AgileCamp 2014 Track 5: Visual Roadmapping with Kanban, Mahesh Singhm, CEO of Digite' (SwiftKanban)

1. Visual Roadmapping
with Kanban
Mahesh Singh
Co-founder/ SVP – Product, Digité, Inc.
Visualization is Enlightenment!

2. Agenda
 In the Beginning…
 Roadmapping Challenges!
 Enter Kanban – What is Kanban?
 Visualize – WIP Limits – Manage Flow
 Evolution of our adoption of Kanban
 Simple  Sophisticated  Tiered
 Kanban – The Good, The Scary, The Beautiful
 Q&A

3. Planning for the Next Release….
How we were…3
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4. Waterfall – 2002-2006
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5. Iterative – 2007 - 2010
IR1
IR2
IR
3
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6. Our Release Schedule
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 3 Releases per year
 2 Minor
 1 Major
We thought we had it pretty good!

7. But behind the scene…7
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8. What was going to be the “Next Release”?!
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9. Product Management could not “Define”
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 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!

10. Engineering could not “Commit…”
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 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.

11. Management/ Sales Wanted to “Do More”
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 “Development is not fast enough”
 “Productivity is low”
 “Quality is bad”
 “Product does not meet market need”
 “Can we do this one more thing?”
Management/ Sales were frustrated!

12. 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!
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13. Roadmapping is Challenging
So many “good points” to implement!

14. Roadmapping Challenges
 High Demand Inflow – there are simply too many ideas/
suggestions coming in with every interaction
 Varied Sources/ Perspectives
 Management is unable to understand why features are
not coming out fast enough
 Sales/ Customers have trouble understanding why one
small feature cannot be done.
 Also, Sales usually finds every feature suggestion from
the customer to be logical AND high priority!
 Getting all stakeholders to converge on scope and
priority
 Giving representation to all sides, including Engineering

15. The Answers Product Management is Trying to
Give
 Management/ Sales
 What do we build – this sprint, this release, this quarter, year?
 How to avoid stuffing more features into the pipeline??
 What the Dev team can really deliver each cycle
 Engineering
 What do we work on??
 Can we get some bandwidth for refactoring?
 Support
 Can we give some attention to existing customers?!
Can we FOCUS on the TOP few?!

16. Kanban to the Rescue!
How we turned around…16
© Digite, Inc.

17. Our Kanban Journey
 Decision to build SwiftKanban – April 2010
 A fair bit of reading up!
 Discussions with several thought leaders –
David Anderson, Masa K Maeda, Jim Benson,
Al Shalloway, Yuval Yeret..
 Kanban training – Q4, 2010
 We started using it as soon as we launched
Beta
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18. 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)

19. Kanban Foundation Principles
 Start with what you do now
 Agree to pursue incremental, evolutionary change
 Respect the current process, roles, responsibilities &
titles

20. Benefits we sought from Kanban
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 Smoother Flow
 Greater Throughput
 Continuous (more frequent) delivery
 Faster Time to Market
 Greater Visibility
 Greater Understanding and Agreement within the
Company
We were EXCITED! We were raring to go!

21. First version of our Kanban – As Is (2010-
11)
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22. Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
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23. Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
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24. 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

25. 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

30. Version 4: Simplified Roadmap Board (2013-
2014)

31. Visual Backlog (by Aging) (2013-2014)

32. Additional Process Changes
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 “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

33. “The shorter the Project, the more planning
it needs.” – old (Project Management)
Jungle saying…!
The Impact…33
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34. Cumulative Flow Diagram (Minus backlog/
archive)
Jan – Dec, 2013 (11 Releases)
11 Releases made during 2012! 18-24 planned for 2013.
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35. Cumulative Flow Diagram (Minus backlog/
archive)
May, 13 – Apr, 2014) 8-9 Release

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

37. Why this Change?!

38. The Good
 Visual Backlog – WIIFM Factor
 Visual Board – Establish Trust
 Throughput – Team‟s real delivery capacity. No they can‟t deliver
more. BUT they can deliver MORE OFTEN!
 WIP Limit – It can‟t be done. Period. OR – what are you willing to
take out?
 Class of Service – Cost of Delay focus (charts)/ Refactoring
 Blocking – Where are things stuck? I am stuck and I need HELP!
 Continuous Delivery - Last Responsible Minute Prioritization/
Frequent Value Delivery
 Control Charts/ Statistics – Better ability to forecast, build simulation
models, predict organization performance
 Committing to release scope vs. Making a Release when there are
enough Commits

39. The Good
 Visual Backlog – WIIFM Factor.

40. The Good
 Visual Board – Establish Trust

41. The Good
 Throughput – Team‟s real delivery capacity. No they can‟t deliver
more. BUT they can deliver MORE OFTEN!

42. The Good
 WIP Limit – It can‟t be done. Period. OR – what are you willing to
take out?

43. The Good
 Class of Service – Some level Cost of Delay focus/ More
Refactoring than ever before!

44. The Good
 Blocking – Where are things stuck? I am stuck and I need HELP!

45. The Good
 Continuous Delivery - Last Responsible Minute Prioritization/
Frequent Value Delivery

46. The Good
 Control Charts/ Statistics – Better ability to forecast, build simulation
models, predict organization performance

47. The Good
Committing to Release Scope up-front
vs.
Making a Release when there are enough
Commits!
(And Make as many releases as possible!)

48. The Scary. And the Beautiful!
 The Scary
 Pull – Engg Team has say in what they will take and
how soon they will deliver
 Lack of buckets – „Our next release will be …umm‟
 Lack of committed scope – “We WILL get all this by
the next month!”
 The Beautiful
 Operational Benefits
 Business Benefits
 Self-Regulating – Everyone Participates

49. The Beautiful!
Operational Benefits
 Feature visibility throughout the cycle – from concept to deployment
 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!!
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© Digite, Inc.

50. The Beautiful!
Business Benefits
 Faster time to market
 Faster feedback loops
 Better overall product/ market fit
 Improved sales/ customer expectation
management
 Customer Satisfaction/ Growth!
 Deliver VALUE!
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51. The Beautiful!
 Sales/ Customer/ Engg – PM
 Management – PM

52. Q&A
 Contact Information
 mahesh@digite.com
 @maheshsingh
 Learn more at
 www.swiftkanban.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
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© Digite, Inc.
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