Innovation at scale doesn’t happen by accident. And it isn’t magic, either. How can we encourage innovation and at all levels, ensuring that insights and findings are incorporated into organizational strategy so that we can react and adjust quickly — enabling true business agility? Discovery Kanban and Human Centered Design provide the keys to understanding our customers and managing R&D efforts to ensure we build the right things. In turn, Kanban flight levels provides a rich and robust framework to align these activities across the organization—connecting organizational strategy (at flight level three) down to the efforts of individual teams of knowledge workers (at flight level one). In this session we will explore how the combination of Discovery Kanban, HCD, and Kanban Flight Levels give us a vocabulary and a rich set of tools to visualize and manage customer-centered innovation efforts at scale. We will start out by reviewing Kanban boards that are used by individual teams to manage their work—at flight level one. We will see how each team’s discovery or delivery efforts are beautifully visualized by Kanban so that they can be integrated and managed effectively. We will then proceed up to flight level two and see how Kanban boards at this level help coordinate multiple inter-dependent discovery and delivery teams. Finally, we will see how a flight level three board captures organizational strategy, tying strategic objectives to both current and future initiatives—that are in turn tracked on flight level one and two boards. Kanban provides the alternative path to agility: a humane, evolutionary approach that works both within and outside of IT. The combination of HCD, Discovery Kanban, and Kanban flight levels provides a powerful, effective and low-overhead method for achieving true business agility.

1. miniVAte 2021
May 21, 2021 11:00am EST
Innovation at Scale
Discovery Kanban, Human-Centered Design, and
Flight Levels
Craeg K. Strong, CTO, Savant Financial Technologies
d/b/a Ariel Partners

2. Agenda
1. About me
2. Context
3. Transformation Approach
4. Kanban Maturity Model
5. Flight Levels
6. Coaching the Transformation
7. Next Steps
8. Key Takeaways, Q&A

3. 6/14/21
Confidential © Copyright Ariel Partners 2020
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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. About Me

4. Craeg Strong § Software Development since 1988
§ Large Commercial & Government Projects
§ Kanban Coach / DevOps Engineer
§ Kanban Trainer / SpecFlow Trainer
§ Performance & Scalability Architect
§ Certified Ethical Hacker
§ New York & Washington DC Area
CTO, Ariel Partners
AKT, KCP, KMP, CSM, CSP, CSPO,
ITILv3, PMI-ACP, PMP, LeSS, SAFe
www.arielpartners.com
cstrong@arielpartners.com
@ckstrong1

5. 6/14/21
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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
2. Context

6. Context: Online Learning Company
qMission: Help K-8 Students to love and excel at Math
qPrimary school lessons in production Now
qUsers nearly 1/3 of all US Students
qExtending into Elementary and Secondary School Grades
qDelivery: Roughly one grade-worth of material per calendar year

7. Key Differentiators
qExtremely High-Quality Lessons
qVast Amount of Content
qUncovering new ways to teach and simplify complex concepts
qGamification and making learning fun
qCreating Growth mindset: “I can learn this”

8. Challenges and Pain Points
qSome items over-specified with full UX, others under-specified bare bones
lots of questions
qLarge amounts of “hidden” work uncovered in the middle of development
necessitated replanning
qUrgent items crop up causing already in-progress items to be bypassed and
ultimately, they get stale
qSmall “punchlist” items not addressed, so we never actually finish since we
are already working on the next big thing
qDelays cause ripple effect of replanning since many different teams involved
in scheduling production “shoots”
qLeadership pulled into low-level decision-making, reducing time for strategic
thinking and risking executive burnout

9. Challenges and Pain Points
No agile strategic
portfolio
management
No end-to-end
management of
the value streams
Few agile
Interactions
between teams

10. Challenges and Pain Points
No agile strategic
portfolio
management
• Developers do not know “source” of requirements
• Unclear how an individual user story “advances the ball” (relates to the
strategy)
• Work items not tied into portfolio items
• Not clear how defects or latent requirements affect overall deadlines
• Hard to make trade-off analysis
No end-to-end
management of
the value streams
Few agile
Interactions
between teams

