Šarūnas Kasnauskas - Agile driven strategy execution

Agile Driven Strategy Execution

Who Am I?

2

• Šarūnas Kasnauskas• Business Intelligence and Process Analyst

@ Baltic Amadeus• Over 2 years @ BA

Agenda

3

• The problem of executing strategic goals

• ‘Kanban’ in a nutshell• How we applied Kanban boards as a

solution• The overall benefits

Strategic Management

4

Who do we

want to be?

What are

going to aim

for?

How are we going to do

it?

Strategy

Execution

Monitoring and correcti

ve actions

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?

Yearly goals?

6

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

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• Widely used in software

development

Main benefits of Kanban

9

• Flexibility• Visualizing workflow• Limited waste• Improved coordination• Continuos delivery

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

How does it work? (1)

11

1. List of yearly objectives dictated by strategy, written out by the management

2. Strategic goal -> Objective -> Task3. The objectives are prioritized and added to

the Kanban of Kanbans4. The objectives are assigned to organizational

units5. Each unit splits the objective into tasks

within their own Kanban Board

12

Objectives - > Tasks

Strategic Goals -> Objective

s

Kanban of

Kanbans

Kanban of Unit xKanban of Unit yKanban

of Unit …

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

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

Kanban of Kanbans

15

BACKLOG TO DO IN PROGRESS

DEMO DONE

Unit specific boards

16

BACKLOG TO DO IN PROGRESS

DONE

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

• Inter-department synergy though the transparency of objectives and tasks as well as cross-unit objectives

What can anyone take from the approach?

18

• Visualizing the workflow• Setting priorities• Status transparency =

additional synergy• Short feed-back loop –

continuous improvement

Q&A19