The contemporary world of Project (or Product) Portfolio Management is complex and intricate. Companies attempt to effectively manage a tangled network of interdependent undertakings—projects, products, or portfolios. To do so, they often juggle or blend different methodologies from the Agile and Waterfall stacks. They strive to find the right path among the abundant possibilities—in project management frameworks including SAFe®, LeSS, Spotify, AgilePM, Prince2®, etc.—and in software.
Among the many options, there is a tool that stands out. A tool that helps effectively manage this complexity. BigPicture is a flexible system that can be seamlessly integrated with Jira but can also have deep, bi-directional, real-time synchronization with Trello and Azure DevOps (coming in 2022). It flexibly adjusts to whatever project management approach or delivery method is used at an organization.
“Flexibility is the key to stability.” John Wooden
As an Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner we are also a Partner of BigPicture. We help organizations of any size to archive their goals - with the analysis, conception, further development and implementation of project portfolio management tools like the outstanding BigPicture. Get in touch if you want to know more: atlassian@kreuzwerker.de
Agile, Classic, or Hybrid Management? Flexible support for multiple frameworks
Agile, Waterfall, or Hybrid? Whatever your approach is, BigPicture is designed to comply with the organization’s chosen framework or any array of frameworks. Be it a SAFe® program, a LeSS product, a Prince2® project, be it an ART, a Program Increment (PI), an iteration, a phase, you name it. Each of these schemes now possesses a default pre-configured template in BigPicture that complies with a specific methodology. Because of this, the tool ensures excellent flexibility in adjusting to the company’s prefered way of working.
Furthermore, as ‘hybrid’ appears to be the actual reality of modern businesses, BigPicture seeks to accommodate blended and diversified portfolios. Various departments at an organization may use different approaches and choose to run their projects and programs in diverse, if not divergent, ways. To offer a concrete example: engineers may use agile products, ARTs, Program Increments, iterations, while HR, business development, and legal departments stick to waterfall projects and phases. BigPicture can host such a constellation of diverse initiatives under a single corporate portfolio (or multiple portfolios). Even more than that—it will also offer clear visibility into each such initiative in one convenient space and allow tracking progress for this entire universe.
BigPicture offers to facilitate the management of very complex and diversified portfolios by offering a selection of pre-set templates for classic, Agile and hybrid approaches (including popular frameworks of SAFe® and LeSS).
Methodologically diverse initiatives in one place
The tool’s ‘Overview’ module serves as a convenient dashboard visualizing all the diverse business initiatives conducted under even the most complex corporate portfolios. The dashboard offers easily explorable insights into products and projects in progress. At a glance, one can see:
- names and types of initiatives in the portfolio,
- their start and end dates,
- leaders involved,
- progress (time tracking, cumulative task status),
- and other vital metrics (such as original estimate, remaining estimate, and time spent).
A global overview of work currently progressing at the company.
Furthermore, the view is drillable, and each of the projects, products, or programs can be displayed with relevant details and metrics always on hand. The executive manager, the CEO, or the Portfolio Manager can track how work advances and assess the health status of different business initiatives and the overall company strategy.
With BigPicture it is finally doable for the PMO to integrate Agile, waterfall, and hybrid projects into a single portfolio, or several portfolios, as well as monitor the progress for this entire universe.
Further flexibility with multiple adjustable work spaces
Apart from Overview, BigPicture offers a selection of other modules, each of which brings a unique piece of functionality for managing a specific aspect of a project/program/portfolio:
Board — for road mapping, shaping project schedules, and reporting.
Scope — for visualization of task hierarchy, scope management, backlog prioritization, and reporting.
Resources — for analyzing capacities, allocating resources, and assigning work on the team and individual level.
Roadmap — for setting and prioritizing high-level objectives and monitoring progress against them.
Board — for Agile-based cross-team planning.
Reports — for aggregating and neatly visualizing data in just a few clicks.
Risks — for identifying hazards and hindrances and visualizing them in a heat-mapped matrix.
Calendar — for a clear and coherent calendar view of work in progress.
Quite a broad spectrum. But it comes with the possibility for further customization. The end-user can decide specifically which modules to activate for a particular business initiative.
With BigPicture Enterprise modules can be flexibly renamed to adjust to a specific framework jargon or the preferred in-house nomenclature. Gantt can turn into “Agile Plan”, Board into “Program Board”, Scope to “Program Backlog” and so on.
