Agile Network India - Pune Title: Kanban Beyond the Board: A Workshop Based Introduction to Flow and Agility Date: 23rd Aug 2025 Hosted By: ClearRoute

1. Kanban, beyond the board!
Ankit Agrawal

2. Disclaimer
1.Views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the session and presentation, collectively referred as “the
content”, belong solely to me in my personal capacity, and not necessarily to my employer / organization /
client.
2.“The content” is based on my learning, experience as well as knowledge gathered through material
available publicly on the internet.
3.I do not endorse or promote any organization, committee, product or person through this session.
4.I have agreed to the Code of Conduct, Privacy Policy, Speaker Engagement Policy as referred in the
Speaker Application Form submitted by me on Agile Network India website.
Ankit Agrawal 23/08/2025

3. Ankit Agrawal
Associate Director - Agile Coach, HSBC Technology India
Certified SAFe Practice Consultant & Trainer
Agile Transformation Coach
Speaker & Reviewer

4. What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear
“Kanban” ?
Slido.com
1010549

5. What’s the first thing that
comes to mind when you
hear “Kanban” ?
The Slido app must be installed on every computer you’re presenting from

6. Who can use Kanban?
The Slido app must be installed on every computer you’re presenting from

7. • Kanban is Japanese for “visual signal” or
“card”
• Developed by Taiichi Ohno in early 1940s – to
visualize, control & manage work by inventors
for Toyota Automotive in Japan
• David J Anderson first applied to IT, 2004
• Visualize work, identify & eliminate bottlenecks
and achieve operational improvements &
outcomes – optimize flow
Are you curious about the title , “beyond the board”?

9. Why Kanban?
• Minimal / no training required
• No explicit roles or events*
• Quick to start – use your current
process
Imperial
Garden Japan
Recruitment Personal Time
Management
IT Software
Restaurants/ Queue
Management
Manufacturing Operations

10. A method to
manage work!

11. • 3 Change Principles
• 3 Service Delivery Principles
• 6 General Practices
• Classes of Service
• Policies & Make them explicit
• Cadences – Team Kanban Meeting, Retro, Replenishment
• Metrics – Flow Distribution, Cumulative Flow Diagram, Lead Time

12. Enough with jargons, let’s bake some pizzas -
• Divide in groups of 4-5
• The customer will place orders
• You, <the best pizza chain>, will deliver
• Find a name for your chain
• Veg Pizzas only
How many can you deliver in a day?
Write it on a paper & stick it to your board

13. Round 1
Acceptance Criteria
Order
Deliver as many pizzas as you can
Rules
• Keep quality consistent
• No Wastage
• Not more than 2 pizzas in the oven (bake)
• Pizzas to stay at least 1 min in the oven
• Can’t open oven once started
Recipe – Simply Veg
• Base cut ½ size of A5 paper
• Sauce – red
• Onion – 2 (blue)
• Tomato – 1 (pink)
• Bell Pepper – 2 (yellow)

14. Bring forward your best Pizza!

15. Round 2 (Build)
Acceptance Criteria
Order
Deliver as many as you can
Rules
• Keep quality consistent
• Decide your workflow & Visualize it
• WIP limits
• Every accepted pizza: 50 points
• Materials wasted : -5 points
• Base wasted : -10 points
• Not more than 2 pizzas in the oven (bake)
• Pizzas to stay at least 1 min in the oven
• Can’t open oven once started
Assemble Bake Delivered

16. Round 2 – Retro (2 + 2 mins.)
● Was there any difference between Round 1 & 2?

17. New recipe
Recipe – Simply Veg
• Base cut ½ size of A5 paper
• Sauce – red
• Onion – 2 (blue)
• Tomato – 1 (pink)
• Bell Pepper – 2 (yellow)
Recipe – Spicy Paneer
• Base cut ½ size of A5 paper
• Sauce – red
• Onion – 2 (blue)
• Tomato – 1 (pink)
• Bell Pepper – 2 (yellow)
• Paneer – 2 (green)

18. Round 3 (Scale)
Order
Customer will place orders in your queue
• Orders size can vary with pizzas of different kind
• Urgent orders need to be delivered within 90 secs
Rules
• Every accepted pizza: 50 points
• Materials wasted : -5 points
• Base wasted : -10 points
• Not more than 2 pizzas in the oven (bake)
• Pizzas to stay at least 1 min in the oven
• Can’t open oven once started
Assemble Bake Delivered

19. Order Input
Order id – 101
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -0
Order id – 102
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1
Order id – 103
Urgent - Yes
SV - 0
SP -1
Order id – 104
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1
Order id – 105
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -2
Order id – 106
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1
Order id – 107
Urgent - No
SV -2
SP -0
Order id – 108
Urgent - No
SV -0
SP -2
Order id – 109
Urgent - Yes
SV -1
SP -0
Order id – 110
Urgent - No
SV -0
SP -1
Order id – 111
Urgent - Yes
SV -1
SP -0
Order id – 112
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1
Order id – 113
Urgent - Yes
SV -0
SP -1
Order id – 114
Urgent - No
SV -0
SP -1
Order id – 115
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1

20. Round 3– Retro (2 + 2 mins.)
● How did you manage urgent orders?
● Did you spot any bottlenecks?
● What are your key constraints?
● Adjust – flow, WIP, etc.

