portfolio kanban - low-friction method to improve organization's effectiveness
DESCRIPTION
When we think about improving effectiveness we often focus on team level. The sources of ineffectiveness, however, are often rooted on a different level - in project portfolio. Too many concurrent projects, little knowledge about available capabilities and lack of discussion on cost and value often result in a situation where main decision factor is a gut feeling. Common approaches to solve the problem are heavy-weight and strongly formalized. On the other hand Portfolio Kanban is a low-friction method that allows tackling the issue steering change at PMO level. As with every Kanban implementation there is little, if any, changes at the very beginning and changes are steered in evolutionary manner. The picture isn’t rosy though. As long as you can say that there are standard approaches to introducing Kanban on a team level, there are no for portfolio level. As long as the method itself is easy to operate, its implementation is going to be anything but obvious and simple.TRANSCRIPT
Portfolio Kanban Low-Friction Method to Improve
Organization’s Effectiveness
Pawel Brodzinski
@pawelbrodzinski
Hi, I’m Pawel
Lunar Logic Chief cook and bottlewasher http://llp.pl
I’ve been supervising
multiple concurrent projects for
8 years...
...and it sucks
Excel frenzy
Goal: Find meaningful data
You’ll make it!
Give me more!
Oh, there are just too many
of them!
It doesn’t come for free
Source: Gerald Weinberg, Quality Software Management: Vol. 1 System Thinking
Cost of context switching
Zeigarnik Effect: Tendency to experience intrusive thought about
an objective left incomplete
Source: S. Greist-Bousquet, N. Shiffman: The effect of task interrupton and closure on perceived duration
Cost of task switching is rooted in interference
from thoughts about the task your are not doing
Eyal Ophir
Time to market
Source: E. Ophir, C. Nass, A. Wagner: Cognitive control in media multitaskers
Lower quality
Don’t we know the cure already?
Portfolio Kanban Story
Where would you start?
Variability stupid!
Stalled board
WIP limits? Oh...
Side note: There are
exceptions
Two-tier board
Few have such comfort though
Non-standard board designs
Alternative design
Team-level
Individuals
Total capabilities
Different capabilities
Free capabilities
Commitments
Concurrent engagements
Planned time span
Types of work
Future commitments
Planned work
Unavailability
Show me that here
Low hanging fruit
What about WIP limits then?
5O
Free capabilities
WIP limits by conversation
Finally, data from other sources
What’s in it for me?
A system of local optima is not an optimal system
at all; it is a very suboptimal system
Eli Goldratt
Processing the waste more effectively is
cheaper, neater, faster waste.
Stephen Parry
If you are doing the wrong thing you can’t learn, you will only be trying to do the wrong
thing righter.
John Seddon
Problem we tend to ignore
Low-friction method
Thank you
Pawel Brodzinski
blog.brodzinski.com
llp.pl
@pawelbrodzinski