Portfolio Kanban
What is a Portfolio Kanban Board?
A Portfolio Kanban board is a visual management method used to track and manage work as it progresses through various stages of a delivery process. Portfolio Kanban boards in SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework) help organizations manage their Agile portfolio effectively, align work with strategic objectives, and maximize the delivery of value to customers.
Portfolio Kanban Board in Kiplot
Overview
The Portfolio Kanban module in Kiplot maintains two separate board views – one for Initiatives and another for Outcomes.
Below is an example of what the portfolio Kanban looks like within Kiplot, toggled on Initiatives.
You can drag and drop initiatives into different columns (stages) as they move through the delivery cycle. You can also use the kanban board to prioritise your initiatives and outcomes by dragging them up or down the list within each stage.
Portfolio Kanban on Initiatives (default Effort & RAG Status lens applied)
Filters
You can use filters on the Portfolio Kanban to refine the content displayed on your board. These filters can be stacked to allow for more specific and targeted customization of the displayed content.
On the Initiative Kanban Board, the following filters are available:
Team
Business Unit
Type
On the Outcome Kanban Board, the following filters are available:
Team
Business Unit
Status
Type
Initiative
Configuring your Kanban Board
To configure your Kanban Board you’ll need to go to the Kiplot Configuration page and navigate to the Lifecycle tab. Here you can add the stages of your delivery lifecycle and assign them to one of four categories: Idea, Analysis, Delivery and Closed. These categories are used to categorize Initiatives and Outcomes within Kiplot in the Roadmap and Capacity planning views.
If you have set up a two way integration with Jira and require these lifecycle stages to map to the workflow stages you have set up in Jira, you’ll need to make sure that the stages you add in the Configuration exactly match the stages as they are in Jira – note this is case sensitive!
Configuring your Lifecyle stages
Lenses
In addition to filters, you can use lenses to change the visual categorization of initiatives and outcomes based on different categories. Lenses can be used in conjunction with filters and help to plan and prioritize initiatives and outcomes.
Lenses available on the portfolio Kanban for Initiatives:
Lens Type | Description |
|---|---|
Effort & RAG Status | Colours initiatives by RAG Status, with values representing the effort estimate allocated to each initiative. |
Percentage Complete | Displays the percentage complete of an initiative, calculated from underlying epics and coloured by: 100%, more than 75%, more than 50%, more than 25%, more than 1% or 0% complete. |
Type | Colours initiatives by assigned Type, with values representing the effort estimate allocated to each initiative. |
Stage | Colours initiatives by their current stage. |
Prioritization Score | Colours initiatives by priority, determined by their assigned prioritization score. |
Lenses available on the portfolio Kanban for Outcomes:
Lens Type | Description |
|---|---|
Effort & | Displays the allocated effort estimate for each outcome, coloured by RAG Status. |
Type | Colours outcomes by assigned Type, with values representing the effort estimate allocated to each outcome. |
Percentage Complete | Displays the percentage complete of an outcome, coloured by: 100%, more than 75%, more than 50%, more than 25%, more than 1% or 0%. |
Stage | Colours outcomes by their current stage. |
Delivery Status | Colours outcomes by their current delivery status (to do, in progress or done). |
Planned/Unplanned | Colours outcomes by planning status: planned (outcome has start and end dates), not planned, or done. |
PI Planning
We imagine the portfolio Kanban to be especially instrumental in carrying out Program Increment Planning (PI Planning) at your organization. The portfolio Kanban should be used to ensure that your outcomes are in the correct lifecycle stage, to eventually be leveraged in the Outcome Planning view for scheduling outcomes during PI Planning.
By sorting your outcomes into their relevant stages in the portfolio Kanban, we can have a clear view of which outcomes are ‘Ready’ in the Outcome Planning view. Outcomes that are ‘Ready’ should be given priority to be scheduled for the upcoming PI.
Outcome Planning page with the Stage lens applied
We recommend reading our guide on PI Planning to see this feature in action.