11. Challenges and Pain Points
No agile strategic
portfolio
management
• Developers do not know “source” of requirements
• Unclear how an individual user story “advances the ball” (relates to the
strategy)
• Work items not tied into portfolio items
• Not clear how defects or latent requirements affect overall deadlines
• Hard to make trade-off analysis
No end-to-end
management of
the value streams
• Developers unaware of operational concerns (stability, scalability
concerns)
• Limited developer input in design decisions
• Schedule and cost Implications of design alternatives unclear
• Larger missions languish at “90% complete”
• Schedule pressure leads to constantly starting work on new missions
Few agile
Interactions
between teams

12. Challenges and Pain Points
No agile strategic
portfolio
management
• Developers do not know “source” of requirements
• Unclear how an individual user story “advances the ball” (relates to the
strategy)
• Work items not tied into portfolio items
• Not clear how defects or latent requirements affect overall deadlines
• Hard to make trade-off analysis
No end-to-end
management of
the value streams
• Developers unaware of operational concerns (stability, scalability
concerns)
• Limited developer input in design decisions
• Schedule and cost Implications of design alternatives unclear
• Larger missions languish at “90% complete”
• Schedule pressure leads to constantly starting work on new missions
Few agile
Interactions
between teams
• Development may start too early (designs half-baked) or too late (many
designs already completed)
• Dependencies uncovered late
• Teams unaware of or not prioritizing external dependencies

13. Development Teams
q Started with Scrum
q Using Pivotal Tracker
q Sprints not working well
§ significant unplanned work
§ Significant Fixed-date work
§ Significant coordination with other specialist teams (academics, video production, instructional designers)

14. Instructional Designer Teams
qLargely Date-Driven
qUsing Asana
qMany disparate tasks to coordinate
qMultiple external stakeholders

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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
3. Transformation
Approach

16. Selected Approach to Agile Transformation
What To Do
(Overall Framework)
Flight Levels &
Discovery Kanban
How To Establish it
Systems Thinking Approach to
Implementing Kanban (STATIK)
How to Evolve It
(Approach, Specific
Practices)
Kanban Maturity Model

17. Transformational Dos and Don’ts
Not This
§ Change the Organizational Structure
Immediately
§ Focus on Team-Level Agile
§ Start with a Tool
§ Scale too Quickly
This
• Engage Top Management as Active
Participants
• Understand Context and Challenges
• Design Flight Level Architecture
• Implement One FL2 System
• Connect to FL3 Strategy Level
• Replicate Service by Service
• Start simple
• Evolve over time

18. Transformation Roadmap Example
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Confidential © Copyright Ariel Partners 2020
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Product
Management
Training
Visioning
Workshops
Stakeholder
Interviews
Strategy-Level
Workshops
Checkpoints
Discovery &
Delivery Kanban
In Situ Observation, Ad hoc Coaching
One on one sessions
Role and Responsibilities
Capture pain points
Understanding of strategic
vision
Summary of Challenges
and Observations
Open Space
Hopes and fears
True North
Ideal, Obstacles,
Outcomes
Right-to-Left Strategy
Deployment
Strategy Diamond /
Product Canvas
Impact Mapping
Culture Hacking: Modeling
& Decision Filters
Pre-Mortem & Cover Story
Mockup
Strategy Artifacts: Impact
Map, Decision Filters,
Role and Responsibility
Matrix
Product Vision & Strategy
Design Thinking
Prototypes, Storyboards &
Mockups
Concept Testing &
Validation
User cohort / Persona
Profiles
Scenario Mapping /
Journey Mapping
How Might We / Design
Canvas
Google Design Sprint
Product Lifecycle
Management
Feature Prioritization /
Kano Model
Training Delivery, Product
Canvas
Roles & responsibilities
Objectives and Key Results
Actions & Initiatives
Prioritization
Capacity Allocation &
Work In Process Limits
Cycle Times and Service
Level Objectives
Strategy-level Kanban
STATIK Workshop
Operating Rhythm:
meetings and
communication
Roadmapping
Forecasting & Estimation
Kanban System Design:
Workflows, Policies,
OKRs, KPIs,
Biweekly Check-in
Monthly status report
Value Stream-Level
Kanban STATIK
Workshop
Cross-Functional Teams,
Team Structure
Story Mapping
Story Splitting
Work In Process Limits &
Minimums
Explicit Policies
Defining Services &
Service Boundaries
Modeling End-to-End Flow
Capacity Allocation
Managing Dependencies
Blocker Clustering
Kanban System Design:
Workflows, Policies,
SLO, Issue Taxonomy
Kanban Tool Configuration

