For Agility's Sake
Scaling Agile with Portfolios - Lisa Gordon
Agile Portfolio Manager Lisa Gordon explains the importance of blatant honesty, difficult tradeoff decisions and maintaining relationships across teams. Lisa has been instrumental in establishing Agile at Amway, particularly in our Agile Portfolios. Here are some of the highlights from this episode:
- What is a Portfolio Manager
- Making difficult tradeoff decisions while maintaining relationships
- What a Portfolio Manager needs from a Product Owner
- Doubling down with a radical focus on what matters most
Questions? Reach out:
Kyle.Spitzley@Amway.com
Lisa.Gordon@Amway.com
Agile Portfolio Manager Lisa Gordon explains the importance of blatant honesty, difficult tradeoff decisions and maintaining relationships across teams. Lisa has been instrumental in establishing Agile at Amway, particularly in our Agile Portfolios. Here are some of the highlights from this episode:
- What is a Portfolio Manager
- Making difficult tradeoff decisions while maintaining relationships
- What a Portfolio Manager needs from a Product Owner
- Doubling down with a radical focus on what matters most
Questions? Reach out:
Kyle.Spitzley@Amway.com
Lisa.Gordon@Amway.com
For agility say
Unknown Speaker :hello, everyone and welcome to the show. I'm your host, Kyle Spitzley. And with me today is Lisa Gordon, how are you doing, Lisa? I
Unknown Speaker :am fabulous.
Unknown Speaker :Thanks, Kyle. Oh, thank you so much for joining the show today. I'm excited to be here with you and to talk about portfolios, portfolio management, and just how that works in the world of Agile at Amway. So just to get the audience a little more familiar with you tell us a little bit about yourself.
Unknown Speaker :So I have been at Amway for about four, four and a half years now. And I dabbled in a variety of positions from business management, to SEO content management, and spent about two years as a scrum master and now I'm the portfolio manager of the brand and selling a group within the digital space and I'm Very happy to be here.
Unknown Speaker :Oh, that's great. I mean, I know I've been, I think I've told you this before in person, but I've just been hearing from the team and from other folks that are in your group in digital, and others that have just given kudos to your work as a portfolio manager. So keep up the great work, you are helping some of the transformation, you're helping Amway, you're helping the ABOs. So keep it up. So to start, yeah, to start with, I'll ask what was your first experience with agile?
Unknown Speaker :Oh, my first experience with agile was, so I was invited to a meeting. And I was not sure. You know, like many of us, we get invited to meetings, and we're not quite sure what our purpose is there. And I think about halfway through the meeting, I asked, you know, what was my purpose? And my boss said, well, you're the new Scrum Master. So so I thought What the heck is that. And I left that meeting. And of course, immediately I went back to my computer and I looked it up and started researching really what a scrum master is, and started to learn more about agile and the transformation that we're trying to work through at me right now. And then the last two years before portfolio manager position came up. I really started to embrace and understand, you know, what part Scrum masters play in the success of our transformation, and all the things that we're trying to do with agile right now. So, yeah, it's been fun.
Unknown Speaker :It's so funny, because, you know, everyone goes into those some of those meetings and you're like, I don't know, I don't know why I'm here. And then to just be told, oh, you're gonna do this. Okay. All right. I'll do that. But I love that you kind of found you know, excitement and passion through a weird set of search. Come stances. And now you know you've you've gone from Scrum Master to Portfolio Manager, there was probably one of those moments of like, I don't know what that is either. But now you've been doing it a while, you've got to figure it out. So as you stepped into that portfolio manager role, it was probably very similar to when you started with the scrum master role. There weren't, it was new, there was a lot to learn, you're not sure how it all fits together. And for our audience, our mo is agile workflow model. That's our model for how we flow value through the system of the organization to get it into the hands of ABS and customers. And that's a digital product, digital experiences, etc. And what we are trying to do is to break that down into four tiers and make it clear that each tier has a different responsibility, but they all collaborate together to create that system of delivery. So we have the investment tier, which is about market opportunities, and how much money do we put into them? The portfolio tier, which is where you play and that is about what problems are we solving which ones are the most important to solve first. And then there's the product here where you have the product team suggesting here the features and solutions that will solve those problems that are prioritized. And then you've got the delivery tier, which is your development teams, your Scrum teams, that are actually building the things technically and delivering them. And so those are the four tiers, and you're in that portfolio tier, and helping at that epic level. So what's the role of a portfolio manager?
