1. Portfolio Kanban
Sandy Mamoli
@smamol
sandy@nomad8.com
www.nomad8.com
Wednesday, 25 September 13

2. Wednesday, 25 September 13

3. We’ll talk about
Problems
Causes
Solutions
Portfolio Kanban - how we implemented it
How we prioritised
Benefits & Challenges
Wednesday, 25 September 13

4. Problems
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5. What’s going on?
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6. I asked and found ...
‣ Projects take a really long time to get
finished
‣ We don’t know where our projects are at
‣ We can’t trust the estimates
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7. Project stickies
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8. We realised...
‣ Heaps of projects are in progress
‣ We have no idea of what our capacity
is
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9. Causes
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10. Lack of visualisation
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11. Organisational stop-go
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12. Solution
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13. Moving targets - fix them!
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14. Stable teams
Team 1
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Team 2
Team 3

15. Stable priorities
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16. Portfolio Kanban
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17. Portfolio Kanban
1. Visualise your workflow
2. Limit work in progress
3. Manage flow
4. Make exit policies explicit
5. Implement feedback loops
6. Improve collaboratively
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18. 1. Visualise your workflow
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19. Step 1: Visualise
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20. 2. Limit your WIP
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21. Step 2: Limit WIP
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22. Block stuff in progress
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23. Wednesday, 25 September 13

24. Blocked means don’t work on it!
Really
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25. Track progress
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26. 3. Manage flow
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27. Step 3: Manage flow
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28. 4. Exit policies
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29. Make exit policies explicit
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30. Make your rules explicit
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31. 5. Feedback loops
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32. You get what you measure
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33. What matters to Trade Me?
‣ Get stuff out fast
‣ Have high quality
‣ Have happy clients (business people/
end users)
‣ Have happy employees
‣ Build the right thing
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34. Get stuff out fast - cycle time
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35. Get stuff out fast - stories shipped
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36. Happiness surveys
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37. Example: business survey
On a scale of 1 to 5 do you feel...
... you have confidence that the problem you have will be solved,
it will be solved well and it will be solved quickly?
... your projects are hitting the promised dates?
... the amount of time to get a project delivered is right and
reasonable?
... project progress is highly visible and you always know what
will happen next?
... you know how you can help and also influence successful
delivery yourself?
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38. Example: Employee survey
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39. 6. Improve collaboratively
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40. Step 6: Improve collaboratively
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41. How we prioritised
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42. Prioritisation session
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43. What about started projects?
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44. Democratic dot vote
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45. Update the board
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46. Prioritisation session outcomes
‣ A ranked list of 14 projects
‣ Shared understanding of all projects
‣ An agreement to do this every 3
months
‣ Acceptance that things will change
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47. Where are we now?
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48. Fewer projects in progress
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49. Now
‣ Partially there
‣ Collect more data
‣ Have measures to know if we’re
moving in the right direction
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50. Benefits & challenges
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51. Work on the right stuff
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52. Shiny new things
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53. Getting stuff out
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54. Getting stuff out
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55. Getting stuff out
m
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56. Getting stuff out
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E
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y
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MC
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57. Discussion point
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58. Where are the bottlenecks?
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59. Missing link to squads
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60. Intangible goodness
“I think tech get more empathy now that it’s
all visible.”
David Mole, Head of Projects
Wednesday, 25 September 13

61. Challenge: Ownership
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62. Challenge: keep changing it!
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63. Challenge: Location
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64. Portfolio Kanban
1. Visualise your workflow
2. Limit work in progress
3. Manage flow
4. Make exit policies explicit
5. Implement feedback loops
6. Improve collaboratively
Wednesday, 25 September 13

65. If you’re interested in seeing this presentation live feel
free to get in touch. I live in Wellington, New Zealand.
@smamol
sandy@nomad8.com
www.nomad8.com
Wednesday, 25 September 13