This month’s newsletter covers the topic of Kanban, providing insightful articles on applying Kanban to a traditional SDLC process, using Upstream Kanban for backlog grooming, aligning strategy to execution, and examining Estimation of software projects as a necessary evil!
Moving from Waterfall to Agile with Kanban
How do you move from a waterfall SDLC process to lean/ agile continuous delivery with Kanban? A question posted recently on a project management forum prompted this post. Considering how many software teams are moving from traditional to Agile processes using Kanban, we thought you would find this post by Mahesh Singh (Kanban Trainer & Coach) useful!
The Value of Upstream Kanban for Backlog Grooming
Most Agile literature starts with a “groomed backlog”. But, how do we get the groomed backlog stories? This has been largely left to the domain of the Product Owner. Somehow, quite magically, groomed stories arrive in the backlog – that are functionally clear, small, testable, independent and most importantly, implementable. But, what happens when the magic fails?
In this article, our Head of Products, Sudipta Lahiri, describes various scenarios that demonstrate the value of Upstream Kanban for backlog grooming.
Upstream Kanban – Aligning Strategy to Execution
A critical aspect of Upstream Kanban is the alignment between strategic/ portfolio objectives and their corresponding program and project/ product level execution. In this article, Mahesh Singh talks about how Upstream/ Portfolio Kanban helps you understand why you are doing what you are doing, and ensures that your work gets to you in the right level of detail, in the right order/ priority and at the right time.
Estimation is (necessary) waste. REDUCE it!
Lean thinking tells us that any activity that does not add value to the final product is non-value. Non-value added activities need to be gradually reduced and eventually eliminated through Continuous Improvement initiatives. So, is Estimation necessary?
In this article, Sudipta Lahiri shares why it’s imperative that you need to gradually move away from Estimation.
NEWS & UPDATES
We released the latest version of SwiftEnterprise a couple of weeks ago. You can now visualize your test automation suite, gain insights into your Agile projects using Lean Analytics using Swiftly, correlate scope change with sprint progress, and more.
EVENTS
The Lean Kanban Global Summit
We’re happy to announce that we’re returning as Title Sponsors for the Lean Kanban Global Summit happening on May 13-17, 2019 in Alexandria, Virginia. The Lean Kanban series of conferences features the state of the art in Kanban, drawing from the real experiences of hundreds of organizations worldwide. Use the code “Digite20” while registering for the conference to get a 20% discount on the conference registration fee!
European SAFe® Summit 2019
We’ll be supporting the 2019 European SAFe® Summit at The Hague, Netherlands. The conference begins on the 9th of May, but, we’ll be around from the 7th – if you’re in the area, do come and say hello, and take a look at our “Built-for-SAFe” tool, SwiftEASe – Enterprise Agility with SAFe!
