When planning portfolio items some work will have dependencies, outside of the ranking. Need to have a way of linking portfolio items, as well as a warning if ordering of portfolio items in an order that breaks this dependencies.

You might ask, dependencies across EPICs, really?

A construction projects that are outsourced by the stage of building, foundation etc.
For a new product it might be initial architectural runway items (you are starting from nothing so they have to be done first, unless you add prototype ahead of this).
For TV work, it might be Pilot and Season 1.

In other words, in the real world commercials are most of the time dependent on previous items, new deals, etc. and this needs to be reflected in the system at the portfolio level in the same way as stories are at the PI level. No one thinks it strange for PI planning to have dependencies.

Another way to think of this as that EPICs and Features are the stories of the portfolio folks. Give them most of the same ideas as a story, but let them do it with bigger concepts such as EPICs.

Comments

  • We have similar issues with our PI planning. PI's are sometimes dependent upon each other, or upon other factors that we don't control (also managed as a PI). Would like to have the same upstream / downstream dependency capabilities at the PI level, and the same visualizations that apply to stories apply that the PI level.

  • Thank you all for your valuable input. I am happy to announce that Epic to Epic dependencies have been implemented.

    Using the new Portfolio Item Dependency relationship, you can identify, capture, and manage dependencies as soon as they are identified without needing to create stories. These dependencies can be set at any level in the Portfolio Item hierarchy. Therefore, you can also create dependencies between Capabilities, Epics, Initiatives, or any level in the hierarchy. Once created, these dependencies can be viewed on the Portfolio Item Dependency Diagram and on the Portfolio Item Relationship Visualization Tab. There is also a new Portfolio Item Dependency report for those who like to see these dependencies in a tabular form.

    Please check it out and keep the good ideas coming.