Kanban India 2023 www.kanbanindia.org

1. Using Kanban
to Boost Business Agility
Presented by
Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan
Kanban India 2023
December 2023| Bengaluru, India
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www.kanbanindia.org

2. Journey Today
▪ Introduction
▪ Getting Grounded: Kanban & Business Agility
▪ Case Studies and Connections to Value
▪ STEP Approach
▪ Workshop Activity
▪ Questions
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Connection
STEP
Value & Value
Streams
Kanban
www.kanbanindia.org

3. About Me
▪ Been in the field of project, program, and portfolio management
▪ Has established Level 5 PMO
▪ Works as Enterprise Agile Evangelist with Inflectra
▪ Fan of Using Movies and Games in training!
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Twitter: @agilesriram
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sriramrajagopalan/
Blog: https://agilesriram.blogspot.com
Web: https://www.sriramrajagopalan.com
www.kanbanindia.org

4. Target Audience and Takeaways
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Who is it for?
• Dev/Test/Managers adopting Kanban in Agile or DevOps
• Middle Management/SMEs implementing Scaled Agile
What are the takeaways?
• What four areas contribute essentially to Business Agility?
• How integrate Kanban in each of these of these four areas?
• How to promote value through Strategic Kanban thinking?
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5. Game
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Connection
STEP
Value & Value
Streams
Kanban
Why is Kanban important for Business Agility?
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6. Kanban Game
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You can access my game at Interactions (sriramrajagopalan.com)
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7. Case Study
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Connection
STEP
Value & Value
Streams
Kanban
Why is Kanban important for Business Agility?
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8. Case Study 1: Background Information
This is a life science company that caters to all healthcare organizations like pharma,
providers, patients, and payers.
In many projects, it takes input from the pharma company on the branded drug details and
develops key important messages to communicate with the healthcare providers (HCP).
The HCP are informed about the drug on how the drug can be used for patients with specific
disease states and targeted demographics.
The focus is not only messages but also balance it with the side effects and targeted patient
profile.
The messages are then incorporated with the branded assets and emailed to the appropriate
channel (e.g.: Email Newsletter)
The emails are then developed, tested, and deployed to the right targeted HCP lists.
Subject line A-B testing is done before the remaining targeted HCPs are sent the email with
the winning subject line.
Federal Government agencies monitor such communication and issue warning letters if
required
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9. Case Study 1:
• Scenario: In a Life Sciences company focused on delivering FDA approved clinical messages to
healthcare providers, cards were in place as follows for every group. The project adopted Kanban
practices to move through tasks. Immediately after launch, a warning letter was issued to Pharma
and the Life Sciences company to terminate the campaign. What’s wrong with this implementation?
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Design Develop Test Deploy
Develop Key
Messages
Review Branding
Assets
Review Branding
Assets
Develop the email
Newsletter
Integrate on the
backend
Unit Test and Pass
to QC
Test the email
Newsletter
Identify Defects
Test Fixed Defects
Segment Target List
Do A-B Testing
Launch Campaign
Role based cards
Siloed Value
Thinking
Push based
Approach
Pharma
•Fair Balance Penalty
Company
•Delayed Earnings
End User
•Missed Value
Impact
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10. Team level Practices are necessary but
insufficient for Business Value
Cross-Functional Systems Thinking
needed for everyone as in Kanban Flow
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11. Case Study 2: Background Information
This case study involves the retail pharmacy operations informing patients of the prescriptions
ready for pick up.
This is to avoid unpicked prescriptions taking up shelf-space, being wasted, and not reaching
patients on time.
Pharmacy delivers a flat file to an IT services firm with header (file date, record count) and an
agreed upon trailer format confirming end of file to avoid processing corrupt or partial files.
The file should be delivered by no later than 8 AM Eastern Time and all the patients in the file
must be notified within a 4-hour window
After manual validation, these are fed to a rule-based voice engine which will start processing the
records in the order listed.
