Kanban India 2023 www.kanbanindia.org

1. Project Ignite
DEC-2023
A PMO team's journey in
expertly building the
projects right first time by
virtue of Kanban
www.kanbanindia.org

2. PAGE 2
“Kanban is not a software
development lifecycle
methodology or an approach to
project management. It
requires that some process is
already in place so that
Kanban can be applied to
incrementally change the
underlying process.”
— David J. Anderson.”

3. © 2023 Epsilon Data Management, LLC. All rights reserved. Proprietary and confidential.
O
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Track and assist new projects in initiating the project setup activities and getting off
to a right start.
What is Project Ignite?
❑ Set clear project objectives, scope definition and stakeholder
engagement with PMO.
❑ Initiate risk management strategies and establishes effective
communication plans.
❑ Organizations can significantly reduce the impact of challenges in
subsequent project phases, leading to improved project success
rates and higher stakeholder satisfaction.
✓ Improved Operational
Efficiency (Cycle Time)
✓ Enhanced Stakeholder
Management
✓ Better Predictability
PMO
Operations
Delivery
Sales
Resourcing

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Plug-in Kanban
1 2
Project Life Cycle
Initiation Planning
• Project Scope Definition
• Feasibility Assessment
• Stakeholder Identification
• Resource Allocation and Scheduling
• Risk Management
• Scope Management
Scrum
Kanban
Feature Driven
Development
Extreme
Programming
Other Agile
Methodologies
Other
Phases
PMO Team

5. SYSTEM DESIGN
To deliver the highest standard
of a service and provide excellence.
MODEL WORKFLOW
Identify process steps in Project
Setup and create a process flow
SOURCES OF DISSATISFACTION
Identification challenges in
Project Lifecycle phases
FIT FOR PURPOSE
As-is system analysis, Current
system identification
ANALYZE SOURCE,DEMAND
& DELIVERY CAPABILTIES
STATIK - WIP
1
2
3
4
5

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Sources of Dissatisfaction
4
3
1
2
1. Lack of clear project Scope
Definition.
2. Flawed Feasibility Assessment
3. Misalignment with Stakeholder
Identification.
1. Inefficient Resource Allocation
and Scheduling
2. Poor Risk Management
3. Uncontrolled Changes or Poor
Scope Management
1. Ineffective Project Handover
1. Ineffective Communication and
Collaboration
2. Poor Quality Control
3. Poorly managed Change
Management
Challenges

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As Is
System
Current
System
➢ No Effective tracking mechanism for Project
Initiation Activities
➢ Delayed handover from Sales to Delivery
➢ Delay in other dependent processes or sub
processes like resource allocation, billing etc.
due to verbal project approvals
➢ An average cycle time of 6 weeks to
complete project setup
Fit for purpose
✓ Stakeholder management with defined Roles and
Responsibilities for Project Initiation activities
✓ Dedicated team to monitor and validate
handover from Sales to Delivery
✓ Tools implementation to track all initiation
activities with timelines
✓ Early flags for verbal project approvals and delays
in formal sign offs
✓ Reduced cycle time of 3 weeks to complete
Project initiation activities

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KANBAN Elements- Current System
Commitment
Points
Visualization –
Board and Ticket
design
Release
Frequency
Feedback
Mechanism
Workflow States
➢ Sales to delivery artifacts
readiness check
➢ Pipeline Connects –
probability for Opportunity
conversion
➢ Delivery Commitments for
project Initiation
Replenishment
Metrics and
Reporting
➢ Jira Board & Dashboards ➢ Weekly Progress Call
➢ Feedback Calls
➢ SLA / Cycle Time ➢ Jira workflows & Board
➢ Jira Dashboards
➢ Status Reports
➢ Pipeline Connects (Weekly
Replenishment)
As-Is
Legend:
New Re-design

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Sources
Sources and Demand
- Account team for
Sales to delivery
handover
New Account
- Client Interaction team
Client Services
- New Project Managers
who may need
assistance
New PM
- Sales team who needs
support
Sales Team
Demand
- Automated request via
Jira
Tool
- Email Request
- Pipeline Report
Others
HOW DO THEY
MAKE
REQUEST?
- Current Business unit
Supported (~ 1200 FTE
overall)
- On an average -3
Accounts (70 FTE
strength) gets
onboarded in a month.
Data points
Capability
- An average of ~18 Hours ( 6 hrs. effort for 3 weeks) /Account is spent by the PMO team
Current Capability

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Model the workflow
Pre-requisite from
Sales
• Proposal
Response
• Client Pitch
Deck
• Statement of
work
• Cost and Effort
Estimation
Project Setup
• Forecast
Resources
• Setup Project
ID and Job
code
• Setup ALM
Tool
• Setup
Document
Repository
Planning
• Define Ways of
working
• Define RACI
• Prepare Project
Plan
• Prepare RAID
Log
• Conduct
Project Kick Off
(Client &
Internal)
Governance
• Publish
Executive
Status Report
• Publish Earn
and burn
report
• Publish Client
Status Report
Project
Execution
SLA - Lead Time
Commitment
Point
Delivery Point

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Cadences – Feedback loops
Project Kickoff
Weekly intake call
(Stakeholders)
Projects prioritization
(BU Leadership)
Project stakeholder
identification
(BU Leadership)
Setup & Monitoring
Tool Setup and updates
/ Automation
(Kickoff Team)
Task list updates
(Kickoff Team, assignees)
Task monitoring
(Kickoff Team, Delivery Manager)
Governance
Weekly progress report /
Dashboard setup and update
(Kickoff Team)
Dashboard driven insights on
weekly intake calls or identified
cadences
(BU Leadership, Stakeholders)

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Manage Flow
Manage Flow leveraging tools and with setup of workflows, swim-lanes on the board along with ticket
design to provide right information.

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Measure flow
Establish measures and KPI for progress and meet SLA

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Scaling PMO with Kanban
Business Unit (BU)
• PMO supporting individual
business units
• Vertical scaling focus on in-depth
PMO practices
Multiple BUs
• PMO across BUs
• Horizontal scaling to manage
portfolio-level and large-scale
accounts
Enterprise
• PMO across enterprise delivery
• Include dependent Service
entities (HR, Legal etc.)
• Horizontal + Vertical scaling
Scaling Approach

15. IMPROVED OPERATIONAL
EFFICIENCY THROUGH AUTOMATION
❑ PROJECT STAFFING TIME
REDUCED BY 2 WEEKS (14 DAYS)
REDUCED CYCLE TIME
❑ PROJECT INITIATION CYCLE TIME
REDUCED FROM 6 WEEKS TO 3
WEEKS

16. www.kanbanindia.org

17. www.kanbanindia.org