PRODUCT

DEVELOPMENT WITH

KANBAN – A SUCCESS

STORY

Mahesh Singh

Co-founder/ Sr. VP – Product, Digite, Inc.

Agenda

Introduction

How We Were..

How We Are Today (Kanban to the rescue!)

Benefits Achieved

2

© Digite, Inc.

Quick Introduction – Digité, Inc.

© Digite, Inc.

3

“Lean/ Agile ALM” Tools company

95+ customers/ >300,000 users

Lean/ Agile ALM – SwiftALM - 2003

Kanban/ Scrumban – SwiftKanban - 2011

Integration bus – SwiftSync - 2012

Planning for the Next Release….

How we were…4

© Digite, Inc.

Waterfall – 2002-2006

5

© Digite, Inc.

Iterative – 2007 - 2011

6

© Digite, Inc.

Iterative – 2007 - 2011

IR1

IR2

IR

3

7

© Digite, Inc.

Our Release Schedule

© Digite, Inc.

8

3 Releases per year

2 Minor

1 Major

We thought we had it pretty good!

But behind the scene…9

© Digite, Inc.

What was going to be the “Next Release”?!

© Digite, Inc.

10

Product Management could not “Define”

© Digite, Inc.

11

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!

Engineering could not “Commit…”

© Digite, Inc.

12

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.

Management/ Sales could not “Understand”

© Digite, Inc.

13

“Development is not fast enough”

“Productivity is low”

“Quality is bad”

“Product does not meet market need”

Management/ Sales were frustrated!

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!

14

© Digite, Inc.

Kanban to the Rescue!

How we are today…15

© Digite, Inc.

Our Kanban Journey

SwiftKanban – Brief History

Decision to build SwiftKanban – April 2010

Beta – Nov 2010

GA – July 2011

Advice/ input from several thought leaders –

David Anderson, Jim Benson, Al Shalloway,

Masa K Maeda, Yuval Yeret..

Kanban training – Q4, 2010

We started using it as soon as we launched

Beta

16

© Digite, Inc.

Benefits we sought from Kanban

© Digite, Inc.

17

Smoother Flow

Greater Throughput

Continuous (more frequent) delivery

Faster Time to Market

Greater Visibility

We were EXCITED! We were raring to go!

First version of our Kanban – As Is (2010-

11)

© Digite, Inc.

18

Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011

19

© Digite, Inc.

Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011

20

© Digite, Inc.

Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011

21

© Digite, Inc.

Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011

22

© Digite, Inc.

Retrospective Findings

© Digite, Inc.

23

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

Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)

Greater Attention to Planning/ Scoping

© Digite, Inc.

24

© Digite, Inc.

25

Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)

Separate Dev with Details of Automation/ Review/

Deployment

© Digite, Inc.

26

Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)

All Engg Activity put on Board

“The shorter the Project, the more planning

it needs.” – old (Project Management)

Jungle saying…!

The Impact…27

© Digite, Inc.

Cumulative Flow Diagram (Minus backlog/

archive)

11 Releases made during 2012! 18-24 planned for 2013.

28

© Digite, Inc.

Average Cycle Time of User Stories

300% Reduction in Cycle Time thru a combination of factors!

29

© Digite, Inc.

Development Process

Week 1 Week 2 Week 2 Week 4

Spec Story 7-8 Spec Story 9-10 Spec Story 11-12 Spec Story 13-14

Design Story 5-6 Design Story 7-8 Design Story 9-10 Design Story 11-12

Develop Story 3-

4

Develop Story 5-6 Develop Story 7-8 Develop Story 9-10

Validate Story 1-

2

Validate Story 3-4 Validate Story 5-6 Validate Story 7-8

Release 1-2-3-4 Release 5-6-7-8

30

© Digite, Inc.

How Work Really Gets Done - PM

User Story Planning

Separate “Weekly Standup Meeting” (tho’ we continue to participate in Engg Daily Standup, mostly as observers) on the Planning Board

Backlog consists of New features and Enhancements

Backlog Prioritization by Rank

Estimation pulled in PM, Dev, UI team

Splitting Large User Stories into smaller Deployable Stories

Elaborating the stories (Specification writing)

Available in ‘Ready For Development’

Other Cards

Issues, Internal And Customer Defects are put directly into ‘Ready For Development’ lane with highest priority

Engineering Tasks are treated like user Stories

31

© Digite, Inc.

How Work Really Gets Done - Dev/ QA

Work Execution

Each Team Member Pulls next available card from ‘Ready For Development’ lane.

Each Card flows through Development Value stream:

Design -> Coding -> JUNIT Automation -> Code Review -> (Functional Test Case Dev + Functional Test Automation) -> Test Automation Review -> Validation.

Validated Cards are put into ‘Ready for Deployment’ lane.

Release when 20 Cards in ‘Ready For Deployment’

Generally, release cadence: 2 wks

Work Tracking

Daily standup Calls

Generally, 1 card at a Time for all team members.

Monitoring and Controlling WIP violations

Focus on Impediments (Block)

32

© Digite, Inc.

Going further UPSTREAM

The Next Stage33

© Digite, Inc.

© Digite, Inc.

34

Version 3 of our Kanban (2012-Present)

Roadmapping in a separate board

More Process Changes

© Digite, Inc.

35

“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

© Digite, Inc.

36

Version 3 of our Kanban (2012-Present)

Execution separated from Planning/ Spec-

ing

Going further – “Tribal Mashup…”?

Backlog (By

Source)

Prioritized Scheduled In Progress Done

Customers (3)

Sales (3)

Support (3)

Marketing/

Product Mgt (5)

Engineering (2)

Representation from

various sources

37

© Digite, Inc.

Cross-Board Decomposition and Drilldown

© Digite, Inc.

38

Organizational Benefits

Feature visibility throughout the cycle – from concept to deployment

Right level of User Story breakdown/ sizing for predictable delivery

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!!

39

© Digite, Inc.

Business Benefits

Faster time to market

Faster feedback loops

Better overall product/ market fit

Improved sales/ customer expectation

management

Customer Satisfaction/ Growth!

Deliver VALUE!

40

© Digite, Inc.

Q&A

Contact Information mahesh@digite.com

@maheshsingh

Learn more at www.swift-kanban.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

41

© Digite, Inc.

About usAbout Kanban