The document discusses how Kanban practices helped the Scottish Government address four challenges in delivering their mygov.scot digital transformation program. They visualized work, limited work-in-progress, managed flow, made processes explicit, implemented feedback loops, and improved collaboratively. This included using 100-day delivery drives, reorganizing into vertical teams, improving planning visibility, empowering teams, and reigniting retrospectives and product demos. As a result, they increased releases from 2 in 8 months to over 40 in 200 days, improved relationships, and clarity of planning and delivery.

1. Kanban in the Scottish Government
How Kanban practices have helped us
respond to four key challenges within mygov.scot
@jose_casal – jose.casal@actineo.xyz
bitly.com/kanbanscotgov

3. Information spread across 160+
organisations
...over 480+ websites

4. 6 million content items on main
websites alone
We have more content items than
people

5. 1. Visualise
2. Limit WIP
3. Manage Flow
4. Make Process Policies Explicit
5. Implement Feedback Loops
6. Improve Collaboratively, Evolve
Experimentally

6. WARNING
These were our responses to our
challenges and in our context
Don’t just copy them, *please*,
tailor your own

7. Our programme’s reputation was
compromised due to early
promises and ambition
#1

8. The challenge of digital transformation
isn’t one of technology, instead it is
one that requires a focus on people
and culture

9. We are working with people,
not resources

10. Avoided the temptation to change
everything at once

11. We let people know that it is OK not to
have all the answers
Proactively supported experimentation

12. We were not delivering at a pace that
would support our short-term
ambitions, instead blinded by our end-
goals
#2

13. 100-day drives
Short, focused tactical delivery aligned
to our product roadmap

14. Reorganising into vertical teams to
dissolve silos and enable
on-demand delivery
END-TO-END VERTICAL TEAM
STARS
HORIZON
BOARD
NOWNEXTH1H2H3
ARCHITECTURE
PLATFORM
CONTENT
TECHNICAL
CONTENT
SM / PO
BA / UX / UI
USER RES.
STAKEHOLDER MGR.
BA / UX / UI CONTENT DEV / TEST
1
3
2
4
1 2
3
4
PRODUCT
MANAGER
FUNCTIONAL
MANAGERS
1

15. Swiftly moved the programme through
beta and live product iterations,
helping provide clarity to others on our
maturity and progress

16. We struggled with conflicting
prioritisation and strong views from
influential members of our senior team
#3

17. Improved planning and visibility
through the introduction of a
roadmap, horizon board and
combined delivery board

18. Begun to deliver value
early and often

19. Morale was suffering within the teams
and we were lacking opportunities for
true innovation
#4

20. Empowered people to deliver
to the best of their ability
(guided by the direction provided
by the 100-day objectives)

21. Re-introduced regular
retrospectives and reignited our
product demos

22. Re-introduced Hackathons for the
team to explore new ideas and
solutions

23. Content colleagues arranged a
content rally, which led to…
co-design workshops

24. So, have the changes all been
worthwhile?

25. 40+ releases in 200 days
compared to
2 releases in 8 months

26. We have more productive
relationships with public sector
subject matter experts

27. An increase in the transparency of
our planning, clearer short term
delivery and improved morale

28. Thank you.
bitly.com/kanbanscotgov
@jose_casal / linkedin.com/jcasal
jose.casal@actineo.xyz