The voice platform had monitors in place to see how many records need to be processed for the
day and how many must be reprocessed because patients were not reached (privacy concerns).
The operations team can adjust the number of ports (each port means higher or fewer calls can
be made) as needed to meet the contractual time commitments. Every port costs money.
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12. Case Study 2:
• Scenario: In a professional services industry delivering voice notifications based on a daily payload
for patients to get their pharmacy order ready notifications within a 4-hour window in operations,
the ROI of prescription pickup was lower than anticipated for over a month. Based on the Kanban
cards identified below, why do you think this initiative failed?
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To Do Doing Done
Check Daily Payload
Feed to Notification
Program
Monitor Progress
Unexplicit Policies
Queue vs Value
Mindset
No Feedback
Loops
Add ports to
process remaining
items
Retail Company
•Prescription Waste
IT Company
•Lost Opportunity
End User
•Life Loss Function
Impact
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13. Timeboxing and Team Practices alone
doesn’t assure Business Agility
Kanban is much more important than
Transactional Card Movements
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14. Strategic Execution: Connection with KMM
Visualize
Manage
Flow
Limit WIP
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Manage
Explicit Policies
Feedback
Loops
Improve
Collaboration
Strategic
Considerations
Execution
Considerations
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15. Was that the original Kanban?
Role Based
Cards
Siloed
Thinking
Push Based
Approach
Unexplicit
Policies
Queue vs Value
Mindset
Feedback
Loops
Passing Defects Inventory
Control
Optimize Value
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Kanban
Andon
Jidoka
Heijunka
Kaizen
Kaikaku
Visual
Factory
Team
Accountability
Intelligent
Automation
Systems
Thinking
Reduce
Unevenness
Minimize
Overburden
Product
Improvement
Process
Improvement
Market
Research
Business
Value
Business
Agility
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16. Visualize & Limit WIP
Address bottlenecks
Work in smaller batches
Reduce Queue Length
Minimize handoffs and dependencies
Get faster feedback
Optimize time in the zone
Remediate legacy policies & practices
Flow
Distribution
Flow
Velocity
Flow
Time
Flow
Load
Flow
Efficiency
Flow
Predictability
Flow is characterized by a smooth
transition of work through the entire
value stream with a minimum of
handoffs, delays, and rework.
We made Kanban Transactional
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We have become
metrics driven
instead of value
driven!
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17. Learn and Adapt in the
end! Why do I have to
wait that long to learn?
Any idea about cost of
opportunity?
If stages are linear like this,
aren’t we implementing
waterfall in business
agility?
We may be rushing to create Waterfall!
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18. Kanban must maximize Value
Kanban should align with Business
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19. So, how should we implement
Kanban to support Business
Agility?
https://pixabay.com/photos/alert-animal-cute-fur-hair-look-165009/
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20. STEP Framework
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Connection
STEP
Value & Value
Streams
Kanban
Why I created the STEP approach?
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21. Business Agility Defined
Business Agility is the ability to compete
and thrive in the digital age by quickly
responding to market changes and
emerging opportunities with innovative,
digitally-enabled business solutions.
-- Scaled Agile Framework1
Business Agility is the ability to quickly
realize value predictably, sustainably
and with high quality.
-- PMI Disciplined Agile Delivery2
ability
market
emerging innovative
value predictably sustainably
quality
ability
1. Business Agility (2021). Scaled Agile Framework. Retrieved from https://www.scaledagileframework.com/business-agility/
2. Business Agility – Our True Goal. PMI Disciplined Agile. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile/da-flex-toc/the-goal-is-business-agility-whats-in-your-way
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22. Technical Value Add
Customer Value Add
Process Value Add
Business Value Add
Value Mapping is a Business Exercise
• Customer market segments needs
• Exciters that customers don’t ask
• Documentation / training needs for users
• Compliance with regulations
• Increasing operational excellence
• Focusing on continuous improvement
• Proactive Risk Management
• Technical Debt Reduction

23. Market Study Product Development Marketing
Value Streams
Development Value Streams
differ from Value
Product Management Customer Support
Program & Portfolio Management
Operational Value Streams
Strategic Value Streams

