The document discusses the evolution of an organization's use of Kanban over several years to improve their product development process. They initially used Kanban boards to visualize work but found issues with requirements changing and work not being well-defined. They developed upstream Kanban boards to provide more visibility into planning and prioritization. This included separating planning from execution and using boards to manage roadmaps, backlogs, and workflows. The changes resulted in reduced cycle times, increased throughput, improved collaboration, and better representation of all functions' work.

1. UPSTREAM KANBAN: VISUALIZING
YOUR TEAM’S PRIORITIES

2. My Pet Peeve…
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3. Scrum Storyboards didn’t seem to help…
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4. Nor the typical Kanban Boards!
Doing!!
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5. But how do you…..?
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6. In other words….
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7. … however, the “PROCESS” is not visible!
Detailing and Prioritization Methods
abound….
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8. Story-mapping..
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9. Financial Value/ Business Risk…
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10. .. Are easily available…
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11. The ‘Ideal World’ picture..
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12. And, Voila!
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13. But the Challenge is…
Customer
Sales
Support
The Poor
Product
Manager
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14. Getting to agreement is like this ….
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15. Or like this….
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16. And the Poor Product Owner…
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17. Getting to an ‘Ordered Backlog’ is Challenging!
So many “good features” to implement!
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18. The Answers Product Owners are Trying to Give
¨ Management
¤ What do we build – this sprint, this release, this quarter, year?
¤ What is the Dev team doing??
¨ Support/ Sales
¤ Can we give some attention to existing customers?!
¨ Engineering
¤ What do we work on?? Is it well defined?
¤ Can we get some bandwidth for refactoring?
¨ What was the Process used to defined Scope?
How did we get here (to this Backlog)?!
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19. Our Visual Requirements Management Story
Kanban to the Rescue!19
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20. Key Principles of Kanban
¨ Visualize Flow
¨ Limit WIP
¨ Manage Flow
¨ Make Policies Explicit
¨ Implement Feedback Loops
¨ Improve Collaboratively, Evolve Experimentally (using models
and the scientific method)
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21. Kanban Foundation Principles
¨ Start with what you do now
¨ Agree to pursue incremental, evolutionary change
¨ Respect the current process, roles, responsibilities & titles
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22. Benefits we sought from Kanban
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¨ Greater Visibility
¨ Greater Understanding and Agreement within the Company
¨ Appropriate Representation to Various Stakeholders
¨ Smoother Overall Process

23. First version of our Kanban – As Is (2010-11)
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24. Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
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25. Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
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26. Retrospective Findings
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¨ Disconnect between PM and Engg persisted
¤ Frequently changing requirements/ user stories
¤ Frequently changing priority
¤ Committed users stories getting dropped
¤ User stories developed were incomplete
¨ Development and Automation challenges
¤ Automation not visible, not synchronized with development
¤ Code review sporadic
¤ Release cadence not clear
¤ Engg called upon to do interrupt-driven work

27. (In other words, we’d to give more visibility to the
Backlog processes!)
Kanban had to move Upstream!27
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28. Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)
Greater Attention to Planning/ Scoping
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Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)
Separate Dev with Details of Automation/ Review/ Deployment

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Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)
All Engg Activity put on Board

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Version 3 of our Kanban (2012-2013)
Roadmapping in a separate board

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Version 3 of our Kanban (2012-Present)
Execution separated from Planning/ Spec-ing

33. Version 4: Simplified Roadmap Board (2013-2014)
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34. Visual Backlog (by Aging) (2013-2014)
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35. Current Process (2015-)
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36. Current Process (2015-)
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37. “The shorter the Project, the more planning it
needs.” – old (Project Management) Jungle
saying…!
The Impact…37
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38. Cumulative Flow Diagram (Minus backlog/ archive)
Jan – Dec, 2013 (11 Releases)
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39. Cumulative Flow Diagram (Minus backlog/ archive)
May, 13 – Apr, 2014) 8-9 Release
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40. Average Cycle Time of User Stories
300% Reduction in Cycle Time thru a combination of factors!
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41. # of Releases/ Throughput - 2014
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42. So What has Changed?
There’s Something about Kanban!
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43. A Picture is worth a 1,000,000 words!!
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44. Planning Meetings Cadence
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¨ Annual/ Quarterly Roadmap Review Meeting
¨ “Monthly Prioritization Meeting” with leadership team on
Roadmap Board
¨ Weekly Replenishment Meeting
¤ Sales
¤ Support
¤ Engg
¤ Product Management
¨ Access to leadership to all boards. CEO/ Sales/ Support look
at the board to see when they can expect a feature to be
released

45. Getting More Objective About Prioritization
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46. Strict(er) Adherence to WIP Limits
(Different Stakeholders Allocated WIP %)
¨ Product Management
¨ Support
¨ Sales/ Customer
¨ Engineering
¨ Production Defects have Top Priority
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47. Our dig at Scrum!
(Disclaimer: Kanban is NOT a Methodology!)
Committing to Release Scope up-front
vs.
Making a Release when there are enough Commits!
(And Make as many releases as possible!)
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48. Operational Benefits
¨ Feature visibility throughout the cycle – from concept to deployment
¨ Greater representation for all types of requirements (strategic à tactical
à technical debt related)
¨ Greater representation for all functions - non-sales/marketing including
Support/ Engg!
¨ Better PM and Engg Collaboration
¨ Up to “the last responsible moment” Prioritization by sales/ mgmt/
customers
¨ Overall Quality/ Stability of Product
¨ Complete change in management style! Focus on value/ customer sat
rather than estimates, productivity, missed scope, NEXT RELEASE!!
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49. In Other Words….
¨ A Positive and Energetic Environment
¨ Faster time to market
¨ Better overall product/ market fit
¨ Improved sales/ customer expectation management
¨ Customer Satisfaction/ Growth!
¨ Deliver VALUE!
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50. And, to be precise…!
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51. The Beautiful!
¨ Sales/ Customer/ Engg – PM
¨ Management – PM
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52. Going Forward…
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¨ Deeper Dive into “Discovery Kanban”
¨ Better “coordination”/ integration between Roadmap and
Development/ Execution
¨ Better Analysis of Discarded/ Dropped Items

53. Warning – It takes Time and LOTS of Patience!
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54. Q&A
¨ Contact Information
¤ mahesh@digite.com
¤ @maheshsingh
¨ Learn more at
¤ www.swiftkanban.com
¤ www.digite.com
¤ Blog.digite.com
¨ Connect with us
¤ Twitter - @swiftkanban/ @digite
¤ Facebook –
www.facebook.com/digite
¨ Topics
¤ Discovery Kanban
¤ Kanban in Marketing/ Product
Management
¤ Portfolio Kanban
¨ Kanban Communities
¤ Kanban Dev Group
Lean Agile Group
Lean Development
Kanban-Ops
IT Kanban
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