Kanban India 2023 www.kanbanindia.org

1. Kanban chronicles -
a tale of plans and pivots
Usha Ramaswamy

2. Once upon a time…
at Courtallam waterfalls
2

3. 3

4. 4

5. “Slowness to change usually
means fear of the new”
- Phil Crosby
5

6. Once upon a time…
6

7. The context
40
people
7
Common
platforms portfolio
Singapore
Chennai
Bangalore
Hyderabad
Multi
vendor
Quarterly

8. The people
Business Head IT Head Product owners Scrum Masters Technical SMEs
8

9. 9
Last minute
requirements
Changing
priorities
Team conflicts

10. The way forward - Kanban
10

11. The beginning
￭ Discovery
workshop
￭ ‘Why’
￭ The plan
11
Engage people!

12. Kanban implementation - the plan
1 week*
Alignment Awareness
Discovery Soft Launch
Definition Socialization
1 week
1 week 3 weeks 1 week
● Workshops
with Scrum
Masters,
Product
Owners,
Business
Analysts
● Agreement
with Business
Head and IT
Head on the
way forward
● Trainings for
key
stakeholders
● E-learning
shared with
teams
● Workshops
with key
stakeholders
to agree on
Ways of
Working
● Creation of
Jira boards
● Socialization
of Ways of
Working with
teams
● Decision on
team for pilot
● Kanban
ceremonies
● Usage of
Kanban
board
Inspect &
Adapt
Monthly
Ways Of Working
Includes:
Classes of service, Cadences, Working
agreement, Boards, Metrics
12

13. 13

14. ‘Experiments’
Get Leaders to actively participate
14

15. Narrowing down the puzzles - enablement
Experiential learning,
on-the-job
70%
Social learning via
coaching
20%
Formal
learning
10%
70:20:10 approach to learning
15
‘Ask me anything’ sessions with coach
Ongoing coaching
‘Udemy’ trainings
Kanban overview
Pilot with one team
Inspect and adapt
PO, SM / FM, QA
Three Amigos

16. Ways of working definitions
16
CLASSES OF
SERVICE
CADENCES
WORKING
AGREEMENTS
METRICS
KANBAN BOARDS

17. Classes of service
Class of service Examples
Expedite
Critical production issues, Environment
issues
Fixed delivery date Regulatory items
Bug SIT, UAT, Production defects
Standard Features - from quarterly planning
Intangible Tech debt
Board configuration
17

18. Cadences
Frequency Description Now Next Later
Daily Standup meeting √
Weekly Replenishment meeting √
Fortnightly Showcase to stakeholders √
Monthly
Release to production √
Inspect & Adapt √
Operations review √
Quarterly
Sync with roadmap of stakeholder teams
Quarterly planning
√
Yearly Sync with yearly vision of stakeholder teams √
18

19. Team working agreement
19
We shall, as a team, support each other
We shall always be positive
We shall be transparent to each other
We shall raise concerns and issues promptly
We shall be open to differing opinions
We shall collaboratively look for solutions

20. Boards
20
WIP Limits
Classes of service -
swimlanes
Workflow*
Expedite
Fixed delivery date
Bug
Standard
Intangible

21. 21
We don’t know our organizational and group level goals!!!

22. 1. What are the organization
goals?
2. How does our work impact
the organization goals?
3. What are the goals for our
portfolio?
4. What are the goals for our
team?
22
Metrics workshop

23. Metrics that matter
23
ORGANIZATION
DIGITAL
GOALS
AGING
TEAM
HAPPINESS
TEAM
CYCLE TIME
PORTFOLIO
LEAD TIME
Shared metric
with stakeholder
teams
From Jira
From Jira
From Survey tool
From dashboard

24. Making it safe
Organizational behavioral scientist Amy Edmondson first introduced the construct of “team psychological safety”
24
Team happiness
surveys
Discussion with
Leaders
‘Experiments’
Safety check in
retros

25. Inspect and Adapt
25
Jira board
configuration
Weekly team time!
Replenishment
meeting
Streamlining input
from stakeholders

26. The results
26

27. 27
Kanban starter kit
Ways of working

28. 28
Ways of working
Jira workflows Frequent releases
… and the journey continues …
Kanban starter kit

29. “If everyone is moving forward together,
then success takes care of itself”
- Henry Ford
29

30. The lessons learnt
1. Understand the stakeholders, navigate the organization structure
2. Package the journey as Experiments to minimize resistance
3. Align everyone on the ‘why’, the goals and ‘what to expect’
4. Be flexible to tune the process as suited to the needs of the team.
5. It is okay to break some rules and encourage experimentation
30

31. Thank you
Usha Ramaswamy