Patrick Steyaert (@PatrickSteyaert) of Okaloa developed the Discovery Kanban model to manage risks and options in a product roadmap.
Discovery Kanban Manages Product Roadmap Risks and Options
Slides from 2013 are no longer available, here are presentations from 2014 and 2015
Video
It’s a complex and challenging presentation that connects a number of different concepts–including fitness landscape models, the Cynefin framework and its concept of probes, the OODA loop, optionality–into a coherent synthesis: Kanban models can be used not only for managing execution or delivery flow by minimizing the amount of work in progress, but also for managing the discovery process of curating a portfolio of risks and options.
At a high level an execution focus yields a prioritized network of interdependent tasks; exploration yields a portfolio of risks and options.
I had the good fortune to meet Arlette Vercammen of Okaloa at the Lean Startup Conference 2013 and we had a conversation that sparked some additional conversations around evolving their discovery model for startups and change agents in larger firms.
Patrick will be providing an updated version of the presentation June 16 in Leuven, Belgium: “More Agility and Predictability with Visual Management and Kanban.”
Related Blog Posts
- Be Clear on Product Roadmap to Customers
- Kristin Zhivago: The Promise Keeper
- What to Do When You Are Asking Yourself, “Is My Product Meh?”
- Mary Sorber: How to Identify and Explore Key Product Assumptions
- Newborns vs. a Startup’s First Product
- John Cutler on Product Management Lessons Learned
Related External Articles
- Patrick Steyaert “Discovery and the Whole Systems Kanban“
- Patrick Steyaert “Using Cynefin to Make Sense of Projects“
- Patrick Steyaert “Cynefin, Panarchy, PCDA, OODA, and Value Creation Curves“
- David Anderson “Understanding Process Knowledge Discovery“
- David Snowden and Mary Boone (HBR / registration required) “Cynefin: A Leader’s Framework for Decision Making“
- David Snowden and Cynthia Kurtz: “Strategy and Sensemaking in a Complex and Complicated World” [PDF] from IBM SYSTEMS JOURNAL, VOL 42, NO 3, 2003
Retrospective from 2025
Discovery has been re-labelled as Upstream; here are two books:
- Essential Upstream Kanban by Patrick Steyaert
- Upstream Kanban: Tools for Demand Managers by Anna Radzikowska
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