Digital market transformation forces organizations to cope with challenges in SMART-picking of future options from idea-pools in a CUSTOMER-Kanban environment. In order to stay fit-for-purpose (F4P) appropriate services need a market-fitting design, implementation, and service-delivery meeting expectation-levels set by customers and other stakeholders. In VUCA-environments often getting to the right choice proves demanding not only to Service Request Managers, but also for seasoned Sr. Leaders on C-level. The technique referred to in this session was developed in recent years and evolutionary adjusted to fit various business contexts ranging from turn-around situations, wide-range applicability in high-tech SW- development, and also including XXL-scale programs for SW-implementation & roll-out. Its major contribution is an agnostic approach to addressing VUCA-characteristics in option-pools thereby allowing effective pick & structured processing of items to be pulled into DISCOVERY-procedures (which sometimes already impose major capacity-commit on knowledgable individuals running the evaluations) – the method massively leverages visualization techniques and therefore nicely fits Kanban-principles.

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
SMART Option Picking for DISCOVERY
Kanban – how to pull the right items
for evaluation
12.11.2018
Dr. Boris Oliver Kneisel
LKCE18, Hamburg, Germany

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Why do we need a SMART option pick-
procedure at all – is‘nt there enough stuff out
there already…
hint: F4P going ‚digital‘ requires more than
just higher speed & better quality…
…we need an effective risk-mgmt function
integrated into fast feedback-loops running
at high-cadence…
Nov-183

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Observation in current Kanban initiatives
Nov-185

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
F
F
FF
F
F F
Current Reality: “once a ticket sits on the board, people
outside the Kanban-team treat this already as COMMITTED”
UAT
E
I
Dev
Ready
Delivery
Ready
G
D
5
∞
Pull
Ongoing
Development Testing
Done
3 3
Test
Ready
5 ∞
Customer Lead Time
The clock still starts ticking
when we accept the customers
order, not when it is placed!
(that’s what should
happen…reality maybe
somewhat different)
Discarded
J
Pool
of
Ideas
Done
∞
Source: LKU, KMP-1 official deck

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
What can we do about fundamental
knowledge gaps in surroundings of well
functioning Kanban „pockets-of-execution“
Nov-187

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12.11.20188
Use Systemic end-to-end thinking, start a conversation
Source: P.Steyaert (2017), Essential Upstream Kanban, LKU press

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
How to drive the systemic end-to-end
conversation?
Do we really need additional artefacts?
(we are happy with visual boards!)
Nov-189

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
frontup disclaimer:
proposed techniques & styles are not cookie-
cutter recipes – brain-on mode is invited…
Nov-1810

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
LEFT to DISCOVERY-board: NON-RANKED pool-of-ideas, laid-out along matrix-dimensions
(use in ‚PBL-refinement‘, spend just enough hrs/week to decide about DISCOVERY-PULL)
Once items on the left matrix are pulled into DISCOVERY and pass through, use a separate
matrix to the RIGHT as a RANKED INPUT-BUFFER for further down-stream activities
12.11.201811
Artefact orchestration – design solves a paradox: „have separate
requestor & supplier perspective“ AND „provide integrated view“
Ready to commitIdea/Request Synthesis Analysis
Source: center: P.Steyaert (2017), Essential Upstream Kanban, LKU press, left+right: own development

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Let‘s check-out Matrix-design in detail
Nov-1812

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Explain dimensions to new
users to create buy-in
Co-define filter-thresholds
collaboratively (up to 4
items of recent history =
people still remember pain,
where some risks did
materialize  and/or
up to 4 pipeline-items team
believes to understand
Choose an item from idea-
pools and compare pair-
wise to references to find
suitable relative position on
pre-DISCOVERY-matrix
12.11.201813
Added visual techniques prove fit to Kanban-principles

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Pull items into discovery
board – starting in NE
quadrant.
Balance mix of FAST-lane to
SIDE-lane items in discovery
process.
Monitor incoming idea-rate
vs. delivery-rate of
discovery vs. pull-rate of
down-stream activities –
equalize-out and keep track.
12.11.201814
Visual techniques prove fit to ToC-logic (bottleneck ID & mgmt)

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
12.11.201815
Visual techniques allow post-discovery high-level item initial ranking
Once 1st-discovery run is
complete re-assess &
arrange items taking
insights won thru discovery
into account. Build a relative
ranking of items for further
activities
Some items may fast-track
into delivery straight.
Other items may ask for
further inspection and
require prototyping etc.

