Evaluate Value Stream
Overview
The value stream “Evaluate”, as shown in Evaluate Value Stream Model, contributes to the business strategy and portfolio planning activities. It provides a blueprint for optimizing products, services, and investment Portfolio Management. This value stream is focused on the continuous assessment and evaluation of the entire Digital Product Portfolio to optimize co-creation and alignment of business and technology Strategic Objectives.
Many organizations have portfolio processes and solutions in place but suffer from the following limitations:
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Poor data quality and consistency
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No holistic portfolio view across the enterprise
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Inconsistent Portfolio, Service, and Product Management
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Poor tracking and correlation of the product lifecycle
Organizations need accurate and point-in-time information to understand the inter-relationships and inter-dependencies required to truly orchestrate all the moving parts of Digital Products in ways that can help support business objectives and goals.
The Evaluate value stream provides holistic views of Product Portfolio activities. These views offer an understanding of the inter-relationships among many sub-domains, including Portfolio Management, Enterprise Architecture, Application Management, Information Management, Operations Management, and Information Security Management.
The Evaluate value stream is triggered by a portfolio planning cycle. Portfolio planning can be done in weekly, monthly, or annual cycles.
The overall funding of a Digital Product consists of portfolio epic-based funding (often referred to as Grow the Business (GtB), or discretionary) and product specific investments (often referred to as Run the Business (RtB), or non-discretionary). The product-specific Scope Agreement is defined in the Explore value stream and aligned with the prioritized portfolio level Scope Agreements. This funding methodology enables decentralized decision-making by the Product team.
Key Stakeholder
The primary value stream stakeholder of the Evaluate value stream is the Product Portfolio Manager. The Product Portfolio Manager is responsible for ensuring consistent services and portfolio balance through rationalization and sound investments. The Product Portfolio Manager works closely with Strategists, Business Relationship Managers, Architects, and Technologists to align with strategic drivers, consumer demand, and policy standards. They must work together to optimize the portfolio through well-defined control points, data objects, and governance.
Value
The outcome of the Evaluate value stream is a portfolio investment plan with funding and resources to conduct product exploration activities and refine the plan. Here, resources are referred as both IT-related resources such as IT infrastructure, database, software packages and non-IT-related resources such as HR, etc. This value stream delivers an optimized Product Portfolio with secure and quality Digital Products that are consumer friendly and cost effective, accomplished through continuous portfolio improvement and refinement.
Cross-Value Stream Dependencies
The Evaluate value stream depends on:
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All value streams:
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To continually bring in ideas, improvements, and demand to the Evaluate value stream
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To capture data that ensures the quality of the Digital Product will meet the requirements
Quality is an aspect of each task within each value stream. Quality data may also be used to help analyze the Portfolio Backlog.
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Value streams that depend on the Evaluate value stream are:
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All value streams:
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Improvements start with drivers that are expected to arise from all seven value streams
All value streams will capture data to ensure the quality of the Digital Product will meet the requirements.
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Explore:
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Requires qualified Portfolio Backlog Items that will be used to realize the Product Design, either a new or next Product Design version, and the necessary changes to Enterprise Architecture and Strategic Themes
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The Evaluate value stream, as shown in Evaluate Value Stream Details Model, is the more comprehensive view for included scenarios and detailed value stream stages for the value stream, and will be described in detail in the following sections.
In the following sections we document the scenarios and stages of the Evaluate value stream:
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Scenario: Consider a New Digital Product
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Scenario: Perform Digital Product Governance
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Scenario: Rationalize the Product Portfolio
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Scenario: Plan Product Portfolio Investments
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Stage: Gather Influencers
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Stage: Identify Gaps
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Stage: Propose Investments
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Stage: Define Backlog Mandates
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Stage: Ensure Governance
Evaluate Scenarios
The Evaluate value stream is applicable for the following four scenarios:
Consider a New Digital Product Scenario
The trigger for this scenario is a business requirement for a new Digital Product. The outcome is a Scope Agreement and resource allocation focused on Portfolio Backlog Items and Strategic Objectives, indicating there is a strong business case for a new Digital Product. New Digital Products are often considered when a new technology is introduced in the marketplace that may solve a business problem; when technology becomes obsolete and needs to be modernized; or when a new business niche is desired.
