Request for

Information (RFI)

The following document is a sample Request for Information (RFI) that I created for an organization

seeking a PPM application for organizations using Agile practices for their delivery of projects, programs,

and portfolios. The RFI was completed and delivered in July 2014, and preceded a successful evaluation

of the VersionOne software.

All questions came directly from the organization and have not been altered; the questions are in bold

typeface and preceded by an arrow bullet point. Responses are original, with the intent to avoid strict

marketing messaging, and were augmented with sample screenshots to illustrate features and

capabilities.

Victor Hernandez

Sr. Software Sales and Solutions Engineer

victorehernandez@gmail.com

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Allow users to manage and track requirements using agile methodologies VersionOne is an agile project management tool built from the ground up to support agile software development methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban, Lean, XP, SAFe and hybrid. Upon installation, VersionOne offers several templates including Scrum, DSDM, Xtreme Programming, and AgileUP; each template automatically updates the terminology and labels in the system pertaining to each methodology.

VersionOne supports Kanban and Lean methodologies through configurable Status workflows in the StoryBoard virtual whiteboard.

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VersionOne allows for management and tracking of requirements through the following system objects:

Epics – A large-grained feature or initiative to capture business value and that allows for breakdown into smaller Epics or User Stories.

Themes/Feature Groups – A related set of backlog items that is useful to group for reporting purposes. For example: Security, Reporting, Integration, User Interface, or Payment Processing could all be feature groups within a project.

Goals – A measurable strategic target that drives the direction of one or more projects.

Requests – A submission to consider extending or enhancing the functionality of a system.

Projects – A collection of releases, sprints, team members, and backlog items. Projects may have defined end dates or be on-going.

Programs – A cross-hierarchical collection of projects used for filtering and reporting purposes.

Schedules – A collection of sequential sprints that can be used on a project or release.

Member Groups – A flexible collection of team members that can be used for convenience to group sets of system users.

Teams – A group of cross-functional members who work together within a project to deliver a set of features.

Provide users the ability to use the scrum approach to record requirements and communicate

them as stories In VersionOne, an organization using Scrum would record requirements using Backlog Items (User Stories). These User Stories are recorded and managed for a respective Product or Project Backlog in the Product Planning section, and display in rank order within the Backlog, depending on their value, priority, or risk.

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The system provides fields and attributes to capture all aspects of the User Story – the Description, the Estimate (Story Points), Links, Attachments, and all other relationships that help define the business value from the user perspective. Detail Page of a User Story:

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Allow scrum manager/scrum master to manage stories In VersionOne, a Scrum Manager / Scrum Master user would be granted a Project Admin role to create backlog(s) of User Stories for a given project. The User Stories can be ranked within their respective backlog, sized, prioritized, and scheduled to Sprints for a development team.

The Scrum Manager / Scrum Master can review and manage the planning and delivery of User Stories through views such as the TeamRoom:

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My Dashboard (a personal, configurable reporting interface):

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The Sprint Dashboard report:

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Provide users with the ability to combine these stories to create an epic or break them into sub-stories

In VersionOne, User Stories can be used as a starting point to generate a parent Epic…

…thereafter, User Stories can be created as children of the Epic, or existing Stories can be grouped and associated to the Epic; alternatively, An Epic can be broken down into a group of User Stories.

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Provide users with the ability to create and track sprints In VersionOne, users with a role of a Project Lead and above can create and track Sprints in the system.

Thereafter, once a Sprint is in motion, it can be tracked through views such as the Team Room or Sprint Dashboard: Team Room

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Sprint Dashboard

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Allow users to implement constructs of the Kanban methodology In VersionOne, the Storyboard virtual whiteboard provides the following Kanban board capabilities:

Visualize Workflow – Configure Storyboard’s Status columns to match the team’s workflow and

horizontal lane groupings to highlight card attributes, such as Class of Service

Limit Work-In-Process (WIP) – set WIP limits per Status columns or group of columns to manage

capacity

Manage Flow – set Thresholds to visually measure and alert on a card’s time-in-status

Make Policies Explicit – capture the Kanban board’s Policies and make them highly visible and

accessible

Customize and Color-Code Cards – configure cards to display information valuable to the team

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Track Workitem Cycle Time to understand the amount of time it takes for a card to go through the full cycle:

Use the Cumulative Flow Report to track the amount of work that is in each Status as teams work.