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OK – convinced for now about usefulness
for UPSTREAM – how about DOWNSTREAM,
does it integrate also?
Nov-1816

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
For DOWN-stream delivery Kanban Matrix-
design may be adjusted on dimensions
Nov-1817

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
For down-stream matrix dimensions follow Eisenhower-logic
(IMPORTANCE vs. URGENCY) – incl. modelling item-granularity
Nov-1818

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Mapping Matrices to the MSFT XIT case
(known widely by KMP-1/KSD alumni)
Nov-1819

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Kanban System Design
Eng Mgr
PM
User Acceptance Test
Change
Requests
WIP = 5
PTC
Developers Testers
WIP = 3 WIP = 3
WIP = 5
~8 days Normally
Only
A few
days
~6 days ~6 days 30 Days or less
seems reasonable
Product
Managers Backlog
Of
Options
WIP = 6
(System will stall in approximately 2
weeks if not serviced)
Initially Weekly Deployment
on demand
Weekly

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
4 matrices correspond to 4 PMs, while 1 matrix shows WIP-
limited income-queue for XIT-team
Nov-1821
UAT
Read
y to
start
Elaboration Development Test Ready for
UAT
Ready to deploy

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Ah, OK – downstream enabled – check.
How about SCALING…have these aspects
been designed-in?
Nov-1822

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Matrix/board-combos allow flight-level modelling and
support Business Agility by agilizing team-interactions
23
UAT
Read
y to
start
Elaboration Development Test Ready for
UAT
Ready to deploy
Ready to commitIdea/Reque
st
Synthesis Analysis
Ready to commitIdea/Reque
st
Synthesis Analysis

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
…hope this was somewhat inspiring to
you…thx for listening.
Nov-1824

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Let´s
Agilize ◊ Innovate ◊ Defragment ◊ Accelerate
herontix GmbH
Altrottstr. 31 (℅ SAP-PartnerPort)
DE-69190 WALLDORF/Baden
GF: Irmgard Barth, Dr. Boris Kneisel
UST/VAT-ID: DE 315 660 801
Reg. AmtsG (MA) HRB 729323
contact: info [at] herontix.com

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Innovation Coach on Scaling Agility – Dr. Boris Kneisel, MBA (CEO & CPO, co-founder)
Nov-1826
mail: b.kneisel@herontix.com tel: +49-152– 5408 9132
SaST
Herontix customers who boosted their transitions using matrix-ranking-techniques (excerpt):

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©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Continously Emerging Release Backlog
i.e. Strategy-EPIC gets broken-down into SAGAs,
‚SAGA‘ is broken-down into sprintable STORIES
STORY then split into TASKs for agile delivery
(Corp/Unit) Strategic Ranking
i.e. incoming IDEAs get selected & turned into EPIC-
granularity BL-items (ranked by readiness)
Nov-1827
Overview Ranking Matrices: 2D-maps beat 1D-lists on transparency –
in Scaling Environments ‚True Agile‘ must reach
beyond Development ScrumTeam-level
WHY to use Ranking Matrix?
• Agility is about ‚transparency‘
• ‚Visualization‘ creates transparency
• Visualization comes along with 2D-
maps instead of long, flat lists (1D)
• 2D = mutually indep. dimensions
create overview & trigger thinking
Releasable
SAGA-level
(opt. STORY-sets
attached)
Sprintable
STORY-level
(Top #9 to hold
TASKs attached)
Roadmap
EPIC-level
(opt. SAGAs
attached)

26. info@herontix.com
©2016Dr.BorisOliverKneisel
Let´s
Agilize ◊ Innovate ◊ Defragment ◊ Accelerate
herontix GmbH
Altrottstr. 31 (℅ SAP-PartnerPort)
DE-69190 WALLDORF/Baden
GF: Irmgard Barth, Dr. Boris Kneisel
UST/VAT-ID: DE 315 660 801
Reg. AmtsG (MA) HRB 729323
contact: info [at] herontix.com