E128 Guiding Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) with Generative Leadership, Guest Luke Hohmann

Dr. Dave and Luke Hohmann discuss the benefits of Lean Portfolio Management with generative Adaptive Practices, emphasizing the importance of creating a culture of continuous learning and improvement. They highlight the challenges of implementing LPM in existing organizations and present an alternative approach by focusing on solutions rather than value streams. Dr. Dave and Luke Hohmann emphasize the importance of positive energy in systems, aligning stakeholders to prioritize initiatives, and adopting an abundance mindset towards organizational change. They also discuss the importance of decentralization and participatory budgeting in LPM, highlighting the benefits of involving a large number of people in decision-making and considering the opinions of others in the team.

Action Items

• [ ] Luke to share his Tequila Lime marinade steak recipe with Dr. Dave [0:42:24]
• [ ] Dr. Dave to include Luke's recipe in the show notes for listeners [0:42:24]
• [ ] Luke to plug his book "Profit Streams" in the show notes [0:44:56]

Outline

Generative Adaptive Practice for Lean Portfolio Management.

• Dr. Dave discusses Lean portfolio management and generative Adaptive Practice.
• Dr. Dave and Luke Hohmann discuss the eight tenets of Adaptive Practice, including trusting team members to achieve goals and embracing failure as an opportunity to learn.
• Dr. Dave encourages listeners to share inspiring songs or spoken word pieces, with some providing a few words of inspiration while others have a few songs and bars to share.

Leadership, agile methodology, and civic engagement.

• Luke Hohmann shares their extensive experience in Agile and software development, highlighting their contributions to the field and their nonprofit focused on civic engagement and tech for good.
• Luke Hohmann defines personal brand as providing positive energy to systems in need.
• Dr. Dave aligns with Luke Hohmann's work on generative leadership and positive statements in the workplace.

Aligning priorities and investments in a large organization.

• Dr. Dave highlights the importance of an abundance mindset in LPM, as it helps organizations paint a compelling picture of a thriving portfolio.
• Luke Hohmann emphasizes the need for alignment in LPM, as it ensures that investments are made against the organization's abundance of great ideas.
• Luke Hohmann emphasizes the importance of alignment among business leaders to achieve strategic objectives.
• Luke Hohmann and Dr. Dave discuss the need for alignment on initiatives and work to achieve a common goal.

Adopting lean portfolio management in an organization.

• Luke Hohmann suggests investing 40% of the portfolio budget in Latin America, with 15% for new product development for specific North American clients.
• Luke Hohmann explains that people's fitness habits change over time and require one week of training for every month of unfitness.
• Luke Hohmann explains the importance of mapping out the current portfolio process to identify practices aligned with lean, agile ways of working.
• Dr. Dave acknowledges that successful companies were successful before introducing lean-agile ways of working and emphasizes the importance of keeping the cadence of existing processes.

Decentralization of decision-making authority in organizations.

• Luke Hohmann explains how organizations already have decentralized control, and lpm is not a radical change.
• Luke Hohmann argues that organizations should decentralize decision-making authority based on individual experience levels.
• Organizations should centralize certain decisions, such as choosing a cloud provider, due to their size and influence.

Participatory budgeting and engaging employees in decision-making processes.

• Luke Hohmann discusses participatory budgeting and its applications in various contexts.
• Organizations can engage dozens of people in decision-making through Participatory Budgeting, a safe and comfortable way for leaders to start.

Using participatory budgeting to gather feedback and make informed decisions in a leadership team.

• Luke Hohmann shared an experience of using participatory budgeting to gather feedback from the broader organization, which helped leaders make more informed decisions.
• Engaging leaders in participatory budgeting provided insight into how to communicate choices that may not align with the broader organization's views while still maintaining transparency and accountability.
• Luke Hohmann shares his struggles with balancing parenting and work, admitting he's not perfect but explaining his reasoning.
• In market research, the opinions of others influence decisions, and team members' perspectives matter in complex choices.

Adopting Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) practices, focusing on small wins and an abundance mindset.

• Luke Hohmann highlights the importance of human dialogue in creating better decisions and leveraging the abundance mindset to break down lpm implementation into manageable steps.
• Luke Hohmann prioritizes solutions over value streams, mapping them by horizon to identify strengths and weaknesses.
• Luke Hohmann advocates for adopting a solution mindset, isomorphic to a product mindset, to help executives understand their solutions better.
• Dr. Dave and Luke Hohmann discuss creating small wins in the lpm journey to cultivate an abundance mindset.
• Luke Hohmann suggests unrolling processes, starting with drying out LPM processes and unrolling safe practices, to achieve small wins.

Grilling and leadership with a focus on trust and change management.

• Dr. Dave and Luke Hohmann discuss grilling, with Dr. Dave sharing his favorite seafood dishes and Luke Hohmann offering tips on cooking scallops.
• Luke Hohmann mentions grilling is a "gender specific" activity, with men often taking the lead in the kitchen.
• Luke Hohmann offers advice on adopting lean, agile methods for successful organizations.
• Dr. Dave appreciates Luke Hohmann's work and shares tips from their conversation.
• Dr. Dave emphasizes the importance of trust and collaboration in implementing Lean Portfolio Management (LPM).
• Dr. Dave thanks listeners for tuning in and encourages them to check out Dr. Dave's book on generative leadership.