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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
4. Kanban Maturity
Model

20. Drastic Change Programs Are Risky
Safety!
Patience!
time
Capability
Failure!
Lower maturity
organizations panic
under stress
Kanban in action!
Avoid the failure mode
of large scale, designed &
managed transitions
18% success*
18% failure
64%
moderately
effective
* https://www.pmi.org/-/media/pmi/documents/public/pdf/learning/thought-leadership/pulse/organizational-change-management.pdf

21. Kanban Cultural Mantra
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Outcomes follow Practices
Practices follow Culture
Culture follows Values

22. Kanban Cultural Mantra
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Outcomes follow practice adoption.
Practice adoption is impeded by cultural
obstacles, and therefore, culture must lead;
and to change culture, we must lead with
values.

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Make Values Actionable With Decision Filters
If You are In a Position to Do
Something, Just Do It
Don’t wait for issues to be assigned
If You don’t Know who its for, you
shouldn’t work on it
You should question anything if you don’t know who it is for
If you don’t know who you are serving, you might not be serving
anyone
Triage Before Commitment
Understand ROI. Explore dependencies, understand risk of future
blockers. Review blocker clusters
Understand Customer Expectation
Before Committing
Match customer expectations with class of service.
Support decisions made by
subordinates
Delegation of authority must be real. Support decisions made
downstream, even if you would have made a different one
If it doesn’t fit our strategy
don’t do it
There are an infinite number of things we could do well.
We cannot be effective unless we focus

24. Driving Evolutionary Change
Actively influence decisions
and actions of leaders at all
levels.
Leadership
e.g. Lead by example:
demonstrate desired
behaviors
Engage people emotionally
and provoke an impulse to
‘do something about it’.
Stressor e.g. WIP limits or triage
Hold a mirror up to reality:
Needed to catalyse the
demand for further change.
Reflection
Mechanism
e.g. Kanban cadences,
metrics or charts, F4P
surveys
…applying just enough stress to catalyze improvement.

25. Evolutionary
Change Model

26. Kanban Maturity Model: More than 100 Practices

27. 6/14/21
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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
5. Flight Levels

28. • Even though teams are delivering, overall delivery is slow
• Many issues show up late, during integration
• Performance, scalability, and usability problems persist
• Team-level improvements can actually make the situation worse
Team-Level Agile: What’s Missing?
Team 3
Team 2
Team 1
Team 4
Team 3
Team 2
Team 1
Team 2
Team 1

29. Flight Levels: Big Picture

30. Level 1: Operational (Practitioner Team-Level)
These could be Scrum teams,
Kanban, LeSS teams or a
SAFe Agile Release Train
(ART)

31. Level 2: Coordination

32. Level 3: Strategy
Flight Level Three
ties strategy
directly to
execution

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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
6. Coaching the
Transformation

34. Transformation Coaching Over Zoom
1. Stakeholder Interviews
2. Designing the Flight Levels
3. STATIK Workshops
4. Selecting a Tool
5. Prototyping
6. Incremental Adoption and Improvement

35. Stakeholder Interviews

36. Flight Level 3: Strategy
qBig Picture
qTeams in Purple
qNeed to coordinate?
Blue
qStrategy ties value
streams to mission,
annual goals, OKRs

