Agile methodologies are associated with change-friendly and results-focused software development, so why keep it only for the developers? Among other benefits, company-wide application of Agile practices can help create inter-departmental synergy; centralize organizational strategic objectives and underlying tasks; provide a bird’s-eye view of the strategy execution progress. The presentation will share the intermediate results of the solution implemented using a collection of Kanban boards.

1. Agile Driven
Strategy Execution

2. Who Am I?
2
• Šarūnas Kasnauskas
• Business Intelligence and Process Analyst
@ Baltic Amadeus
• Over 2 years @ BA

3. Agenda
3
• The problem of executing strategic
goals
• ‘Kanban’ in a nutshell
• How we applied Kanban boards as a
solution
• The overall benefits

4. Strategic Management
4
Who do
we want
to be?
What are
going to
aim for?
How are
we going
to do it?
Strategy
Execution
Monitorin
and
correctiv
actions

5. What’s the problem? (1)
5
• Sailing smooth until we get
to execution
• Balanced Scorecard and
KPIs great for monitoring
and evaluation
• What about the specific
objectives and tasks to
beat those KPIs?
• Incorporate yearly goals?

6. Yearly goals?
6

7. What’s the problem? (2)
7
• Yearly objectives to reach strategic
goals have no centralized execution
process
• Therefore:
– Lack of accountability
– No bird’s eye view of the progress
• Additionally:
– No strong link between Strategy
and day-to-day activities
– Lack of inter-department synergy

8. What is Kanban?
8
• Inspired by Toyota Production
System
• Usually, a board with cards on it
• Team pulls work from the ‘To
Do’ column
• A work-in-progress limit to
prevent overloading
• No use of time boxes
• Maximizing productivity while
reducing idle time

9. Main benefits of Kanban
9
• Flexibility
• Visualizing workflow
• Limited waste
• Improved coordination
• Continuos delivery

10. How can we deal with the problem?
10
• Why keep Kanban only for the
developers?
• Use a tool already used by our
production teams (Atlassian Jira)
• Create a system of aforementioned
Kanban boards
• Create a feedback cycle for
continuous improvement

11. How does it work? (1)
11
1.List of yearly objectives dictated by strategy,
written out by the management
2.Strategic goal -> Objective -> Task
3.The objectives are prioritized and added to
the Kanban of Kanbans
4.The objectives are assigned to
organizational units
5.Each unit splits the objective into tasks
within their own Kanban Board

12. 12
Objectives -
> Tasks
Strategic
Goals ->
Objectives
Kanban of
Kanbans
Kanban of
Unit x
Kanban of
Unit y
Kanban of
Unit …

13. How does it work? (2)
13
6. Tasks are given a
deadline, a definition
of done
7.Each task is linked to
the strategy goals
8.Tasks are pulled from
the Backlog on
voluntary basis

14. How does it work (3)
14
9. Tasks and objectives are moved
between columns while status is
transparent
10.Reviews for each unit bi-monthly or
more often
11.Dynamic new task assignment and
modifications

15. Kanban of Kanbans
15
BACKLOG TO DO IN
PROGRESS
DEMO DONE

16. Unit specific boards
16
BACKLOG TO DO IN
PROGRESS
DONE

17. What did we achieve?
17
• Accountability though voluntary
assignments, deadlines and clear
definitions of done
• Bird’s eye view of progress through the
Kanban of Kanbans
• A link between strategy and day-to-day
activities through a strategic goal
attribute for each task

18. What can anyone take from the
approach?
18
• Visualizing the workflow
• Setting priorities
• Status transparency =
additional synergy
• Short feed-back loop –
continuous improvement

19. Q&A
19