The document describes an organization's implementation of Kanban principles to improve their support workflow. They started by visualizing their current work and processes on a Kanban board. They identified different ticket types and implemented work-in-progress limits to prioritize work. Policies were made explicit to manage workflow. Feedback loops and transparency were introduced by giving all stakeholders access to dashboards. This evolutionary approach reduced lead times by 4x, improved throughput by 2x, increased innovation and client satisfaction, and boosted team morale.

1. Embracing
Simplicity To
Visualize Priorities
Jayalatha Ramachandran
Sanjay Adasul
www.kanbanindia.org

2. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Founded in 1976
47 years of excellence
CA$13.8 billion revenue
90,000 consultants
400 locations in 40 countries
5,500 clients benefiting from end-to-end services
170+ IP-based solutions serving 50,000 clients
About CGI …
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3. © 2023 CGI Inc.
© 2023 CGI Inc. Internal
Improving daily work
is even more important than
doing daily work
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4. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Rewarding Results: CGI's Kanban Way
Improved Lead time Improved Throughput
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5. © 2023 CGI Inc.
PREMIUMS WRITTEN
(DIRECT LIFE)
480
m EUR (+11%)
PREMIUMS WRITTEN
(DIRECT NON-LIFE)
837
m EUR (+3.9%)
▌
• 100+ Year old company
• Million+ Customers
• 100+ LOB, 1000+ products
1.6m
OWNER CUSTOMERS
3400
EMPLOYEES
200
OFFICES
A major Finnish Insurance Company offers comprehensive services in …
Also an expert in company risk
management and employees’
wellness at work. Making major
investments in developing health
and well-being services.
▌
• Enabling unified customer experience
• Simplifying product portfolio
• Improving Cost efficiency
• Agility to launch New Products
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6. © 2023 CGI Inc.
900+ Tickets/Month
Incidents, Service Requests, and
Problem tickets
5 LOBs
For P&C insurer
12 release/Year
+Features
+Tech Debt
++3 LOBs
Yr 2024+
Client context and the problem
• Lack of visibility of work; leading to
conflicting priorities
• SLA breaches : 5-8 tickets / month
• Fire fighting situations; leading to
highly demotivated Team Customer satisfaction
PolicyCenter BillingCenter ClaimCenter Integration SDM Onsite SDMs
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7. © 2023 CGI Inc.
The current system!!!
Long list, many parameters, very detailed! – Confusing!
Switching to diff views takes longer!
Graphs & lists are not together!
Not easy to
visualize priorities
Fit for incident
management
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8. © 2023 CGI Inc.
A day at work : Fire fighting situations
Review response
AMS Team:
Action returned ticket
Close Ticket
Create ticket
AMS Team:
Action new ticket
• Incident
• Service Request
• Workaround provided
• Data fix proposed (HF)
• More info requested
• Workaround in
collaboration with the
business / other teams
• Code fix required (PRB
created)
• Workaround accepted
• Review data fix (HF)
• Info provided
• Ticket returned after the
business action
• PRB reviewed and
prioritized for fix
• Data fix (PROD)
• Workaround provided
• Complete actions and
return ticket
• Ticket closed
Standard ticket lifecycle
 Delayed tickets
 Complicated tickets
 Returned tickets for a reason
 Delayed response from the business
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9. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Our objectives
• Improve throughput by 2x
• Reduce Lead time by 2x
• Increase Team Morale to MSAP 9.5
• Improve customer satisfaction score to 5/5
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10. © 2023 CGI Inc.
© 2023 CGI Inc. Internal
Where to START ?
Kanban – start as is
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11. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Comprehending requirements and the surrounding context
Current system analysis
Stakeholders’ jobs-to-do,
pains, & gains
Synthesize needs and value
map
 Current support practices and a
ticket lifecycle
 Support org structure & RACI
 Sub-Teams and their scope
 Ticketing tool data structure
Understand needs of Support
specialists, the support
management, and client support
organization
Visualize the tools, features, and
benefits of the solution as they
relate to stakeholders’ concerns
01 02 03
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12. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Synthesize stakeholders’ needs and value map
STAKEHOLDER PROFILE VALUE MAP
FIT
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 Transparency
 Trend analysis
 Simple to read dashboard
 Color code the priorities
 Action oriented worklog
 Prioritized list of fixes
Gains
 Too many watch parameters
 Some tickets gets ignored
 SLA breach is costly
 Fear of attrition
 Report not delivered on-time
 Bad when tickets makes rounds
Pains
 Graphs and list in a single view
 Highlight severity / urgency
 Process: Share reports with
all stakeholders
 Actionable inputs in worklog
Gain creators
 Process: Include report-date in
ticket titles
 Policy: Discuss returned rickets
 Policy: Encourage team collaboration
 Policy: Avoid context switching
 Policy: Regular review
dependencies
Pain relievers
Tools / Practices
 What’s awaiting client action?
 Highlight unassigned tickets
 SLAs based ticket categories
 Ticket expiry-dates based graph
 Show progress on RCA
of problem tickets
 Allow search / filters
 Workload by sub-teams

13. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Flow states identified; and conceptual value map
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14. © 2023 CGI Inc.
© 2023 CGI Inc. Internal
CGI’s approach to
DESIGN
Implement Kanban
&
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MADE A START!
Brainstorming based on stakeholders’ needs and value map
Started as is; respecting existing roles, job titles
agreement to improve evolutionarily
Evolutionary Kanban implementation
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16. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Our Kanban way
2. Limit WIP
Teams pull work based on their capacity and priority
1. Visualize the work
visual model that reflects how we work
5. Relentless Improvement
Adapting to the feedback loops and
working on the most important need
3. Make policies explicit
Teams have defined policies to
work on the tickets
4. Feedback loops
Collaborate with all stakeholders and
listen to them
Implementation of WIP Limits…
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17. © 2023 CGI Inc.
MADE A START!
Brainstorming based on stakeholders’ needs and value map
Started as is; respecting existing roles, job titles
agreement to improve evolutionarily
STEP 1 :
Developed Kanban board to visualize the work
and the process it goes through
Evolutionary Kanban implementation
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18. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Kanban board to visualize the work
An exhaustive visual model that reflects how we work and how we draw actionable inputs
New Tickets
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19. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Kanban board to visualize the work
An exhaustive visual model that reflects how we work and how we draw actionable inputs
New Tickets
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20. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Kanban board to visualize the work
An exhaustive visual model that reflects how we work and how we draw actionable inputs
20

21. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Kanban board to visualize the work
An exhaustive visual model that reflects how we work and how we draw actionable inputs
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22. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Kanban board to visualize the work
An exhaustive visual model that reflects how we work and how we draw actionable inputs
New Tickets
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23. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Kanban board to visualize the work
An exhaustive visual model that reflects how we work and how we draw actionable inputs
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24. © 2023 CGI Inc.
How to simplify further? Evolve gradually…
• Limitations / pains
 Manual data filtration to find the actionable tickets
 Multiple steps and time-consuming analysis
 Too many tickets’ work in-progress
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• How to overcome?
 Automate the analysis steps to find actionable
tickets
 Readily available view of the priorities
 Deeper insights into work-in-progress

25. © 2023 CGI Inc.
MADE A START!
Brainstorming based on stakeholders’ needs and value map
Started as is; respecting existing roles, job titles
agreement to improve evolutionarily
STEP 1 :
Developed Kanban board to visualize the work
and the process it goes through
STEP 2 :
Determined the service types and priorities
Limit the WIP and improved collaboration
Implementation of WIP Limits…
Evolutionary Kanban implementation
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26. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Work distribution; Service-types - Classes of Service
Splunk
alerts
60%
Reports
5%
Incidents +
Service Requests
30%
Problem Tickets
5%
Service Type Description
Fixed-date
o Reports-SR i.e. fixed dated SRs with Daily, Weekly,
Monthly frequency
High-priority
o Severity-1-2,
o URGENT Tickets (Urgent Flag)
Today
o Already Expired (yet to be resolved),
o Expiring Today-INSR
Standard
o Expiry date in past (it was resolved earlier),
o Expiring soon-INSR (Expiring in 2-3 days
Backlog
o Expiring Next-INSR (expiring after 3 days)
other tickets(i.e. Rest all are in low category)
Outcome:
• Identified Key area of focus needing attention and action
• Identified Classes of Service
• Eliminated non-essential work (automation of Splunk error handling)
Art of maximizing work not done 26

27. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Prioritization based on service-types & WIP Limits
addressed conflicting priorities, SLA breaches, and fire-fighting situations
Total Work Reports 5% Splunk Alerts 60%
“Fixed-dated”
Service
requests
Incidents,
Service-
requests
Problem
Tickets
Incidents
Service-
Requests
High
Focus
Area 35%
Service-types-
categories based
prioritization
Choose tickets
in-line with WIP
Limit
Team self-organize
around it
1
2 3 4
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28. © 2023 CGI Inc.
WIP Limits & supply the varying demand
• Collaboration on Complex ticket(s)
• Leveraged expertise of cross-skilled team
Standard
WIP Limit
Determine
actual
DEMAND
for the day
Teams self-
organize
around the
WIP Limit /
DEMAND
• HIGH-PRIORITY Service type tickets
• TODAY Service type tickets
 Already Expired (yet to be resolved),
 Expiring Today-INSR
• Add other categories from TODAY (if fits)
• WIP limits based on historical data
• Fixed-dated SRs and Splunk alerts are
kept out of WIP Limit
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1
2
3

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Cross-skilled team self-organize around the WIP / demand
PolicyCenter BillingCenter ClaimCenter Integration SDM Onsite SDMs
1. Everyone is skilled on an application 2. Cross-skilled team
Team self-organize; an example : ClaimCenter demand is high on a day
PC1 PC2 PC3
CC1 CC2 CC3 CC4
BC1 BC2 BC3 BC4
Ineg1 Ineg2 Inge3
PC1 PC2 PC3
CC1 CC2 CC3 CC4
BC1 BC2 BC3 BC4
Ineg1 Ineg2 Inge3
PC1 PC2
CC1 CC2 CC3 CC4 PC3 Ineg2
BC1 BC2 BC3 BC4
Ineg1 Inge3 29

30. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Ticketing tool
Data transformation tool
Categorization
Kanban board to prioritize the work
Kanban Dashboard
with slicers to adjust WIP
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31. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Ticketing tool
Data transformation tool
Categorization
Kanban Dashboard
with slicers to adjust WIP
Kanban board to prioritize the work
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32. © 2023 CGI Inc.
MADE A START!
Brainstorming based on stakeholders’ needs and value map
Started as is; respecting existing roles, job titles
agreement to improve evolutionarily
STEP 1 :
Developed Kanban board to visualize the work
and the process it goes through
STEP 2 :
Determined the service types and priorities
Limit the WIP and improved collaboration
STEP 3 :
Made policies explicit to manage flow;
teams are empowered to self-
organize around the prioritized backlog
Implementation of WIP Limits…
Evolutionary Kanban implementation
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33. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Made policies explicit
Service Type Categories code & Order of priority
1-HIGH-
PRIORITY
01-Severity-1-2
02-URGENTbyBz (Urgent Flag)
05-EdgesOf2MonthsSLA-IN i.e. Every ticket
must be resolved within 2 months.
2-TODAY
03-AlreadyExpired-IN (yet to be resolved)
04-ExpiringToday-INSR
06-ExpiryDateBlank-IN
12-CloseTo2MonthsSLA-IN2
13-UnTouched3Wks-INSR
23-Old
3-STANDARD
07-ExpiryInPast-INSR (it was resolved earlier)
11-ExpiringSoon-INSR (Expiring in 2-3 days)
14-UnTouched2Wks-INSR (no updates in 2
weeks)
4-BACKLOG
15-ExpiringNext-INSR (Expiring after 3 days)
99-Low (i.e. Rest all are in low category)
0-FIXED-DATE
00-Reports-SR i.e. fixed dated SRs with Daily,
Weekly, Monthly frequency
Stop starting; Start finishing
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KEY POLICY STATEMENTS
 Collaborate to resolve high-priority tickets – faster
resolution
 Daily review of tickets ‘awaiting client information’ or
having ‘external dependency’ – avoid penalties & aging
backlogs
 Address fixed-dated tickets each morning – on time delivery
 Resolve 'Today’ service-type tickets, followed by it resolve
'Standard' and 'Backlog' tickets categorized by priority
 Proactively seek assistance (if needed)

34. © 2023 CGI Inc.
MADE A START!
Brainstorming based on stakeholders’ needs and value map
Started as is; respecting existing roles, job titles
agreement to improve evolutionarily
STEP 1 :
Developed Kanban board to visualize the work
and the process it goes through
STEP 2 :
Determined the service types and priorities
Limit the WIP and improved collaboration
STEP 3 :
Made policies explicit to manage flow;
teams are empowered to self-
organize around the prioritized backlog
Implementation of WIP Limits…
STEP 4, 5:
Transparency – access to single
source of truth for all the stakeholders
& direct communication.
Introduced feedback loops to
evolve processes
Evolutionary Kanban implementation
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35. © 2023 CGI Inc. 35
Feedback loops, and relentless improvements
On demand
collaboration
with other
stakeholders
Daily connect
with the Team
Weekly connect
with onsite SDMs and the Team
Onsite SDMs
Client /
Other Teams
The Team
Fortnightly
meeting with the Client
MS Team Chat group
with the Client
and other Teams
MS Team Chat
groups between
Teams / onsite
SDMs
Access
KANBAN
Dashboards
Generate and
Access KANBAN
Dashboards
Team and
Sub-team chat
groups on
MS Teams
Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally!

36. © 2023 CGI Inc.
© 2023 CGI Inc. Internal
Challenges,
BENEFITS,
Takeaways!
&
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37. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Implementation challenges
No ALM tool to visualize
flow
Resistance to change
Lack of Kanban
understanding
Varying workload
Opted for MS Excel to build
a visual model that reflect how we work
Shared Kanban overview
and leveraged daily calls to adapt
Developed cross-skilled team to self-organize
Change was introduced cautiously
in smaller increments with an agreement to
improve evolutionarily
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38. © 2023 CGI Inc.
Benefits achieved
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul
2022 2023
Tickets # 877 590 642 552 697 690 587 874 583 495 472 712 1043 1336 1578 1161 994 1453 494
Lead Time (hrs) 14 26 22 17 10 10 9 7 10 10 13 9 11 7 5 5 7 6 5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
0
200
400
600
800
1000
1200
1400
1600
1800
Ticket Resolved Month
Tickets
#
Resolved Tickets
Tickets #
Lead Time (hrs)
Reduced lead time [4X]; Improved throughput [2X];
More Innovations [14]; Increased client satisfaction
Increased Team Morale [9.3 MSAP]
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39. © 2023 CGI Inc. 39
 Kanban can be implemented using any suitable tool including MS Excel
 Important is to build a visual model that reflects how you work
 Define customer focused operational policies
 Identify and resolve bottlenecks earlier in the flow
 Focus on continuous improvement
Takeaways…

40. © 2023 CGI Inc.
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www.kanbanindia.org