Agile Portfolio Office Essentials for Iterative Delivery Training Course
| Course code | SD-AP-011 |
|---|---|
| Duration | 5 days |
| Level | Intermediate |
| Category | Agile & PMO |
| Delivery | Classroom or live online |
| Language | English |
| Certificate | Certificate of completion |
Course overview
Agile Portfolio Offices are expected to do more than collect status reports. They must give leaders a reliable view of strategic investment, delivery flow, capacity constraints, dependencies, benefits and risk while teams work in short iterations. Many PMO and portfolio professionals inherit governance designed for annual plans and stage-gate projects, then struggle to reconcile it with product roadmaps, backlogs, quarterly planning and changing priorities. This course addresses that operating gap: how to build practical portfolio discipline without reintroducing command-and-control reporting or slowing delivery teams.
Participants learn the essential operating model of an Agile Portfolio Office, from portfolio intake and strategic themes through investment prioritisation, lean business cases, capacity allocation, dependency management and outcome-based reporting. They practise using portfolio Kanban systems, weighted shortest job first (WSJF), value-versus-effort assessment, OKRs, hypothesis statements, guardrails and flow metrics. The course also covers how to establish decision rights, design lightweight governance cadences, create meaningful dashboards and distinguish delivery metrics from business-value evidence.
Delivery combines instructor-led explanation with a running portfolio case involving competing strategic initiatives, constrained teams and cross-product dependencies. Participants work in groups to design an intake process, prioritise an investment portfolio, build a portfolio Kanban board, define metrics and prepare an executive review pack. Each participant leaves with an Agile Portfolio Office operating blueprint: a practical set of templates, cadences, roles, measures and a 90-day implementation plan that can be adapted to their organisation.
The course is suited to PMO professionals, portfolio managers, transformation leads and delivery leaders who already work around Agile teams and need a consistent way to govern investment and delivery at portfolio level.
Course objectives
By the end of this course, participants will be able to:
- Design an Agile Portfolio Office operating model with defined services, roles, decision rights and governance cadences
- Construct a portfolio Kanban system that makes initiative intake, review, approval, delivery and benefit realisation visible
- Prioritise strategic initiatives using WSJF, value-versus-effort scoring and capacity-based investment guardrails
- Write lean business cases using hypotheses, leading indicators, expected outcomes, costs, risks and decision thresholds
- Map cross-team dependencies and establish escalation paths that protect iteration and programme flow
- Create OKR-aligned portfolio measures that connect strategic outcomes, delivery flow, financial investment and benefits
- Build an executive portfolio dashboard using clear status definitions, flow metrics, confidence indicators and decision prompts
- Produce a 90-day Agile Portfolio Office implementation roadmap with sequenced actions, owners and adoption measures
Benefits of attending
For you
- Gain a repeatable method for moving from project-status administration to portfolio investment stewardship
- Build confidence facilitating prioritisation discussions when executives, product leaders and delivery teams disagree
- Create portfolio dashboards that explain decisions required rather than merely displaying red-amber-green status
- Develop a credible implementation blueprint for introducing lean portfolio governance in an existing PMO
- Strengthen suitability for portfolio manager, Agile PMO lead, transformation office and product operations roles
For your organisation
- Improves visibility of strategic initiatives, capacity commitments, dependencies and blocked investment decisions
- Reduces low-value work entering delivery by applying explicit intake criteria, hypothesis testing and prioritisation methods
- Replaces inconsistent status reporting with common portfolio measures for flow, outcomes, risk and investment health
- Creates governance cadences that give leaders timely control without imposing unnecessary approvals on Agile teams
- Provides a practical 90-day adoption plan that accelerates establishment or improvement of an Agile Portfolio Office
Target competencies
Who should attend
- Portfolio Managers — who need to prioritise investment and report portfolio health across Agile delivery teams
- PMO Managers — who are redesigning governance, reporting and assurance for iterative delivery
- Transformation Leaders — who must establish portfolio-level practices that support enterprise Agile change
- Programme Managers — who coordinate interdependent Agile initiatives and need stronger portfolio escalation routes
- Product Operations Leaders — who require alignment between product roadmaps, capacity decisions and strategic objectives
- Senior Delivery Managers — who need to present delivery flow, risk and outcome evidence to executive stakeholders
Requirements and prerequisites
Participants should understand the basic Agile concepts of iterations or sprints, product backlogs, cross-functional teams and incremental delivery. Experience working in a PMO, programme, project, product or delivery-management role is expected, as the exercises use realistic portfolio decisions, financial constraints and governance scenarios. Familiarity with spreadsheets and presentation software is useful for portfolio analysis and dashboard work. Participants do not need to hold Scrum, SAFe or PMI certification, and prior use of Jira Align, Power BI or Azure DevOps is not required. This is a fundamentals course for portfolio-level Agile practice, not an introduction to Agile team delivery.