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Allow developers to manage the process and provide their status In VersionOne, Developers can define the process (workflow) in any of the virtual whiteboards – Storyboard, Taskboard, and Testboard – and update and provide their work status by moving a Story, Task, or Test Card to the respective Status column:

Allow scrum manager/scrum master to assign the time required for each task and create a report

to depict actual time versus estimated time for each task In VersionOne, a Scrum Manager / Scrum Master can assign Detail Estimate (hours) to a User Story’s Tasks and/or Tests:

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A Scrum Manager / Scrum Master can then use a view such as the Task Quicklist to track data such as Task Detail Estimate versus Actual Effort (Done):

Provide users with the ability to define tasks as testing tasks VersionOne provides Tests to track testing tasks as children of User Stories and Epics. Tests allow for capturing acceptance criterion for validating that a User Story or Defect fix has been implemented properly.

A user can capture information such as the following to execute the Test:

Description

Setup, Inputs, Steps, Expected Results

Links and Attachments

Comments

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Detail Page of a Test:

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Tests are tracked by the team in the Testboard virtual whiteboard:

Ability to support multiple projects within one tool VersionOne allows for an unlimited number of projects to be managed at any given time, with the ability to support complex organizational business hierarchies and structures, such as Portfolios, Programs, Products with corresponding Releases, and stand-alone Projects. The Project Tree construct allows for creating a hierarchy of folders or containers for system assets, such as Epics, Stories, and Defects. The Project Tree is the backbone for organizing data in the system, and provides the filtering context to display data for planning and reporting.

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The Project Tree

The Project Tree, expanded

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Ability to support Cross-project Rollups In VersionOne, a Program is a cross-hierarchical collection of projects used for filtering and reporting purposes.

Programs are set up to facilitate the display of data coming from a number of projects managed in the system. With a Program in place, reports provide cross-project rollup metrics and information.

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Program Summary Report

Ability to create and manage epics In VersionOne, Epics allow an organization to define large items that are later broken down into smaller components to be delivered by teams. Epics can be evaluated and prioritized individually and independently based on attributes such as their Value, Risk, Swag (Epic Estimate), Priority, etc. Epics are created and managed in their own, discrete view – the Epic Tree. The Epic Tree view allows a user to add new Epics, inspect all child Epics and/or their respective Backlog Items – User Stories, Defects, Test Sets – and review progress. As User Stories of an Epic are tracked and completed, the progress made at this level rolls up to higher levels, child Epics and parent Epics.

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The Epic Tree view

Epics are visually managed in the Epicboard – an Epic Kanban board; Epics broken down across a number of project teams can be visually managed by the respective team, with a workflow unique to their Epicboard.

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The Epicboard

The Epic Timeline allows a user to view planned and historical Epics over the course of time. It complements the Epic Tree and Epicboard views by communicating when Epics have been or are scheduled to be delivered.

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The Epic Timeline

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Built-in team collaboration In VersionOne, team collaboration is enabled via the following capabilities: The VersionOne TeamRoom is a dedicated team-based dashboard that enables agile developers focus on getting their job done. Designed to support the daily activities of today’s agile development teams, a TeamRoom’s customizable views help teams plan, track, and collaborate with ease. TeamRoom

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A PlanningRoom provides a focused dashboard for planning, collaboration and progress visibility to program and portfolio planning teams who need to create and manage functional plans. Groups who plan at different levels of an organization can create PlanningRooms to focus on their respective areas of responsibility. PlanningRoom

Conversations – similar to a Facebook/Twitter exchange, allows team members, stakeholders, and others to actively collaborate in the system by capturing comments, decisions, updates, etc., related to specific project work – e.g., Epics, User Stories – common topics or contexts, or purely social interaction. Conversations are available from the Detail Page of any item, TeamRooms, PlanningRooms, and a user’s Conversations page.

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A user’s Conversations page

Additional team collaboration features:

Email Notifications – users create subscriptions to project events and receive email notification

using your email client.

Links – hyperlinks to external resources can be added to an item such as an Epic, User Story, or Tasks

to provide contextual information.

Attachments – documents, images, and other files can be attached to items in the system.