The business within a company is creating the demand from their business roadmap. A development organization (IT department) is the solution supplier. The development organization can be 100% in-house, 100% external or a mix from internal and external. External development and external dependencies are referred to as “3rd party”. Proper demand-supply coordination is essential in bigger agile settings.
Aligned views
Expectations and limitations must be openly discussed between both parties to avoid misunderstandings
Clear roles and responsibilities
The product owner, project manager and all involved in managing the project must have a clear and common understanding of their roles and responsibilities
Controlled flow of work
The project manager sees to it that work flows from the product backlog(s) to the teams in a controlled way so they can ensure a working product every iteration
The levels for Demand-supply coordination are typified as follows:
Please find the checkpoints below.
Forming | |||||||||||
1. The project manager ensures that there is a common understanding of the project scope and the corresponding backlog items 2. Roles and responsibilities of all positions involved in managing the project are clearly defined 3. The project manager creates an incremental product delivery scheme with demand as well as supply organizations |
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Norming | |||||||||||
1. The project manager checks if there is bidirectional alignment between expectations and capabilities 2. The product backlog(s) is (are) are derived from a common demand vision 3. The product backlog items have stakeholder value |
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Performing | |||||||||||
1. There is an agreed product rollout and rollback strategy 2. There is a clear split between the responsibility for effectiveness (product owners manage product backlogs) and efficiency (project manager + team(s), eg. productivity) 3. The rollout and rollback strategy continuously innovates the product (eg. canary releases) |