Perform Digital Product Governance Scenario
The trigger for this scenario is the Change Management of Digital Products. The outcome is a secure, quality, consumer-friendly, cost-effective Digital Product that aligns with Strategic Objectives, Architecture Principles, technology standards, and financial and policy constraints. Governance ensures the traceability of the Digital Product lifecycle information from Strategy to Development and into Operations.
Rationalize the Product Portfolio Scenario
The trigger for this scenario is a business requirement to rationalize and balance the Digital Product Portfolio. The outcome is a Scope Agreement and resource allocation focused on Portfolio Backlog Items for the portfolio rationalization types: Retain, Replace, Re-Build, Retire. Based on the rationalization type a Digital Product is left as-is, substituted, modernized, or decommissioned. Rationalization is imperative to maintain a healthy and balanced portfolio by minimizing Digital Product technical debt and capability redundancy.
Plan Product Portfolio Investments Scenario
The trigger for this scenario is a portfolio planning increment. A portfolio planning cycle can be in weekly, monthly, or annual increments. The Product Portfolio provides information about the health of existing Digital Products and new product strategy. This information supports decisions for investing or reinvesting in products and services. The outcome of a portfolio planning cycle is a Scope Agreement that provides the required scope and funding for portfolio-related concerns. Digital Product-specific concerns are delegated to a Product Manager and Digital Product stakeholders for refinement in the Explore value stream. Big strategic initiatives and cross-product content are funded and governed at the portfolio level in the Evaluate value stream; while smaller product investments are better managed at the product level in the Explore value stream.
Gather Influencers Stage
The purpose of the value stream stage “Gather Influencers” is to bring together inputs for a planning cycle. Typical inputs include: consumer demand, improvement ideas, new technology opportunities, technology lifecycle events (e.g., end-of-life), and any known policy (legal and regulatory demands) or budget constraints for the Digital Product Portfolio. Other inputs may include an internal and/or external environmental scan to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Discussion with the business is centered on Digital Product value delivery for consumers and corresponding policy requirements. The deliverable for this value stream stage is new or updated Strategic Themes and/or Strategic Objectives.
An important part of this stage is to manage the strategic roadmap of the Digital Enterprise. Throughout the IT4IT Value Streams, this roadmap will be refined from the Strategic intent to the Architecture Roadmap to the Digital Product Roadmap to the Release Roadmap.
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Identify Gaps Stage
The purpose of the value stream stage “Identify Gaps” is to evaluate the current state and identify opportunities that align to the vision, Strategic Themes, and Strategic Objectives. Inputs for the current state evaluation should include the consideration of recent consumer survey information and capability assessments. Gaps are identified by comparing the current state to the desired future state, and opportunities are derived. The deliverable for this value stream stage is a list of gaps and opportunities expressed in proposed Scope Agreements, with any related Portfolio Backlog Items.
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Propose Investments Stage
The purpose of the value stream stage “Propose Investments” is to prioritize a list of opportunities and associated Scope Agreements. The prioritization should be based on a scoring method that considers business value, risk, costs, time, and resource availability. Scope Agreements are evaluated to determine if there is already a solution in the Product Portfolio that can be used or modified to satisfy the business need. If it is determined that there is not an existing solution and the new demand is in alignment with the digital strategy, the Scope Agreement is assessed against other work in the Portfolio Backlog and prioritized accordingly. The prioritization criteria should also consider factors like urgency and the impact of opportunities. The deliverable for this value stream stage is updated Scope Agreements with clarifications discovered during a prioritization of opportunities.
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Define Backlog Mandates Stage
The purpose of the value stream stage “Define Backlog Mandates” is to determine if there are any mandates or directives that will impact the Product Portfolio, and to ensure mandates are clearly defined in backlog items and related in Scope Agreements. This should include a review of the existing portfolio and managed service provider agreements. Portfolio rationalization to balance the portfolio should be completed regularly and may generate backlog items that are bundled into Scope Agreements. Upon approval to proceed on a Scope Agreement, initial funding is allocated to the Explore value stream to identify concerns specific to a Digital Product and determine feasibility. The deliverables for this value stream stage are refined Scope Agreements to reflect mandates and defined Architecture Roadmap Items.
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Ensure Governance Stage
The purpose of the value stream stage “Ensure Governance” is to provide methods that guide consistent and compliant Digital Product deliverables. This should include the use of reference architectures, building blocks, patterns, and templates. The deliverables for this value stream stage are guardrails, integrated repositories, enablers, audit definitions, and Architecture Principles.
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