Strategic Portfolio Management With Kanban

Strategic Portfolio Management With Kanban

Nicolas Mercier ([email protected]) &

Frédéric Paquet ([email protected])

Speakers

Frédéric Paquet

Nicolas Mercier

[email protected] [email protected]

Agenda

Yesterday

Today

Tomorrow

Based on an operational experience in a government field.

With more than 1k IT folks.

Intro

There must be a better way?

You didn’t even think about asking yourself this question. 1

You asked yourself this question but can’t find answers. 2

You found the answers. 3

Intro

Disclaimer

Once upon a time, the creation

• A sometime epic story

(in the non-agile way of the term)

• Team building (internal & external)

• Define scope, budget and schedule

… of a project

Accountability measures and KPIs

• Baseline, BAC

• EV, SV, CV, SPI, CPI, TCPI

• Velocity

• Parking graph

• Sunset graph

Tactics and tricks

• Happy hours

• Recursive Padding

• Watermelon indicators

Project-centric dimension

• Let’s suppose everything is fine

but there is still a problem …

,

WE ARE NOT ALONE

A successful project can hurt the organization

Everyone is full capacity

300

J F M A M J J A S O N D J F

A common strategy to fix the problem

• Plan better

Magic button

All I have to do, is hit the magic button …

The perfect master gantt

From creation to …

SCIENCE FICTION

We need an army of PCOs and PMs

At a portfolio level

At a portfolio level

From beginning to realization

The longer the process for starting a project is ...

the more difficult it will be to stop it.

And you got a lot of useless features

• 64% of features really rarely or Never used

Standish Group

TODAY

There must be a better way?!

If only someone could have invented something to put on your head to block the sun from your eyes…

1. Visualize

2. Limit WIP

3. Manage flow

4. Make policies explicit

5. Implement feedback loops

6. Improve continuously

Our experience with Kanban

Source: Essential Kanban – Condensed Guide, 2016, p. 17, http://leankanban.com/guide/

REVEAL THRIVE STABILIZE

Visualize

• Where is what? • Dependencies? • Health? • Issues? • Whatever!

Let’s see this thing!

Visualize - Start with what you do now

Reveal the system!

• See it just the way it is. • Don’t change it in any way. • Empower people to own it.

This will generally hurt quite a bit.

Visualize

Why do we do this to ourselves?

Visualize - The Great Kanban!

Visualize - Systems Thinking

A system is not the sum of it’s part, it’s the product of their interactions. - Russell L. Ackoff

Limit your WIP

Stop starting, start finishing!

Limit your WIP

Maximize productivity Become responsive collectively

…but how?

Limit your WIP - Pull

Pull!

• Create a pull system. • Value creation will

drive your choices.

Value

Limit your WIP – Little’s Law

L = W

L = W

WIP

= Throughput

Cycle Time

Manage flow

Go with the flow!

• Decentralize decisions. • Empower and trust your people. • Support your system:

• Eliminate bottlenecks. • Puts the spotlight on constraints. • Set up a cadence.

Manage flow - Cadence

• Rythmn of the system. • Creates alignment and synchronisation.

• Breaks down BIG THINGS into small things.

Move to the beat!

Make policies explicit

Know the rules!

• Use Definitions of Done. • Share and follow the rules. • Ex: Card templates

Implement feedback loops

Portfolio

Project

Team

Weekly sync and Quarterly replenishment

Sprint review and planning

Daily meeting

Improve continuously

Inspect and Adapt!

• High level drives high impact. • Invest in improvement opportunities

at this level.

You’ll be rewared!

TOMORROW

We still have challenges to come

How does the highest level of government measure the success of

IT Initiatives?

Evaluating IT initiatives as an whole vs Individually

VS VS

Go from silos to system

WE’RE LUCKY THE HOLE ISN’T ON

OUR SIDE!

The non-performing system

The performing project

We still have challenges to come

The fear of auditor or medias is strong

Transparency vs individual’s motivations

VS

We still have challenges to come

• Your structure will need to change. Sometimes drastically to support these things: • Flatten your organization • Break silos • Move from project-centric to user-centric • Make boundaries from roles and responsabilities a little

more blurry • DevOps

• Understand people will disappear… and reappear in new form (caterpillar to butterfly)

• Measure the impact of changes is hard on things that last for months at a time

Metrics

• Focus more on outcomes than following the plan

• Use flow metrics and Value to steer your decisions

Questions?