The document discusses applying lean and kanban principles beyond software development to the wider organization. It describes three critical practices for a "Product Portfolio Kanban": 1) stakeholder-based investment themes and business case management to optimize organizational value, 2) upstream and downstream work-in-progress (WIP) limits to enable flow, and 3) dynamic allocations based on organizational capacity and appetite. Implementing these practices can help avoid unintended consequences of agile success and increase overall organizational value.

1. The Product Portfolio Kanban
Erik Huddleston
September 9, 2010
Israel Gat
Erik Huddleston
Walter Bodwell
Stephen Chin
Presented By: Material and Research By:
Avoiding the unintended consequences of a successful Agile
Rollout and achieving maximum organizational return

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Lean/Agile has the demonstrated potential to drive high levels of
productivity and quantifiable benefits for development
organizations
Development
Dramatic
Productivity
Increases
Source: David Joyce; Kanban Results ;
Lean and Kanban; October 24 2009
Release Freeze
Increased
Release
Frequency
Engineering
time
Reduction
Source: David Joyce; Kanban Results Part
3; Lean and Kanban; November 4 2009

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An example: Published data on the Inovis Rollout
QSMA, a respected consultancy on development productivity
benchmarked Inovis against an industry database of over 7500 other
projects.

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However, the greater the success experienced in R&D, the more
disruption that it creates for the organization as a whole
Launch Cycle Time
> Dev Cycle Time
Feature selling
becomes
impossible
(Sales
Enablement)
Melting
Change
Managers: 50
changes once
a month to 900
changes
constantly
Supported
Release
proliferation
Innovator’s
Dilemma
…in the
weeds
…
Development
The Unintended Consequences of Success

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However, by applying/extending those same lean/kanban
principles more broadly in the organization, these risks can be
avoided, and organizational value increased.
Three Atypical, but Critical Practices in the Product
Portfolio Kanban:
• Stakeholder Based Investment Themes and Business Case Management
(organizational value)
• Upstream and Downstream WIP Limits
• Dynamic Allocations
Source: InfoQ
Source: InfoQ

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Stakeholder Based Investment Themes and Business Case
Management (organizational value)
Allocations and
Strategic
Investment
Themes
Epics (offering or
strategic initiative)
Features
Stories
Business
Cases at Epic
or Feature
Level
Acceptance Criteria: Critical requirements for biz case
realization (feature only) and needs for feature success
(Feature and Story)

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We manage each business case through a Kanban which
extends upstream and downstream from traditional development
- Proposed
- Biz Case
- Backlogged
- Long Term Roadmap
- Scheduled
- Committed Roadmap
- In Process
- Software development method
in use
- Deployed
- Release Management
- Enabled
- Collateral, Training
- Adopted
- Marketing
- Usage
- Validated
- Biz Case Analysis
- Feature Success
Measurement
WL
WL
WL
WL
WL
WIP Limits
Kanban Stages
Benefits
• Alleviate the “Agile Death
Ray” Effect and Achieve
Flow
• Expose and Route Around
Political Roadblocks and
Priority Alignment
•Focus Organizational Value
Return
Capacity
based
WIP
limits
Item/slot
based
WIP
limits

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Development
The Requirements Management and Kanban WIP Limits enable
Organizational Value to be optimized dynamically based on real
world organizational capacity and appetite
Proposed
EnabledAdoptedValidated
EnabledAdoptedValidated
Bottleneck
Backlogged Scheduled In Process Deployed

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What did success look like? One Example:
Market Responsiveness
“Inovis would not have succeeded if they were unable to deliver a staggering
200+ patches and releases to support our migration effort. No Inovis
competitor could have done that.” --Michael Amend, Dell

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What’s next?
Open Source
Vendor Tooling
Questions
Comments or
Collaboration?
Erik Huddleston
erik@erik.net
Skype: ehuddleston
Twitter: ehuddleston
Voice: (512) 591-2591

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Questions?
www.synerzip.com
Hemant Elhence
hemant@synerzip.com
469.322.0349
Questions?

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1. Software product development partner for small/mid-
sized technology companies
- Exclusive focus on small/mid-sized technology companies
- By definition, all Synerzip work is the IP of its respective clients
- Deep experience in full SDLC – design, dev, QA/testing, deployment
- Technology and industry domain agnostic
2. Dedicated team of high caliber software professionals
- Seamlessly extends client’s local team, offering full transparency
- NOT just “staff augmentation”, but provide full mgmt support
3. Actually reduces risk of development/delivery
- Experienced team - uses appropriate level of engineering discipline
- Practices Agile development – responsive, yet disciplined
4. Reduces cost – dual-shore team, 50% cost advantage
5. Offers long term flexibility – allows (facilitates) taking
offshore team captive – aka “BOT” option
Synerzip in a Nut-Shell

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Our Clients

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Call Us for a Free Consultation!
Thank You!
www.synerzip.com
Hemant Elhence
hemant@synerzip.com
469.322.0349