Unknown Speaker :So, the portfolio manager really supports and keeps the portfolio team accountable, so that we can identify the problems to solve in other words, the epics that will deliver the most value against Emily's strategic goals. So, not only are we identifying the problems, but also how are we going to measure the success of solving those problems? And then it within the portfolio we need to ensure the flow of the value from our delivery and product teams against the epics that we've determined that are the highest priority. So part of that is in you hear me say we're talking about aligning with the strategic goals of Amway, and that's really in aligning with our investments here. Because they really know, we need to get close to our abs and our customers. And we need to deliver the value and really focus on them. So they kind of give us the arrow in the right direction, and we determine those problems. And then the last piece of that is really making sure that as a portfolio, we're consistently validating, did we deliver what we thought that we would? Did we create the value that we thought that we would, and then and then really deciding what adjustments Do we need to make so that we can better deliver that value and Decide if it was the right thing that we made to solve that problem. So we're continuously evaluating what we're building and what problems we're solving to make sure that we're aligning to Amway as a whole. And all of our goals together.
Unknown Speaker :I love that feels like there's probably so much more there under the hood that we just don't have time to go into. But what I'm hearing as you describe that is our, you know, CEO millon has has established a vision for the journey to a 70. And you know, when we get to that 70 year mark, as a company, we want Amway to be 10 times easier for a new Abo to attract and retain loyal customers. And that is a big lofty goal. And it's a temporary one. I mean, 10 years seems like a long time, but it goes by fast and what you're describing at the portfolio layer isn't like a big effort to figure out how are we going to get all All the way to that a 70 vision, it's establishing a system that has a continuous flow of value, and has a high discipline of getting very clear on which of these things are most important to solve. First, how do we know that we actually solved the problem and measure that value, and then inspecting and adapting and learning to do it differently. And so you build in this, I want to call it like a rigorous discipline in that portfolio layer, collaborating with the investment tier as well as the product here and figuring out how do we just make the system run on all cylinders, so that we can keep marching towards that a seventh division because two years from now, we both know that what we're working on is going to be different. But we still need that system there to be able to validate this is the most important problem right now. And this is what it means to successfully solve it. Love that. Yeah. So So as a as a portfolio manager, what's what's exciting To you and your role was the most exciting thing about it.
Unknown Speaker :Well, Kyle, that's easy. It's the people. It's, it's, yeah, it's, it's the relationships that we're building within the portfolio and across the portfolios, even, we have really hard discussions inside of our portfolio, about prioritizing the work that we need to accomplish, and challenging each other, to really figure out how to measure the success of the problems that we're trying to solve. And even though we have tough discussions, we're still supporting each other and laughing about it and building those relationships and maintaining that positivity, and also promoting transparency in the transformation. So just being open and honest, and having great conversations. Those relationships really mean a lot to me, and it's really exciting.
Unknown Speaker :Oh, that sounds really awesome. I think it seems like It's not the norm to be able to have those hard discussions where that can be politically charged, you know about my things more important than your thing. Or, you know, I think this is the most important problem to solve for us to reconcile those and come together and have a shared understanding of what is actually the thing that's going to get us closest to our strategic goals. That takes a lot of maturity and it takes a lot of trust. So I think that's awesome that you guys have established that within your portfolio team. I love to see more of that, you know, it just across the organization. So, kudos Good work.
Unknown Speaker :Thanks. It's really inspiring to watch.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. Alright. So what's the most challenging thing about it?
Unknown Speaker :I would say the most challenging thing would be prioritization. Kyle, you know, we all want to do it all.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I do. I certainly do. Yeah, absolutely. Right. We can.
Unknown Speaker :No, we can't do it all. So prioritization is hard.
Unknown Speaker :Hold on really are you just said, you just said that the most exciting thing was having those hard discussions around prioritizing work. And now you're saying the most challenging thing is the prioritization?
