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Exploring Org Views: Your Roadmap to Understanding and Mastery
Exploring Org Views: Your Roadmap to Understanding and Mastery

Org View Concepts, key features and guides

Kendis Team avatar
Written by Kendis Team
Updated over a week ago

The organizational structure is inherently intricate, with each department and section having distinct targets, funding, requirements, and goals. It's imperative to ensure that strategy isn't confined to documents or scattered across various tools. Our goal is to cultivate an inclusive, flexible, and adaptable strategic approach that fosters confident decision-making and traceability throughout the organization. Through Org Views in Kendis, we aim to unify business objectives with operational execution, providing tailored views and reporting at every level. This ensures alignment and empowers managers across the organization to realize significant returns on their investment through time and cost savings, as well as reduced frustration

Org Views in Kendis seeks to align the business's strategic vision with the operational teams within the organization, ensuring cohesion and clarity. At each hierarchical level, individuals have access to personalized views and reporting, fostering a shared understanding and facilitating effective decision-making.

Collections

At the core of the process is the capability to visually construct the organizational hierarchy within Kendis. This foundational step allows users to map out the various levels of the organization in a clear and intuitive manner.

It's essential for everyone involved to understand how their work aligns with the organization's strategic plans, whether it's within their true organizational structure or relevant departments for operational teams. Visualizing this alignment allows individuals to appreciate the interconnectedness of their efforts and how they contribute to overarching goals across different departments. In Kendis, these are referred to as Collections.

Within a Collection, users can easily create and customize to represent their desired way of working.

How to model

When creating a collection, it's essential to resist the temptation to simply mirror your current organizational structure by creating all departments. While it might seem convenient to represent your existing structure, it's important to recognize that the majority of organizational structures aren't optimized for delivering value through delivery teams.

For those operating within the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), this is less of an issue if Agile Release Trains (ARTs) or programs are organized in Value Streams along with the hierarchical structure of the Solution level. In this setup, each Collection could effectively mirror an ART or a Solution Train. Teams and Batches within the Collection would inherently represent the work required for the program's implementation. This alignment ensures a natural reflection of the organizational structure within the collection framework, facilitating smoother coordination and value delivery.

To start, Kendis recommends starting from the bottom of the organizational tree. This involves including teams or individuals within the Collection who are essential to delivering value for the organization. By establishing this foundation, large programs, clients, countries, or departments that contribute to the delivery Collection can then be added accordingly. The Collection is then structured in a way that reflects the core delivery units and their alignment with organizational objectives.

Each Collection comprises the following:

  • About page

  • Backlog management (with or without ALM items)

  • Timeline & Roadmaps

  • Kanban

  • OKRs

  • Batches

  • Program & Solution Boards

  • Milestones

About

The About Page enables you to designate teams or individuals accountable for contributing to a Collection. Whether it pertains to your Release Train or a broader Organizational department, users can establish them within this container, alongside locations and associated Batches.

Backlog Management

When creating the Org view Backlog in Kendis, users are empowered with the choice to integrate various layers within their ALM tools or to create additional non-ALM work items that align with the specific Collection. Furthermore, parent items positioned above Features and User Stories, which are interconnected, can be imported, structured, and monitored effectively using Kendis. This capability ensures seamless organization and tracking of all relevant elements within the Collection, enhancing overall project management efficiency.

Timeline & Roadmaps

Each department requires a well-defined plan, whether it's to assist in budget allocation or simply to ensure alignment on deliverables. Roadmaps serve as a means of communication, conveying the broader organizational objectives and strategies. They provide a clear visualization of the big picture, helping all stakeholders understand the direction and priorities of the organization.

Within Kendis, roadmaps are directly linked to your work items, regardless of their hierarchical level, enabling you to monitor progress seamlessly. The timeline features two bars: one depicting the parent delivery timeframe and the other showcasing child items created directly under the parent. Additionally, Kendis timelines span for longer periods, whether on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.

Kanban

Kendis Kanban boards help to visualize work, streamline workflows, and facilitate continuous improvement in processes. These serve as a visual representation of tasks or work items moving through different stages of a process, represented as columns on the Kendis boards.

