Digité transitioned from a waterfall to iterative development process but still faced planning challenges, low throughput, and long cycle times. They implemented Kanban to improve flow, increase throughput, and enable more frequent deliveries. With Kanban, they achieved greater visibility, smoother workflow, reduced cycle times by 300%, and increased release frequency from 3 to 11-18 releases per year. Kanban helped alignment between teams and continuous delivery of value to customers.

1. PRODUCT
DEVELOPMENT WITH
KANBAN – A SUCCESS
STORY
Mahesh Singh
Co-founder/ Sr. VP – Product, Digite, Inc.

2. Agenda
 Introduction
 How We Were..
 How We Are Today (Kanban to the rescue!)
 Benefits Achieved
2
© Digite, Inc.

3. Quick Introduction – Digité, Inc.
© Digite, Inc.
3
 “Lean/ Agile ALM” Tools company
 95+ customers/ >300,000 users
 Lean/ Agile ALM – SwiftALM - 2003
 Kanban/ Scrumban – SwiftKanban - 2011
 Integration bus – SwiftSync - 2012

4. Planning for the Next Release….
How we were…4
© Digite, Inc.

5. Waterfall – 2002-2006
5
© Digite, Inc.

6. Iterative – 2007 - 2011
6
© Digite, Inc.

7. Iterative – 2007 - 2011
IR1
IR2
IR
3
7
© Digite, Inc.

8. Our Release Schedule
© Digite, Inc.
8
 3 Releases per year
 2 Minor
 1 Major
We thought we had it pretty good!

9. But behind the scene…9
© Digite, Inc.

10. What was going to be the “Next Release”?!
© Digite, Inc.
10

11. Product Management could not “Define”
© Digite, Inc.
11
 Large backlog that was not very visible
 Different functions clamoring for priority
 PM and Engg teams busy with completing the last
release
 Multiple versions of MRD/ PRD across stakeholders
PM was challenged to scope/ share/ get agreement on the
next release!

12. Engineering could not “Commit…”
© Digite, Inc.
12
 Almost all functions – Dev/ QA/ PM/ Support – pulled
into testing
 Automated Testing was “insufficient”/ significant
overhead in manual testing
 Busy with fixing bugs in the last release
 PM was expected to deliver “frozen specs” before they
could start working
Engg too busy to plan and commit! Commitments made
could not be kept.

13. Management/ Sales could not “Understand”
© Digite, Inc.
13
 “Development is not fast enough”
 “Productivity is low”
 “Quality is bad”
 “Product does not meet market need”
Management/ Sales were frustrated!

14. Overall situation …..
 Release Planning a Very Costly Process! A LOT OF
EFFORT before Use Cases or Epics/ User Stories made
it to the Backlog!
 When we spoke to our customers and other Bay Area
companies, we realized we were not alone!
 Getting from Vision/ Roadmap to User Stories in a
Backlog is a lot of work – and is usually not very
organized!
14
© Digite, Inc.

15. Kanban to the Rescue!
How we are today…15
© Digite, Inc.

16. Our Kanban Journey
 SwiftKanban – Brief History
 Decision to build SwiftKanban – April 2010
 Beta – Nov 2010
 GA – July 2011
 Advice/ input from several thought leaders –
David Anderson, Jim Benson, Al Shalloway,
Masa K Maeda, Yuval Yeret..
 Kanban training – Q4, 2010
 We started using it as soon as we launched
Beta
16
© Digite, Inc.

17. Benefits we sought from Kanban
© Digite, Inc.
17
 Smoother Flow
 Greater Throughput
 Continuous (more frequent) delivery
 Faster Time to Market
 Greater Visibility
We were EXCITED! We were raring to go!

18. First version of our Kanban – As Is (2010-
11)
© Digite, Inc.
18

19. Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
19
© Digite, Inc.

20. Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
20
© Digite, Inc.

21. Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
21
© Digite, Inc.

22. Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
22
© Digite, Inc.

23. Retrospective Findings
© Digite, Inc.
23
 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

24. Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)
Greater Attention to Planning/ Scoping
© Digite, Inc.
24

25. © Digite, Inc.
25
Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)
Separate Dev with Details of Automation/ Review/
Deployment

26. © Digite, Inc.
26
Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)
All Engg Activity put on Board

27. “The shorter the Project, the more planning
it needs.” – old (Project Management)
Jungle saying…!
The Impact…27
© Digite, Inc.

28. Cumulative Flow Diagram (Minus backlog/
archive)
11 Releases made during 2012! 18-24 planned for 2013.
28
© Digite, Inc.