Unknown Speaker :Well, that's what makes it fun.
Unknown Speaker :Okay, all right. Give me an example. Tell me how that works.
Unknown Speaker :So an example would be if we're in a heated challenging conversation as a portfolio team, and and maybe not heated, it could be heated. But we're in the middle of trying to determine the value and ranking the value across all of our epics. We had a moment recently that we kind of had this little peanut butter spread. Someone called it that we wanted to say that everybody was special. So every epic is special. And we want to do them all and they're all kind of sitting in the middle where saying that they're all valuable. And we had a really hard time kind of spreading them out to determine low value versus high value. And we had a member of our portfolio, one of our strategists that volunteered their epic, to say this is probably the lowest value epic, out of all of these that I'm looking at this would be the lowest value compared to the rest. And that took a lot of guts that took a lot of guts and a lot of honesty to volunteer that in that environment where you're having these conversations, and that's where it goes back to that is the most exciting, and also the most challenging.
Unknown Speaker :Okay, that makes sense. And I imagined that when that person you know, vocalize this, that their epic was probably the lowest value relative to the others. That probably opened up the conversation for the rest of the group and made it easier for them to say, Well, yeah, this one's a little more valuable. This one's a little less value. Did that happen?
Unknown Speaker :Absolutely. They are. conversation just took a turn. And the amount of trust and support within the room was just phenomenal. And it's been like that ever since.
Unknown Speaker :All because one person had the guts to stand up and say, you know, my things not as according to achieve our objectives and our strategic goals, this thing isn't as valuable as the others. And then it takes a lot of guts, like you said, Yeah,
Unknown Speaker :thinking about that Abo in that customer and who we're serving, it could possibly be lower value, and and just volunteering that,
Unknown Speaker :oh, I don't know, what a great example of lived to serve, you know, lead with heart. I love that. All right. So what else is challenging about the portfolio beyond prioritization?
Unknown Speaker :So I would say communication while working remote has been really challenging, which is probably not news to anybody else. But just those day to day, touch points and, you know, drive by conversations that are just so easy, especially when teams are so sitting together. We don't have that now. So it's a lot of one offs. And communication is hard things get lost. And we have to be really careful that we're staying close.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, I think that's a challenge for everybody right now, it would be very intentional about having those conversations. Mm hmm.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. And I would say just just another little thing to throw in there. Another challenging point would be really, you know, making sure that we're aligning across Amway as a whole to make sure that everybody understands their part in our transformation and holding ourselves accountable. We just need a lot of honesty right now.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, we all have a part to play. Mm hmm. Speaking of other people who have a part to play, I know that as we get towards the end of the year, you know, we're in q3 right now, and won't be long at all. Before we roll into q4. We will start talking about next year and what are the plans for 2021 and what are the most important problems for us to solve then, so as a portfolio Manager, you know, facilitating the value delivery through the portfolio? What's the most important thing that you would look to your product owners? What would be the most important thing you could ask them for right now contributing to the portfolio? As we look to plan for the next quarter the next year?
Unknown Speaker :Can I say more than one thing? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker :Well, I guess we got to prioritize. But you can say one more than one thing.
Unknown Speaker :prioritization is key. Yeah. So to our product owners, I would say the most important things to us as a group is really staying close to your product and your users, continuously getting the feedback and the metrics from our tools that you're working so hard on and feeding them through. So that would be one thing. The second thing would be, keep the work flowing, breaking that work down and getting ahead of the game, making sure that we're building the right things to solve the right problems. So that we can reach our goals for Amway as a whole. And then third, you know, and everybody is going to laugh at me. Make sure you use JIRA to promote transparency. It is a great tool. I just want everybody to put everything in JIRA.
Unknown Speaker :Wouldn't it be easier if everybody did it all the same. And it was all there connected and visible, there is so much work that goes untracked because we don't use a tool like JIRA in all cases. But that's, that's great. So I want to ask a clarifying question. You know, when you said, for the product owners to stay close to the product, get the feedback and the metrics and then feed them through? What do we feed in them through? What do you mean?
