This document summarizes a project to automate financial reports for a bank using Kanban principles. It describes how the team applied Kanban and encountered initial challenges integrating with other teams. Over time, the team established feedback loops, removed blockers, and stabilized delivery. This revealed new types of work and expanded scope. The team scaled Kanban by involving business stakeholders more closely through an Ideation Group. They established processes for triaging and prioritizing new work based on lead time, expectations, and cost of delay. Applying these techniques helped manage scope and risks. Other business teams then also adopted Kanban in their processes, demonstrating how Kanban can scale across an organization by starting small and expanding naturally.

1. ANNA RADZIKOWSKA
Applying underappreciated scaling
techniques in the finance institution
In the depths of the Kanban

2. Introduction

3. Meet The Project
• New project to automate manually prepared reports for the Financial Reporting department (Business) in
a private bank.
• SDLC is used as a company-wide PM method, but developers applied “Scrum” on top of that.
• Financial Reporting is a department of 150+ people (10 teams) working for 120 external Clients and
Auditors in regular reporting cycles (annual, semi-annual, quarter, month).
• The delivery dates of the reports on the business side are all non-negotiable deadlines.
• The Project is budgeted for 15 months.
• Deployment calendars are distributed in January for the whole year. Deployments are scheduled every 2-
3 weeks (depending on the bank holidays).
• Initial Business assessment to automate 10 reports.

4. • Two Business Analysts
• Two Developers
• One part-time Project
Manager/Product Owner
Meet the
Team

5. • Internal shared services: Testing team, Infrastructure team,
Maintenance & BAU Support team.
Meet the...
Others
• External shared services: ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) solution
provider.
• (Internal) Client: Business.
• Steering committee (sponsors and directors).
• PMO
• (External - global) clients, auditors, regulators.
• Other stakeholders: RPA project and team, aggregating project.

6. • "Start with what you now!" (SDLC)
• multiple shared services, no chance
for a "cross-functional team" (we
wouldn't even know who should be
on this team!)
• previous Kanban experience of few
team members
• it JUST felt natural
Why Kanban?

7. Honeymoon
Happy Kanban People

8. Honeymoon
Happy Kanban People

9. 1 month later...
"Why do you need
access to DB?!"

10. 2 months later...
"Infrastructure doesn't know
what to do with you, guys"

11. 4 months later...
"We need to
regroup offline"

12. Not so happy anymore...

13. Get your...
stuff
together!

14. Keep calm
and Kanban :)

15. • Created explicit blocker-related policies and
processes to remove blockers.
We couldn't move on,
but we stayed focused
• Focused on removing one blocker after another and
kept moving.
• Introduced requirements approval from Business.
• Spent time with Business to understand the scope
(flattening the learning curve) - scale wide.
• Built the feedback loops.

16. Emerging Upstream

17. Kanban Meeting
(daily)
• daily work discussion
• replenishment on demand
• addressing blockers
SteerCo
(twice a month)
• all stakeholders
• project update
• risk update
Retrospectives
(twice a month)
• discussing improvements
• playing Mafia game (why
was I always a chicken :( !?)
The flow of
feedback
PM
PM
PM

18. 7 months after project started
we did the first release

19. Our lead time looked like a total mess
But at least we could deliver!

20. Wait... there is a new source of
feedback!
Actually - two :)

21. Removing blockers allowed us for
stabilizing the delivery
Source of
feedback #1

22. Kanban Meeting
(daily)
• daily work discussion
• replenishment on demand
• addressing blockers
SteerCo
(twice a month)
• all stakeholders
• project update
• risk update
Retrospectives
(twice a month)
• discussing improvements
• playing Mafia game (why
was I always a chicken :( !?)
The flow of feedback
Post-delivery
period
• feedback from Business
• change requests and
defects
BAs
PM
Business
managers
Source of
feedback #2

23. Lead time distribution and post-delivery feedback revealed new work
item types and their nature

24. Welcome to the world of failure demand!

25. “Let’s keep expanding the scope!”
(Of course, no one said it explicitly)

26. We realized we can't do it on
our own

27. Time to get Business on board!
• Redesign process
• Let's scale in depth - Ideation Group!
• Definition of Ready
• Triage
• 2-phase commit

28. Ideation Group
board
(Redesigned)
Project board

29. Kanban Meeting
(daily)
• daily work discussion
• replenishment on demand
• addressing blockers
SteerCo
(twice a month)
• all stakeholders
• project update
• risk update
Retrospectives
(twice a month)
• discussing improvements
• playing Mafia game (why
was I always a chicken :( !?)
The flow of feedback
Post-delivery
period
• feedback from Business
• change requests and
defects
PM
Business
managers
Ideation Group
(weekly)
• analysis of improvements and
new builds
• decision: "what should we do
next?"
SMEs and BAs

30. Triage and
2 commitment
points

31. Emerging practices

32. “When should we do it?”
triage in practice
The way we managed the width-scale
process (and expanding customer’s
expectations)

33. • What is the lead time?
• When is “now” (or expected start date)?
• What is the desired delivery date?
• What is the time frame between “now” (or
start date) and the desired delivery date?
Planning Recipe
• What is customer expectation?
• What is the cost of delay?
• Should we change the class of service?
• Can it wait?

34. Team decision
would be:
Ignore the “pink” report,
we do the “green” one
Considering the data
only

35. Let’s not forget about the
last question
What is the customer’s
expectation?

36. The “Green” report is a monthly task for one client.
It consists of one small spreadsheet.
The cost of delay is intangible!

37. The “Pink” report is required by 80% of clients.
Automation will save dozens of work hours.
Cost of delay is very high!

38. Mutual agreement:
We change the class of service of the “pink” report
to complete it for the next reporting period!
Business will allocate resources to support the
work.

39. • What is the lead time?
• When is “now” (or expected start date)?
• What is the desired delivery date?
• What is the time frame between “now” (or
start date) and the desired delivery date?
Planning Recipe
• What is customer expectation?
• What is the cost of delay?
• Should we change the class of service?
• Can it wait?
Don’t focus on one
part or another

40. • What is the lead time?
• When is “now” (or expected start date)?
• What is the desired delivery date?
• What is the time frame between “now” (or
start date) and the desired delivery date?
Planning Recipe
• What is customer expectation?
• What is the cost of delay?
• Should we change the class of service?
• Can it wait?
Always
consider both!

41. Risk Management
• Small pieces of work.
• Understanding capabilities.
• Constant work with clients.
• Understanding the cost of delay.
• Decreasing the number of failure demand items.

42. More in depth scaling?
We've got you covered!

43. Few Business teams applied Kanban
in their processes
Ideation Group
Team 1
Team 2
Team 3

44. What about scaling high?

45. We needed to
integrate with a new
(master) project and
recognize new
dependencies

46. What can we learn?

47. What can we learn?
• Kanban fits everywhere and will adjust to you, just
start with what you do now!
• You most probably scale Kanban already, so...
• To scale Kanban, just do more of it everywhere you
see the opportunity.
• Don't try to install new, huge, fancy frameworks.

48. Questions! :)