Training methodology
The programme uses short instructor-led modules followed by portfolio-office working sessions. A continuing case study requires participants to assess initiative demand, apply WSJF, set investment guardrails, visualise work in a portfolio Kanban board and prepare evidence for an executive review. Groups compare governance choices for different organisational contexts, including product-led and project-led environments. Participants use template packs modelled on Jira Align, Azure DevOps and Power BI reporting practices, then complete individual application planning with instructor feedback on their own Agile Portfolio Office priorities.
Course outline
Day 1: The Agile Portfolio Office mandate
- PMO, EPMO and Agile Portfolio Office service models
- Portfolio management in iterative and product-based delivery environments
- Strategic themes, value streams and portfolio boundaries
- Decision rights for investment, prioritisation and delivery assurance
- Lean governance principles and minimum viable controls
- Portfolio operating cadences for quarterly and monthly decisions
- Stakeholder mapping for executives, product leaders and delivery teams
Workshop: Participants assess a traditional PMO scenario and produce an Agile Portfolio Office service catalogue, stakeholder map and decision-rights matrix.
Day 2: Investment intake and portfolio prioritisation
- Portfolio demand intake criteria and definition-of-ready checks
- Lean business case structure and investment hypotheses
- Cost of delay components and weighted shortest job first scoring
- Value-versus-effort and risk-adjusted prioritisation techniques
- Capacity allocation across strategic themes and value streams
- Investment guardrails, thresholds and delegated authority
- Portfolio Kanban policies for funnel, review, analysis and approval stages
Workshop: Using a constrained investment scenario, participants score competing initiatives and produce a ranked portfolio Kanban with explicit entry and exit policies.
Day 3: Flow, dependencies and delivery governance
- Portfolio flow metrics including lead time, throughput, work in progress and ageing
- Distinguishing initiative progress from value delivery evidence
- Cross-team dependency mapping and dependency board design
- Risk, assumption, issue and decision management in iterative delivery
- Quarterly planning inputs and portfolio capacity conversations
- Escalation routes for blocked decisions and systemic impediments
- Governance forums that support rather than duplicate team ceremonies
Workshop: Participants map dependencies across a multi-team delivery portfolio and produce a governance cadence with escalation triggers and accountable owners.
Day 4: Outcome reporting and executive insight
- OKRs, key results and portfolio-level outcome measures
- Leading indicators, lagging indicators and benefit-realisation evidence
- Portfolio financial views for funding, forecasts and investment tracking
- Confidence assessment and evidence-based health reporting
- Dashboard design principles for executive portfolio decisions
- Jira Align and Azure DevOps data fields for portfolio reporting
- Power BI portfolio dashboard measures and visual hierarchy
Workshop: Participants convert raw initiative data into an executive portfolio dashboard and produce a decision-focused review pack for a leadership meeting.
Day 5: Implementing the Agile Portfolio Office
- Current-state assessment of portfolio governance maturity
- Selecting a minimum viable Agile Portfolio Office operating model
- Role design for portfolio managers, PMO analysts and product leaders
- Adoption risks, resistance patterns and stakeholder engagement actions
- Piloting portfolio practices in one value stream or investment area
- Ninety-day implementation roadmap and success measures
- Continuous improvement through portfolio retrospectives and metric reviews
Workshop: Participants produce and peer-review a 90-day Agile Portfolio Office implementation roadmap with milestones, owners, measures and executive sponsorship actions.
Tools & standards covered
Jira Align, Azure DevOps, Microsoft Power BI, SAFe Lean Portfolio Management
A typical training day
| 08:30 – 10:30 | First session |
| 10:30 – 10:45 | Refreshment break |
| 10:45 – 12:30 | Second session |
| 12:30 – 13:30 | Lunch and networking |
| 13:30 – 15:00 | Third session |
| 15:00 – 15:15 | Refreshment break |
| 15:15 – 16:30 | Workshop and daily review |
Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.
What the fee includes
- Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
- Full course workbook and materials
- Exercise files, templates and case studies
- Certificate of completion
- Refreshments and lunch (classroom deliveries)
- Post-course application plan
- Facilitator follow-up on request
- Group rates from five participants
How you can take this course
Classroom
Scheduled sessions in Nairobi, Mombasa, Kigali, Dar es Salaam, Dubai and Cape Town.
Live online
The same facilitator and materials, delivered live for distributed teams and individuals.
In-house
Delivered privately for your team, at your offices or a venue of your choice, tailored to your context. Request a proposal.
Certification
Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.
Frequently asked questions
Upcoming sessions
New dates are being scheduled. Ask us about the next session or an in-house delivery for your team.
Ask about datesGroup of 5+?
Request in-house delivery or group rates →Related courses in Agile & PMO
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