costs associated with delays, losses, and plan revisions.
Five key components of Bimodal Portfolio Management
While BimodalPfM is an effective strategy, many advocates concede that the bimodal approach can create obstacles to delivery speed.
However, these obstacles can be overcome by considering five key elements:
Dependency management
If a team with the right to prioritize its own work is dependent on others for an outcome, a dependency management strategy should be created to reduce delays.
Work and delivery teams
How do teams engage with other teams across delivery methods to achieve desired outcomes? Is the process efficient?
Saving time here means that teams clearly and concisely articulate the terms of engagement.
Culture
In the context of BimodalPfM, culture means that staff have respect for alternative delivery models – regardless of whether they are agile or traditional.
There should be more of a focus on practicality and less debate on which method is superior.
Funding
Before beginning, it’s important to clarify funding agreements for work that is being shared by both models.
Recognize that Project Funding and Capacity Funding are different models and as a result, require different decisions.
Decision making
Agile methodologies favor de-centralized decision making which invariably challenges the centralized governance structure common in many organizations.
To increase decision-making speed, it is once again important to clarify the most effective model beforehand.
Furthermore, businesses should always remember that it is in their best interests to make fast and accurate decisions.
Key takeaways
Bimodal Portfolio Management allows a business to de-risk agile change management initiatives by utilizing a mix of agile and traditional methodologies.
Bimodal Portfolio Management borrows concepts from many other agile frameworks. Primarily, BimodalPfM works best when there is complete buy-in from upper management and alignment of governance, customer, and strategy.
During implementation, Bimodal Portfolio Management can create delivery speed issues. Some of these issues can be overcome by determining whether agile or traditional approaches are best suited to a particular context.
AIOps is the application of artificial intelligence to IT operations. It has become particularly useful for modern IT management in hybridized, distributed, and dynamic environments. AIOps has become a key operational component of modern digital-based organizations, built around software and algorithms.
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Agile Business Analysis (AgileBA) is certification in the form of guidance and training for business analysts seeking to work in agile environments. To support this shift, AgileBA also helps the business analyst relate Agile projects to a wider organizational mission or strategy. To ensure that analysts have the necessary skills and expertise, AgileBA certification was developed.
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Bimodal Portfolio Management (BimodalPfM) helps an organization manage both agile and traditional portfolios concurrently. Bimodal Portfolio Management – sometimes referred to as bimodal development – was coined by research and advisory company Gartner. The firm argued that many agile organizations still needed to run some aspects of their operations using traditional delivery models.
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Business modelinnovation is about increasing the success of an organization with existing products and technologies by crafting a compelling value proposition able to propel a new business model to scale up customers and create a lasting competitive advantage. And it all starts by mastering the key customers.
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Kanban is a lean manufacturing framework first developed by Toyota in the late 1940s. The Kanban framework is a means of visualizing work as it moves through identifying potential bottlenecks. It does that through a process called just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing to optimize engineering processes, speed up manufacturing products, and improve the go-to-market strategy.
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Scrumban is a project management framework that is a hybrid of two popular agile methodologies: Scrum and Kanban. Scrumban is a popular approach to helping businesses focus on the right strategic tasks while simultaneously strengthening their processes.
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Scrum at Scale (Scrum@Scale) is a framework that Scrum teams use to address complex problems and deliver high-value products. Scrum at Scale was created through a joint venture between the Scrum Alliance and Scrum Inc. The joint venture was overseen by Jeff Sutherland, a co-creator of Scrum and one of the principal authors of the Agile Manifesto.
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The waterfall model was first described by Herbert D. Benington in 1956 during a presentation about the software used in radar imaging during the Cold War. Since there were no knowledge-based, creative software development strategies at the time, the waterfall method became standard practice. The waterfall model is a linear and sequential project management framework.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
