The document discusses business agility in startups, emphasizing the importance of adapting to market changes and maintaining customer value. It outlines a framework consisting of foundational capabilities, processes, and Kanban practices to optimize outcomes and efficiency, using examples from successful companies. Key strategies include defining clear goals, prioritizing impact-driven initiatives, and continuously measuring and improving based on customer feedback.

1. Business Agility in
Startups: A Kanban Tale
Ramkumar Arumugam @ Swiggy

2. Introduction
● 20 years of IT Industry experience.
● Currently leading hypercomplex and high impact
programs for Swiggy Instamart
● Led many large scale product development for Top 100
Fortune companies
● Extensive experience of working in USA for leading
Insurance, Retail, Consumer Goods and Pharma Market
Research clients
● Passionate Speaker and Start up Mentor
● IIMA Alumni
● www.linkedin.com/in/ramkumar101

3. Agenda
Business Agility @ Startups
Context
Pillars and Foundational Capabilities
Framework
Getting things done @ scale and
maximize outcomes
Business Agility @ Scale
Process, Policies and Tools
Kanban Practices
Tips and Tricks
Key Takeaways
01
02
03
04
05

4. Business Agility
@ Startups

5. Business Agility is a set of capabilities that can help the
organization to rapidly adapt to market changes, customer
demands, and emerging opportunities while maintaining a
focus on delivering value to customers
Business Agility
Startups thrive on business agility for a variety of reasons.
Leaner,
Efficient, High
Risk Appetite
WhatsApp has 50
engineers and
Telegram has only
30 engineers. Look
at the impact !!!
Limited
Resources, High
Ambiguity
Uncertainty
Unable to scaleup,
failures !!!

6. Agility Framework
Pillars and Capabilities

7. Goals are broken down by quarters and business and tech
initiatives will be defined along with desired outcomes
incrementally to measure progress through the year
NPS score, increase revenue (increase no. of orders per day, average
order value), unit economics (cost per order, supply chain, manpower)
Problem-solving strategy where you start with the desired end
goal and then work backward to identify the steps necessary to
achieve that goal
The planning will then happen with the end goals and outcomes in mind in
collaboration with different stakeholders (growth, engg, design, product, ops,
supply chain, finance, 3rd parties, analytics, data science).
Customer at the center (CX / RX / DX)
Inversion - Goal Backward Thinking

8. The Framework

9. Outcome / Impact oriented
Product Strategy
The Pillars
Three way experience
CX/RX/DX
Teams coming together
Inter Displ. Teams
Near Real Time
Data Strategy
Cutting Edge Tech
Tech First
Principles and Values
People & Culture

10. “Ruthless”
Prioritization
Framework: Reach,
Impact, Cost and
Effort, Kano Model or
mostly widely used is
Effort vs Impact
framework.
Gemba
Walks
How q-
commerce
players sources
from farmers on
FnV and their
strategy?
Muda, Mura,
Muri
Muda - Waste elimination
by Product or SOP
Mura - Reduce
inconsistencies through
by avoiding multitouch
Muri - By balancing the
cost with growth, excess
load in the system can be
distributed
“Anecdotes” and
Metrics
When data and
anecdotes don’t
match, the latter tend
to be right- Jeff
Bezos
Foundational Capabilities

11. Kanban Practices
Process, Policies and Tools

12. Sneak Peak - <Planning - Execution - Impact>
Throughput
Speed
Impact /
Outcome
RCA
Process /
SOP
Product People
Process
Efficiency /
Effectiveness
Growth Value Stream
Profitability Value Stream
Capabilities / Platform Value Stream
Operational Excellence
Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Work Item Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Work Item Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Q1
Q2
Work Item Work Item Work Item Work Item
Work Item
Work Item Work Item
Work Item
Work Item
Feedback
RICE
Budgeting
Goals /
Objectives
Prioritization
Framework
ROI
Reflection &
Replenishment
Reflection &
Replenishment
Feedback
Feedback

13. Policies, Process, Tools
Product &
Bugs
Tech Imp.
Items
Kaizen
DS Model
Dev
DOD, WIP , Throughput, Flow
Metrics
(CFD,
Cycle
Time, TPT)
Reflections
SOPs
JIRA
AWS
DevOps
Dashboards
Cadences
Lightweight
Flow
Efficiency
Simplification
- MVP First
Approach
Shorter
Planning &
Execution
Cycles
Organization Vision and Values

14. Case Study - Assortment Expansion
Goals /
Objectives
Everything
Store
ScrumBan Smartsheet Automation
Max
Utilization
Pre-Mortem
Dependency
Management
Feedback
30+ Teams
3 months
XXL+ Size
Customer
Immersion
BRD PRD
Dependencies Estimation
Simplification -
MVP First
Discovery
Tech
Analytics
Data Science
Growth
Operations
GTM
Driver Apps
CLM
9.1 9.2 10.1
Delivery

15. Scale & Sustain

16. Agility @ Scale
KSF for Agility @ Scale Summary
Build Right Products
• Projects are selected based on ROI.
• Large projects are simplified for MVPs and
subsequent phases.
Cycle / Lead Time / WIP
• Measurement of cycle time for different project
complexities and its phases.
• Establish benchmark for each phases and
remove wastes for desired outcomes.
• “No averages”. Solve for P80, P90.
Impact Driven
• Measuring impact / outcomes instead of outputs.
• Define ROI to be able to select projects for TOFL.
• RCA on failures and learnings.
Continuous Improvement
• Improve constantly upstream and downstream
• Improve on speed of impact delivery quarter on
quarter.

17. Keep the process simple
Endlessly look for avenues
Cruising @ Scale
Don’t lose focus on customer
Measure constantly

18. This has worked well for many companies. Those who
were not, have failed miserably.
Work backwards
This can be standard or customized. This is needed to
bring order to chaos
Follow a framework and process
If you need to be customer oriented, don’t sit in corner
offices and expect things to work. Learn from Elon
Musk !
Customer Feedback
If you cannot measure something, you can never
improve, but keep it simpler
Measure and Improve
Key Takeaways

19. Books

20. Ramkumar Arumugam
www.linkedin.com/in/ramkumar101
Thank You