For those tasked with organizing and prioritizing work items for delivery, substantial groundwork is necessary well before and even after the creation of ALM issues for implementation. Kendis Kanban facilitates the visualization of workflow both before and after planning, assisting in the management of continuous improvement and helping to enforce limits on Work in Progress (WIP). Whether items or columns are linked to your ALM system or merely serve as a representation of your or your business's workflow, Kendis Kanban boards are adaptable to provide the desired representation.

OKRs (Objectives & Key Results)

Although development inherently entails uncertainty, businesses rely on teams to provide a certain level of dependable and predictable forecasting. Insufficient forecasting leaves the company unable to plan effectively, while excessive forecasting may lead to commitments to long-term plans that are unreliable and hinder agility.

Striking a balance is crucial for both business and technology stakeholders, and this is where PI objectives play a crucial role. Apart from fostering alignment, establishing objectives also serves to prevent an excessive amount of work-in-process (WIP) within the system. This approach ensures that objectives are grounded in practical considerations and are aligned with the overall goals of the organization.

Every department objective should be a subgoal of your overall company goal. And you have to find a way to communicate the overall goal to each department in a way that resonates and motivates. Encouraging discussions about company workflows during all-hands meetings, (OKR Check ins) recognizing achievements spanning across departments, are effective strategies for helping teams perceive the business in a broader context. Fostering cross-functional understanding, promoting collaboration, and nurturing a shared sense of purpose.

Batches

Batches serve as containers for large work items, encompassing breakdowns of Projects, Products, or Components. Kendis Batches offer flexibility for creating and tracking any breakdown needed for planning purposes. With the added benefit that these Batches can be incorporated into one or multiple Collections. Kendis Batches also have a hierarchical structure. A batch can be subdivided into sub-batches, aiding in the breakdown of work for visualization, prioritization, containment, and reporting purposes.

Consider a scenario where there are Release Trains or Program delivery teams tasked with delivering various projects, products, and components within an organization.

While reporting and analytics in the tools provide visibility and aid in tracking the progress of work items for teams involved in the Program, leads or managers overseeing peripheral aspects are required to translate this information for their specific domain to make informed decisions and take appropriate actions.

Each Kendis Batch can filter items relevant to them and allow for effective planning and tracking the output of delivery teams. Batches can also be visible and associated within other areas in Kendis. Such as Timelines, Objectives, OKRs, Boards, and Risks.

Advantages of creating Batches:

  • Definition and Organization: Batches define and organize the specific required work, providing clarity and structure.

  • Expedited Schedule Development: By allocating effort estimates to specific sections, scheduling becomes more efficient.

  • Risk Identification: Risks can be related to a specific Batch so the downstream impact can be instantly recognised across affected programs.

  • Comprehensive Scope Visualization: Component leads, Project and Product Managers, will be provided with a visual representation of their entire scope, aiding in understanding the breadth.

  • Communication Points: Batches help identify key communication points within the Organization.

  • Accountability and Responsibility: Batches can be used to show and assign accountabilities and responsibilities, ensuring clarity in roles.

  • Milestones: They highlight milestones, facilitating progress tracking.

  • Project Cost Estimation: Batches provide a framework for estimating project costs, aiding in budget planning.

  • Resource Allocation: Batches assist with resource allocation, ensuring that resources are distributed efficiently.

  • Planning Approach: They offer a repeatable approach to planning projects, enhancing consistency and reliability.

  • Team Collaboration: Batches serve as a mechanism for team brainstorming and collaboration, fostering creativity and innovation.

  • Team Engagement: Creating Batches provides an opportunity to engage the right “team” and make them feel invested in the refinement and planning process.

Program & Solution Boards

Program boards serve as the central tool for easily visualizing progress across various teams working on a single Program Increment or quarterly cycle. Additionally, if you choose to, they offer the advantage of real-time, bi-directional synchronization with your Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) system, making them highly efficient for planning and monitoring deliverables within the designated time frame. Moreover, Program boards enable the planning and tracking of Dependencies, Risks, Objectives, and facilitate essential ceremonies.

Solution boards offer a visual depiction of planned endeavors spanning various Release Trains or Program boards. Regardless of the ALM platform employed, Solution boards enable aggregating elements like Dependencies, Risks, and Objectives from multiple Program boards, thereby aiding organizational-level planning and coordination.

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