24. Value flows vertically as well as horizontally
Kanban flows vertically as well as horizontally

25. Business Agility: SAFe
Safe 5 for Lean Enterprise (n.d.) Scaled Agile Framework. Retrieved from https://www.scaledagileframework.com/#

26. Business Agility: PMI Disciplined Agile
PMI Disciplined Agile Framework (n.d.). Project Management Institute. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/disciplined-agile
Disciplined
DevOps
Disciplined
Agile
Enterprise
Value
Streams

27. Potential Anti Patterns to Value Delivery
Framework
Hopping
Busy vs Value
Always Learning
Our transformation fails because of leadership failure!
If sprints don’t work, let us use iterations!
We failed as we are not SAFe!!
If we are busy, we produce value!
We don’t know who we build it for!!
No learning on processes and tools!
Learning the same lessons!!

28. Frameworks are getting Commercialized
Need to Simplify Value Delivery Function

29. R
P O F I T
S
O
L S
Connecting Vertical & Horizontal Flows
I
K
R
S

30. STEP Framework
Connection
STEP
Value & Value
Streams
Kanban

31. STEP* into Business Agility
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Investing in relationships
internally and externally to
identify market needs, adapt to
clients, and innovate on solutions
Strategic Agility
Integrating new and emergent
technologies to deliver quality
solutions and unearth new
products and markets
Technical Agility
Realizing speed and scale in delivering
solutions across the organizations by
improving productivity, addressing
risks, and ensuring quality
Execution Agility
Leading the reorganization of
firms’ resources across existing
initiatives and building capacity
for future strategic initiatives
Portfolio Agility
Business
Agility
* Approach developed by Dr. Sriram Rajagopalan

32. Understanding Opportunity
(KMM 5 - Market Leader)
Innovating at multiple levels
(KMM 6: Built for Survival)
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Sensing Market
2
Innovative Culture
3
Risk Management
Strategic Agility 32
Competitive
Advantage
Preparing capability
(KMM 4 – Risk Hedged)

33. Technical Agility
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Business
Outcomes
Team Agility
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Continuous Improvement
2
Risk Management
3
KMM 1: Team Focused
• Customer Centricity
• Built-in Quality
KMM 2: Customer Driven &
KMM 3: Fit for Purpose
• Innovative Curiosity
• Systems Thinking
KMM 4: Risk Hedged
• Platform and Product Stability
• Program & Portfolio Risks

34. Execution Agility
Deliver
Predictably
Doing
Things
Right
Doing
Right
Things
KMM 5 – Market Leader &
KMM 6- Built for Survival
Scale Teams to ensure predictability
by prioritizing and being productive
KMM 1- Team Focused &
KMM 4- Risk Hedged
Increase risk based testing to increase
quality and effectiveness
KMM 2 –Customer Driven &
KMM 3: Fit for Purpose
Delighting customers based on business
need and risk of non-delivery
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Leadership
Management

35. Portfolio Agility 35
We are
in this
together
How to continuously
improve productivity? How to address the risky
impediments to Speed?
How to resolve and
respond to risks on quality?
Evolve people, product and
process continuously
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36. Activity
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Connection
STEP
Value & Value
Streams
Kanban
Actionable Steps

37. Individual Takeaway
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1 2 3 4

38. Operationalizing STEP
Iteration 1 (10 min)
• Group into Tables (maximum 5-6 people/table preferably by industry)
• Assign a Group Leader
• Discuss how to operationalize STEP in your (or hypothetical) organization (Use Handbook if needed).
Iteration 2 (10 min)
• Goal is to produce
• Specific Activities to do in each of the 4 quadrants.
• Risks to Implementing them
• KPI to measure progress in each quadrant
Iteration 3 (10 min)
• Present the findings (If many groups exist, we will have to pick 2-3 tables)
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39. Summary
• Recognize that team and technical agility alone does not
guarantee business agility
• Value flows both horizontally across development value
streams and groups that control operational value streams
• Business Agility includes strategic agility, technical agility,
execution agility, and portfolio agility
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40. Thank You
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twitter: @agilesriram
linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sriramrajagopalan/
Blog: https://agilesriram.blogspot.com
Web: https://www.sriramrajagopalan.com