21. Round 4 (Optimize)
Assemble Bake Delivered
Simply
Veg
Spicy
Paneer
Order
Customer will place orders in your queue
• Orders size can vary with pizzas of different kind
• Urgent orders need to be delivered within 90 secs
Rules
• Every accepted pizza: 50 points
• Materials wasted : -5 points
• Base wasted : -10 points
• You are allowed to make changes to your board
• Not more than 2 pizzas in the oven (bake)
• Pizzas to stay at least 1 min in the oven
• Can’t open oven once started

22. Order Input
Order id – 101
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -0
Order id – 102
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1
Order id – 103
Urgent - Yes
SV - 0
SP -1
Order id – 104
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1
Order id – 105
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -2
Order id – 106
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1
Order id – 107
Urgent - No
SV -2
SP -0
Order id – 108
Urgent - No
SV -0
SP -2
Order id – 109
Urgent - Yes
SV -1
SP -0
Order id – 110
Urgent - No
SV -0
SP -1
Order id – 111
Urgent - Yes
SV -1
SP -0
Order id – 112
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1
Order id – 113
Urgent - Yes
SV -0
SP -1
Order id – 114
Urgent - No
SV -0
SP -1
Order id – 115
Urgent - No
SV -1
SP -1

23. Birthday Party!
Order
Who can deliver 25 pizzas?
How much time will you need?
What if I need them in 2 hrs.?
Which stages take the maximum time for you?
Assemble Bake Delivered
Simply
Veg
Spicy
Paneer

24. A Tale of 2 Teams!
Production Support
Justice League Suicide Squad
Vulnerabilities & Compliance Fix

25. Justice League
Support Team – Incident response &
maintenance team. Ensured system are
running or have minimum downtime.
• Working Kanban board in
Jira
• Tickets picked in the
sequence of arrival
• Support lead assigned
tickets to team
• No metrics needed,
MTTR sometimes

26. Suicide Squad
Vulnerabilities & Compliance – Fixed
identified compliance issues. Ensured
no risk to service, organization or people
bonuses & jobs.
• Working using a
confluence table
• Tickets picked based on
due date or reds
• Each developer had 1
analysis & 1 fix at all time
• Metrics – trend showing
no. of issues fixed weekly
Weekly Release Plan
Week Starting 18-Nov-24 25-Nov-24 2-Dec-24 9-Dec-24 16-Dec-24 23-Dec-24
Todo 4
Analysis 2
In Progress 2
Done 2
Total 10
Category
ID/
Reference
Date to
change
freeze
Red Amber Green White Total Jira Assignee Status Comments
Sec1 101 1-Dec-24 10 20 10 20 60 Jira# John Doe In Progress
Sec1 102 NA 5 10 1 0 16 Jira# John Doe In Progress
Comp1 103 NA 0 40 20 10 70 Jira# John Doe Analysis
Comp2 104 NA 0 10 10 40 60 Jira# John Doe Analysis
Pen1 105 22-Nov-24 1 0 0 0 1 Jira# John Doe Done
Pen2 106 NA 30 0 0 60 90 Jira# John Doe To Do
Sec2 107 NA 20 3 2 4 29 Jira# John Doe To Do
Pat1 108 NA 10 30 30 10 80 Jira# John Doe Done
Pat1 109 NA 0 100 0 0 100 Jira# John Doe To Do
Pat2 110 29-Nov-24 1 20 20 50 91 Jira# John Doe To Do
Issue Details, CR#,
Issue Count,
Regions

27. So, who is better Justice League or Suicide Squad?

28. Anyways, which one of them would you call a Kanban Team?

29. Can scrum teams use Kanban?
• Visualize everything! Color code tickets.
• Work In Process Limits
• Continuous improvements
• Sprint— Improve flow by defining policies, pull not push criteria. Create Swim lanes
• Planning - Use historical flow metrics, classes of service
• Daily Scrum - What is moving slower? Are we working on things not on board?
• Review— Predictability using flow metrics
• Retrospective — Review workflow or WIP ? Bottlenecks?

30. How to get started?
STATIK – The Systems Thinking Approach to Introducing Kanban

31. Some other adventures with Kanban
Product Management Sweets startup
Operations
What is your Kanban story?
Wedding Preparation Mental Health Clinic

32. Takeaways!
• Kanban is a method to manage work, can be applied anywhere
• It can help optimize & accelerate flow
• Starting where you are now, makes it easy!
• Stop starting, start finishing!
Thanks to - https://www.agile42.com/en/agile-teams/kanban-pizza-game

33. Thank you!!
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aagrawalankit/
Looking forward to connect
& collaborate!
Ankit Agrawal