Unknown Speaker :So we would feed them through the portfolio and as a whole, so at the product level, at the portfolio level, depending on the size and if it's a problem that we need to solve or if it's just something that we need to fix that user feedback from the tool and the metrics are so important to our success.
Unknown Speaker :So as the portfolio team you want, you need that information to be brought from the product owners where they can create insight and say, Hey, this is what we're seeing in terms of user behavior or adoption. And this is the feedback we're getting that drives some of the prioritization of the epics going forward, right?
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. If they don't have the pulse on the product, then the portfolio as a whole will not be successful. So we really depend on our product owners to be able to communicate that to everybody.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, it'd be working in the dark if they could shine a light on what you needed to know. Yeah. Awesome. All right. So as we get kind of looking into the future in terms of how portfolio works, so just as a backdrop here for the audience, you know, we've been on this agile journey for years. And we started with the delivery teams, the dev teams and implementing Scrum and using Scrum masters to facilitate those ceremonies. And that that that was quick It seemed to stick really well with a lot of teams. They just got it like it was that kind of when you were a scrum master, you had that realization of this is better. This helps me this helps my team. This just makes everything about work better. And then that was a new way for us to work. And then we switched the way we did product teams, we used to be very functionally oriented. Now we're switched to productized teams. So the teams are all about a product. And then we spent some time getting good at product and delivery together. And then about a year ago, we got more serious about, alright, let's put the portfolio layer into place and get better at defining the problems and prioritizing what value needs to be delivered first, and measuring the success of what we deliver. And so we've been doing that about a year now. And you've been a part of that journey for probably the whole time. And I think you know, the progress we've made so far. Thanks to you and the others like you and the portfolio manager role. When we look forward into the next year, what's that next hurdle that we're going to have to overcome as a portfolio? tear in the Agile workflow model?
Unknown Speaker :I would say our next hurdle as a whole is probably still opening up our communication and being completely honest with ourselves and everybody else to make sure that we are working and focusing on the most important things that are going to get us to that a 70. So the challenge really being the communication and alignment across our portfolios, to make sure that we're working on those things. So managing the dependencies early, making sure that we're all aligned on processes, making sure that we're sharing our learnings across portfolios to make sure that we're all on the same page and working towards a common goal. That would be probably The biggest hurdle that I see, and I'm working on,
Unknown Speaker :yeah, I think I know, I know, I've heard it, you know, a number of times in the last few months, that's just It's been one of the questions that's been posed, like, how do you do this across multiple portfolios, and we're just talking about, like six portfolios in digital, we've got one in it right now. And that doesn't even include, you know, the marketing and sales work that has been fed into those portfolios, or has their own portfolio outside of those groups. And so we're just we're talking about, you know, the, the early stages of implementing this type of discipline and, and so it's super exciting. I'm glad you're on it, and you're helping with it. Because if we want to get to a 70, and have Amway be 10 times easier for the new IBO This is the kind of discipline and work that's going to have to be put in.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, and it's going to be it's not going to be easy. Like I said it, it's going to take a lot of communication A lot of honesty, to be able to work through this. And I tell you, I couldn't do it without my other portfolio managers, you mean losing those relationships?
Unknown Speaker :Everybody knows the quote, they never said it was going to be easy. They said it'd be worth it. Yeah, that rings true in this situation.
Unknown Speaker :Absolutely. I have all the faith in the world that it's going to be worth it at the end.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah. So what what, what would you like to leave the audience with this has really been great. So thank you. Any, any last statements for the audience?
Unknown Speaker :So yeah, I want to say, you know, the transformation that we're going through right now, this transformation is really a journey. And we're all doing so fantastic. Everybody has been so inspiring, so supportive. So I just want to say keep going forward and supporting each other as we're growing and walking on this journey together. We'll get there. It'll be awesome.
Unknown Speaker :I love it. Those are their aways values spoken so well. Thank you so much, Lisa. This has been great. I really appreciate the time you put into doing this.
Unknown Speaker :Thanks for having me.
Unknown Speaker :Yeah, it's great to talk to Sir. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review and share it with others. To learn more about Ambroise agile journey, follow the hashtag agile Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn. And if you're an employee, do that and search camel agile forward slash Transcribed by https://otter.ai