Portfolio Kanban
A Backdoor to Organizational Evolution
Pawel Brodzinski
@pawelbrodzinski
Hi, I’m Pawel
Lunar Logic
http://llp.pl
Software Project
Management
http://brodzinski.com
Twitter
@pawelbrodzinski
A story of a
team...
Failure
A system of local
optima is not an optimal
system at all; it is a very
suboptimal system
Eli Goldratt
Processing
the waste more
effectively is cheaper,
neater, faster waste.
Stephen Parry
If you are doing
the wrong thing
you can’t learn, you will
only be trying to do the
wrong thing righter.
John Seddon
Lack of
support on
portfolio
level
I’ve been supervising
multiple concurrent
projects for 8 years...
And it sucks!
Excel frenzy
Oh, there are
just too many
of them!
Source: Gerald Weinberg, Quality Software Management:
Vol. 1 System Thinking
Cost of context switching
Zeigarnik Effect:
Tendency to experience
intrusive thought about
an objective left
incomplete
Source: S. Greist-Bousquet, N. Shiffman: The effect of task
interrupton and closure on perceived duration
Cost of task
switching is rooted
in interference from
thoughts about the task
your are not doing
Eyal Ophir
Time to market
Source: E. Ophir, C. Nass, A. Wagner:
Cognitive control in media multitaskers
Lower
quality
Teams that worked
only on a single project
were significantly better
in terms of defects density
Larry Maccherone
Don’t we
know the
cure already?
Portfolio Kanban
Portfolio Kanban
Variability stupid!
We should learn to
absorb variability,
not to fight it
Stalled board
WIP limits? Oh...
Non-standard
board designs
Total capabilities
Different capabilities
Free capabilities
Commitments
Concurrent engagements
Planned time span
Types of work
Future commitments
Planned work
Unavailability
Show me
that here
Low hanging
fruit
Value-adding items
Value adding
!=
value adding
What about WIP
limits then?
5O
Free capabilities
WIP limits by
conversation
Finally,
data from
other
sources
Cost of delay
Portfolio Kanban
is not about choosing
the work you do;
it’s about choosing the
work you don’t do
Mind shift from looking
through the attractiveness
glasses to looking through
capabilities glasses
Best poker players
don’t play many games;
they play the games that
they can win
Todd Little
The outcomes?
Meaningful metrics
Fewer ongoing projects
1O
Fewer
emergencies
Healthier work
environment
for teams
Team-level
slack time
Problem we tend to ignore
Low-friction
method
Thank you
Pawel Brodzinski
blog.brodzinski.com
llp.pl
@pawelbrodzinski

Portfolio Kanban