Agile Organizational Design and Kanban Flow

© Torak, Inc. www.torak.com
Agile Organizational Design
& Kanban Flow
Organizational Design is a critical step in the overall Agile transformation and successful adoption. Dimitri
shares his vast experience to illustrate how organizations can structure themselves to get the most benefit
from being Agile and Lean. This presentation focuses on flowing work effectively using an Agile Canvas
(i.e.:Organizational Design) and leveraging Kanban boards to ensure transparency/accountability at all
levels of the organization. Once we master setting up the ideal organizational structure, we will explore
actual Kanban board examples to visualize the flow of work across the organization. Ultimately, it’s all
about connecting clear goals, with meaningful features and well written stories; while reducing
dependencies and creating simple communication channels. You will walk away with real examples and
techniques that you can implement immediately within your organization.
1

About Dimitri Ponomareff
Dimitri Ponomareff (www.linkedin.com/in/dimka5) is a
Coach. Whether it's a sports team, software products or
entire organizations, Dimitri has that ability to relate and
energize people. He is consistently recognized as a very
passionate and successful change agent, with an
overwhelming capacity to motivate and mobilize teams on
their path to continuous improvements. He is a master
facilitator, as well as a captivating speaker with consistent,
positive feedback regarding his ability to engage an
audience.
As a certified Coach, Project Manager and Facilitator of "The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People", Dimitri brings a full spectrum of knowledge in his delivery of
methodologies. Through teaching by example, he is able to build teams of people who
understand where to focus their work to generate the most value.
He has coached and provided tailor-made services and training for a multitude of
organizations. The short list includes, American Express, Charles Schwab, Bank of
America, Morgan Stanley, Best Western, Choice Hotels, JDA Software, LifeLock,
First Solar, Infusionsoft and Mayo Clinic. Dimitri enjoys his work, and does everything
to ensure he shares his knowledge with others who seek it.
2

Agenda
● Organizational Agility
○ Agile Leadership
○ Business Agility
● Agile Canvas
○ Organizational Design
○ Flowing Work
○ Delivering Value
● Kanban Boards
○ Portfolio board
○ Discovery board
○ Team board
3

Organizational
Agility
4

Organizational agility...
is the ability of an organization to effectively
sense and adapt in complex, rapidly changing
conditions so that it can thrive as an organization.
5

The Third Wave of Agile
Source: http://www.solutionsiq.com/the-third-wave-of-agile/ 6

The Agile Compass
Leaders must designs for the emergence of capability in
these areas:
● Organizational Culture
○ People's beliefs, attitudes and assumptions
● Organizational Structure
○ Relationships, talent, risk, policies, rules and governance
● Leadership Styles
○ Leading, inspiring, directing and motivating others
7

Team Development & Leadership Styles
Tuckman's stages
of group development
8

Agile Canvas
9

Organizational Design
Source: http://www.centerod.com/2012/02/what-is-organizational-design/
Pre-design Workflow
Post-design Workflow
Organizational design is a
step-by-step methodology
which identifies dysfunctional
aspects of workflow,
procedures, structures and
systems, realigns them to fit
current business realities/goals
and then develops plans to
implement the new changes.
10

Agile
● Individuals and interactions
over processes and tools
● Working software
over comprehensive documentation
● Customer collaboration
over contract negotiation
● Responding to change
over following a plan
1. Satisfy the Customer
2. Welcome Change
3. Deliver Frequently
4. Work as a Team
5. Motivate People
6. Communicate Face-to-Face
7. Measure Working Software
8. Keep a Sustainable Pace
9. Excel at Quality
10. Keep it Simple
11. Self-Organize
12. Reflect and Adjust Regularly
Lean
1. Eliminate waste
2. Amplify learning
3. Decide as late as possible
4. Deliver as fast as possible
5. Empower the team
6. Build quality in
7. See the whole
“Organizations that are truly lean have
a strong competitive advantage
because they respond very rapidly and
in a highly disciplined manner to
market demand, rather than try to
predict the future.” – Mary Poppendieck
Build the right thing: Understand and deliver real value to real
customers.
Build it fast: Dramatically reduce the lead time from customer
need to delivered solution.
Build the thing right: Guarantee quality and speed with
automated testing, integration and deployment.
Learn through feedback: Evolve the product design based on 11

The Agile Canvas is a visual map of how all
your work efficiently flows across your
organization.
Source: http://torak.com/services/agile-coaching/
Organization
Products
or Services
Teams
Initiatives
Features
Stories
Goals
12

Flowing & Aligning Value
● Evaluate
● Plan
● Approve
● Breakdown
● Estimate
● Prioritize
● Analyze
● Develop/Test
● Deliver
Initiatives
Features
Stories
14

Delivering Work (Features to Stories)
Big Room
Planning
Multiple team event to
breakdown the work ahead of
the Scrum or Kanban teams.
Discovery
Board
Kanban board to breakdown
the work ahead of the Scrum
or Kanban teams.
Kanban
Process
Entire end to end process on a
single Kanban board.
15

Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA)
ACT
PLAN DO
PDCA
Cycle
CHECK
Continuous Improvements
16

Kanban Boards
17

Kanban
1. Visualize the workflow
Kanban literally means "signboard" or "billboard"
2. Limit Work In Process (WIP)
use a pull system - establish and respect your ideal capacity
3. Manage Flow
monitor, measure and report the flow of work through each state
4. Make Process Policies Explicit
describe the process accurately in order to improve it
5. Improve Collaboratively
using models & the scientific empirical method to implement continuous, incremental and
evolutionary changes
18

Toyota’s Kanban System
Philosophy of complete elimination of waste
"Just-in-Time" means making "only what is needed, when it is needed, and in the amount needed."Source: http://www.toyota-global.com/company/vision_philosophy/
19

Organization - Portfolio Kanban Board
20

Product/Process - Discovery Kanban Board
21

Scrum Team - Task Board
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Kanban Team - Board
23

© Torak, Inc. www.torak.com 24
Throughput is about
performance…
Throughput is based on actual data to
represent the number of cards delivered
in a given period of time on a specific
Kanban board.
Cycle Time is about
responsiveness
Cycle Time is calculated from the
time a card is worked on by the team
until the time the card is delivered. In
simple terms, it’s how long a card
stays within the Work-In-Progress
(WIP) columns of your board.
Source: http://www.kanbanzone.com/2017/throughput-cycle-time-metrics-kanban-performance-responsiveness/

Agile, Kanban & DevOps Coaching
Learn more at www.torak.com
Learn more at www.AgileTestingFramework.com
Learn more at www.kanbanzone.com
25

Thank You
26

This presentation was inspired by the work of many people and we have done our very best to attribute all
authors of texts and images, and recognize any copyrights. If you think that anything in this presentation
should be changed, added or removed, please contact us.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
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