37. Example Flight Level Three (Strategy) Visualization
Strategy /
Objective KR / KPI
MVP: Support
Initial Disability
Claims for 1
medium
MicroPact state
Initial Adult
disability claim
can be entered
Financial API
produces JSON
Business
Function
Capabilities
Manage
User Profile
Manage
Organization
Manage
Authorizations
Interface to State
Financial Systems
Manage
Disability Case
Manage
Disability Claim
Manage
Authentication
3-6 Months 0-3 Months Active
Basic User
Info
Basic Org
Info
Assign Org
Roles
Manage Org
Users
User
Login
User
Logout
Impersonate
User
Manage User
Relationships
User Financial
Info

38. Flight Level Three (Strategy) Visualization
§ Ties strategy to execution
§ Simplifies trade-off analysis
§ Facilitates Hypothesis-Driven
Development (HDD)
§ Enables Business Agility

39. STATIK
Systems Thinking Approach to Implementing Kanban
qAnalyze your services one at a time
qDesign a Kanban system
qKanban systems exist at all three levels
qRinse and Repeat

40. Flight Level 2: Coordination

41. Example Flight Level Two (Coordination) Visualization – Swim Lanes
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Release
Backlog
Decompose
into
features
Decompose
into user
stories
Team
Backlog Implement
Waiting For
Integration Integrate
Waiting
For
Approval Validate
Waiting
For
Release Done
Feature
Capability
Capability
Capability
Feature
Feature
Feature
Capability
Feature Feature
Feature Feature
Capability
Capability
Feature
Feature
Feature
Incorporating upstream work Incorporating downstream work
Feature
Feature
Capability
Feature
Feature
Feature
Capability
Capability
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature
Feature Feature

42. Flight Level Two (Coordination) Visualization

43. 6/14/21
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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
6. Next Steps

44. Next Step: Selecting A tool
Goals
qFlexible Board Design
qMulti-Level Boards
qColorful and Informative Tickets
qEasy and Actionable Metrics
qFacilitates Collaboration
qAbility to Fix Misteaks Mistakes
Non-Goals
qIntegration with Source Code Control

45. 6/14/21
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1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
1. Ariel/ECS Relationship
7. Key Takeaways
Q & A

46. Problems and Solutions
Few Agile
Interactions
Between Teams
Flight Levels & Capacity Tokens
§Flight Level Two Integration Board
§Limit WIP at Integration Level
§Use CapTokens to facilitate coordination of dependencies
No end-to-end
management of the
value streams
Flight Levels & Discovery Kanban
§Extend our integration board to cover workflow before and after Dev
§After acceptance testing, what steps remain to actually deliver to the
customer?
§Before backlog refinement, what steps are required to get requirements ready?
No agile strategic
portfolio
management
Flight Levels & Discovery Kanban
§Portfolio level board helps us plan and manage our initiatives
§Marries our roadmap with portfolio management
§Quantify our progress against strategic goals with OKRs

47. Key Takeaways
§ Most Agile Transformations are not successful
§ Making Agile Teams Does Not Produce Business Agility
§ Large Changes are Risky: Evolutionary Change Works Better
§ Flight Level Framework is Lightweight and yet Comprehensive
§ Kanban Maturity Model Provides Blueprint for Successful Evolutionary
Change

48. Coaching/Training Courses
Atlassian Suite
1. Jira Fundamentals
2. Jira Intermediate
3. Jira Advanced
4. Team Spaces in Confluence
5. Git and Bitbucket
Technical Practices
1. Specification By Example
2. BDD & Automated Acceptance Testing
3. Git and GitHub
4. Hands-On DevSecOps w/Docker
5. Microservices Design Patterns
6. SRE: Site Reliability Engineering
7. AI/ML Bootcamp
Agile Transformation
1. Fundamentals of Agile
2. Agile for Leaders & Executives
3. Human Centered Design
4. Agile Requirements: Story Mapping,
Splitting & Discovery Kanban
5. Agile Forecasting & Metrics
6. Digital Transformation with Flight Levels
Agile Certifications
1. Team Kanban Practitioner
2. Kanban Management Professional
3. Kanban Maturity Model
4. SAFe Scrum Master / Adv SM
5. SAFe Product Owner
6. SAFe Release Train Engineer

49. Thank You!
www.arielpartners.com
cstrong@arielpartners.com
Twitter: @arielpartners