29. Average Cycle Time of User Stories
300% Reduction in Cycle Time thru a combination of factors!
29
© Digite, Inc.

30. Development Process
Week 1 Week 2 Week 2 Week 4
Spec Story 7-8 Spec Story 9-10 Spec Story 11-12 Spec Story 13-14
Design Story 5-6 Design Story 7-8 Design Story 9-10 Design Story 11-12
Develop Story 3-
4
Develop Story 5-6 Develop Story 7-8 Develop Story 9-10
Validate Story 1-
2
Validate Story 3-4 Validate Story 5-6 Validate Story 7-8
Release 1-2-3-4 Release 5-6-7-8
30
© Digite, Inc.

31. How Work Really Gets Done - PM
User Story Planning
 Separate “Weekly Standup
Meeting” (tho’ we continue to
participate in Engg Daily Standup,
mostly as observers) on the
Planning Board
 Backlog consists of New features
and Enhancements
 Backlog Prioritization by Rank
 Estimation pulled in PM, Dev, UI
team
 Splitting Large User Stories into
smaller Deployable Stories
 Elaborating the stories
(Specification writing)
 Available in ‘Ready For
Development’
Other Cards
 Issues, Internal And Customer
Defects are put directly into ‘Ready
For Development’ lane with highest
priority
 Engineering Tasks are treated like
user Stories
31
© Digite, Inc.

32. How Work Really Gets Done - Dev/ QA
Work Execution
 Each Team Member Pulls
next available card from
‘Ready For Development’
lane.
 Each Card flows through
Development Value stream:
 Design -> Coding -> JUNIT
Automation -> Code Review ->
(Functional Test Case Dev +
Functional Test Automation) ->
Test Automation Review ->
Validation.
 Validated Cards are put into
‘Ready for Deployment’ lane.
 Release when 20 Cards in
‘Ready For Deployment’
 Generally, release cadence: 2
Work Tracking
 Daily standup Calls
 Generally, 1 card at a Time
for all team members.
 Monitoring and Controlling
WIP violations
 Focus on Impediments
(Block)
32
© Digite, Inc.

33. Going further UPSTREAM
The Next Stage33
© Digite, Inc.

34. © Digite, Inc.
34
Version 3 of our Kanban (2012-Present)
Roadmapping in a separate board

35. More Process Changes
© Digite, Inc.
35
 “Monthly Prioritization Meeting” with leadership team on
Roadmap Board
 Access to leadership to all boards. CEO/ Sales/ Support
look at the board to see when they can expect a feature
to be released

36. © Digite, Inc.
36
Version 3 of our Kanban (2012-Present)
Execution separated from Planning/ Spec-
ing

37. Going further – “Tribal Mashup…”?
Backlog (By
Source)
Prioritized Scheduled In Progress Done
Customers (3)
Sales (3)
Support (3)
Marketing/
Product Mgt (5)
Engineering (2)
Representation from
various sources
37
© Digite, Inc.

38. Cross-Board Decomposition and Drilldown
© Digite, Inc.
38

39. Organizational Benefits
 Feature visibility throughout the cycle – from concept to deployment
 Right level of User Story breakdown/ sizing for predictable delivery
 Greater representation for all types of requirements (strategic  tactical 
technical debt related)
 Greater representation for all functions - non-sales/marketing including
Support/ Engg!
 Better PM and Engg Collaboration - Commitment by Engg teams based on
joint-planning/ Work on “truly relevant” requirements by PM team
 Up to “the last responsible moment” Prioritization by sales/ mgmt/
customers
 Focus on Test Automation and Continuous Deployment
 Overall Quality/ Stability of Product
 Complete change in management style! Focus on value/ customer sat
rather than estimates, productivity, NEXT RELEASE!!
39
© Digite, Inc.

40. Business Benefits
 Faster time to market
 Faster feedback loops
 Better overall product/ market fit
 Improved sales/ customer expectation
management
 Customer Satisfaction/ Growth!
 Deliver VALUE!
40
© Digite, Inc.

41. Q&A
 Contact Information
 mahesh@digite.com
 @maheshsingh
 Learn more at
 www.swift-kanban.com
 www.digite.com
 Connect with us
 Twitter - @swiftkanban/
@digite
 Facebook –
www.facebook.com/digite
 Blogs and Articles
 The Principles of Kanban Method
Kanban Applied to
Software Development
Personal Kanban
Scrumban
Kanban vs. Scrum
10 example Kanban boards
Explaining Cumulative
Flow Diagrams
Your Family, Agile, and You
 Kanban Communities
 Kanban Dev Group
Lean Agile Group
Lean Development
Kanban-Ops
IT Kanban
41
© Digite, Inc.
About usAbout Kanban