Industry's First Agile Portfolio Management Solution Aligns the Corner Office and Development Teams

BOULDER, CO--(Marketwire - Dec 6, 2011) - While adopting Agile practices increases speed, predictability and quality in development teams, the faster pace exposes new challenges for the business. Now, the business must more rapidly determine where to allocate resources to steer their product portfolios in the most profitable direction. Simultaneously, development teams must optimize their work beyond the sprint and release level to stay aligned with the larger strategic plan.

Inspired by Agile and Lean principles, Rally introduces the industry's first Agile Portfolio Management solution, which includes:

• Rally Portfolio Manager to provide a single system of record for strategy and execution
• Agile Portfolio Steering services to lean the portfolio management process and enable more responsive steering of the enterprise
• Educational resources to adopt Agile principles at strategic planning levels.

"Gaining accurate, timely information about key project and portfolio progress is business-critical. It's also one of the toughest things we do as business and development leaders," wrote IDC in a Customer Spotlight sponsored by Rally Software, "Agile Portfolio Management: Getty Images Gains Visibility and Alignment with Kanban Portfolios," December 2011. "Over the past year, [Rally and Getty Images] joint development effort resulted in Rally Portfolio Manager, a solution which now enables Getty Images to manage all development efforts on Kanban boards with visibility into more accurate, current project portfolio status for the PMO and the business." Get the case study at http://www.rallydev.com/resource/idc-case-study-getty-images-gains-alignment-kanban-portfolios

Here's how it works:

Aligning Business and Development Teams
Rally Portfolio Manager installs the necessary feedback loops between strategy and execution, so business and development leaders can actively steer their investments for the biggest returns. At the strategy level, leaders can plan, forecast and accurately track the real-time progress and costs of their bigger programs and high-level features. This lets companies re-balance development resources or program scope in response to new market conditions. Development teams benefit, too. By connecting user stories to higher-level portfolio investments, teams always know which features best implement the company's highest priorities.

Executives Get "Need to Know" Information
Business leaders may not care exactly how development gets the job done, but they do care about dates, costs and the value delivered to customers. Rally Portfolio Manager aggregates development status above the team and user story levels to equip business leaders with the facts they need to make informed trade offs. The Program Management Office (PMO) and business leaders can answer questions about active and completed projects, budget consumption and take early action to mitigate foreseeable delays.

Realistic Roadmaps
Rally Portfolio Manager removes guesswork from planning and tracking strategic roadmaps so organizations can make achievable, meaningful product commitments. Rally makes it easier than ever to base strategic plans on actual development capacity and actual rate of development progress. Rally's interactive timeline forecasts delivery of large initiatives, so leaders can actively steer resource allocations and program scope in order to keep their promise of delivering against the top strategic priorities.

"Rally Portfolio Manager provides a single system of record for both business and development leaders to arm them with the right information to steer the company in the most profitable direction," said Rally's VP of Products, Todd Olson. "For much of the past decade, Rally has helped thousands of organizations adopt Agile at the development level. Today, we're solving this new challenge: helping you steer your business in fast-moving, fiercely competitive markets."

Join the Agile Portfolio Management Roadshow taking place December 6 in Menlo Park, CA, December 8 in Boston, MA, or December 13 in Dallas, TX. Try Rally Portfolio Manager for free until January 31, 2012. For more information, visit www.rallydev.com.

About Rally Software
Rally is the recognized leader in Agile application lifecycle management (ALM). We are dedicated to helping organizations embrace Agile and Lean development practices that increase the pace of innovation and improve product quality. According to a study by QSM Associates, software-driven companies that rely on Rally's Agile ALM products and services are 50% faster to market and 25% more productive than industry averages. The company's experienced services group, including training through Agile University, guides companies through the organizational change required to become innovative, Agile businesses. Together, Rally's Agile ALM platform and its leading Kanban-based project collaboration tool, AgileZen, support more than 144,000 users in 109 countries. For more information, visit www.rallydev.com.

Rally, the Rally logo, Rally Software Development, Agile University and AgileZen are trademarks of Rally Software Development Corp. Third-party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.