A Single Source of Truth
BigPicture has superior native integration with Jira and Trello. It will soon also offer a deep, real-time, bi-directional synchronization with multiple instances of Jira (Cloud and server) and with Azure DevOps. The portfolio of available integrations will be further extended to include popular task management apps. The business benefit of this ‘multi-platform support’ is that an organization can have a comprehensive software infrastructure with BigPicture sitting on top of other apps. It will draw in data from the underlying tools and then provide it to the stakeholders up the reporting ladder in an aggregated and aptly visualized form.
Deep integration means that BigPicture collects all the crucial information about tasks in real-time. Any status change in Jira, Trello, or (soon) Azure DevOps is automatically recorded in BigPicture. Relevant project data can flow unhindered across the organization, bottom-up, and top-down.
BigPicture, when used on top of multiple work management tools simultaneously, can create a comprehensive software system where relevant and reliable information,updated in real-time, flows uninterrupted between the different stakeholders.
Support for multiple roles
Finally, one last aspect of BigPicture flexibility lies in how the tool supports not single but multiple management levels at any company. When it comes to conducting business initiatives, there are several vital players at different levels of an organization, and the challenges they face are pretty diverse. Team leaders need to assign work and monitor its status effectively. Project and Product Managers require functionality to effortlessly lay out plans, track dependencies and risks and oversee the overall execution. Portfolio Managers need a holistic cross-initiative view of the entire enterprise to monitor progress and ascertain the health of undertakings. BigPicture offers broad support to all of them in their various roles. It thus facilitates the management of initiatives in a comprehensive and nearly all-encompassing way—from small projects, via complex products, to massive portfolios.
Teams. Even if they do not use BigPicture for their day-to-day work, they can hugely benefit from the tool. Having BigPicture implemented at their organization means that teams can maintain their autonomy to choose or keep using their preferred task management tool (Jira, Trello, AzureDevOps). They can continue relying on well-established and well-operating work practices and upkeep their productivity and efficiency. Moreover, as BigPicture collects all the crucial project information in real-time, the system eliminates the need to do manual reporting. A convenience welcomed and appreciated by many.
Team leaders. BigPicture offers a handy tool to plan and assign tasks and track their status. The team leader can easily define the Work Breakdown Structure and distribute relevant tasks directly to task management tools used by their team.
Project/Product Managers. There’s broad functionality for planning and executing all of the project work. BigPicture offers comprehensive views that allow for monitoring dependencies and risks. Real-time reporting on progress, challenges, and needs helps address issues just as they arise.
Portfolio Manager. This is where BigPicture becomes a true Center of Command. No matter how complex the portfolio is, how many initiatives it runs simultaneously, or how many people are involved in executing the strategy, BigPicture offers all applicable data: aggregated, neatly visualized, and available at a click. The drill-downs allow monitoring progress and possible hindrances at all levels and in all key aspects. Accurate risk assessment is critical for strategic decision-making. With BigPicture, you can create comprehensive risk matrices for all the initiatives, entire portfolios and even the whole organization.
C-level Management. BigPicture affords the very much desired bird-eye view of the entire company. The C-suite can view the complete panoramic perspective where all the work progressing under the corporate portfolio can be seen and conveniently tracked and assessed.
BigPicture covers all management levels.
Conclusions
In modern times of variety and change, especially in the face of digital transformation, businesses need solutions that can accommodate the challenges that result from disruption, diversity, and complexity. Comprehensive tools with built-in adaptability are required to harness the disruption, help achieve a competitive edge, and outdistance the competition. With flexibility as the core concept behind it, BigPicture offers to adapt well to the organization and provide focused and targeted support. It can accommodate varied project management approaches, deeply integrate other tools, and extensively facilitate daily operations of people at various management levels. BigPicture is adaptable and can be molded to accurately reflect the organization’s business panorama no matter how complex the scenery is.
You want to know more? Talk to us
To unleash the full potential of Jira in context of a professional Project (or Product) Portfolio Management, you definitely don’t want to miss taking a closer look at BigPicture. As your Atlassian Platinum Solution Partner and partner of BigPicture, we can help you with any challenge around Jira, Confluence, Jira Service Management and the Apps from Atlassian Marketplace. You benefit from our in-depth experience in project and multi-project management: we combine first-class tool knowledge with comprehensive methodological expertise.
And if you already use BigPicture, our portfolio also includes one-day and two-day BigPicture training courses.
Contact us now: atlassian@kreuzwerker.de
*Illustrations courtesy of bigpicture.one and many thanks to Adriana Fibingier-Pawelska (Communication & Partner Relations Manager at BigPicture) for her insights.