product development success story with kanban final
TRANSCRIPT
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
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Quick Introduction – Digité, Inc.
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“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
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Waterfall – 2002-2006
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Iterative – 2007 - 2011
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Iterative – 2007 - 2011
IR1
IR2
IR
3
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Our Release Schedule
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3 Releases per year
2 Minor
1 Major
We thought we had it pretty good!
But behind the scene…9
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What was going to be the “Next Release”?!
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Product Management could not “Define”
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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…”
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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”
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“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!
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Kanban to the Rescue!
How we are today…15
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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
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Benefits we sought from Kanban
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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-
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Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
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Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
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Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
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Iterative + Kanban – 2010 - 2011
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Retrospective Findings
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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
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Version 2 of our Kanban (2011-2012)
Separate Dev with Details of Automation/ Review/
Deployment
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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
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Cumulative Flow Diagram (Minus backlog/
archive)
11 Releases made during 2012! 18-24 planned for 2013.
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Average Cycle Time of User Stories
300% Reduction in Cycle Time thru a combination of factors!
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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
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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
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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)
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Going further UPSTREAM
The Next Stage33
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Version 3 of our Kanban (2012-Present)
Roadmapping in a separate board
More Process Changes
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“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
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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
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Cross-Board Decomposition and Drilldown
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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!!
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Business Benefits
Faster time to market
Faster feedback loops
Better overall product/ market fit
Improved sales/ customer expectation
management
Customer Satisfaction/ Growth!
Deliver VALUE!
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Q&A
Contact Information [email protected]
@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
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About usAbout Kanban