Download - Kanban - An Evolutionary Approach to Agility
Team Members and Stakeholders can:Kanban An Evolutionary Approach
to Agility
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Jon Terry is Chief Operating Officer of LeanKit. Before LeanKit, Jon held a number of senior IT positions with hospital-giant HCA and its subsidiary, HealthTrust Purchasing Group. He was among those responsible for launching HCA’s adoption of Lean/Agile methods.
Jon earned his Global Executive MBA from Georgetown University and ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, and his Masters Certificate in Project Management from George Washington University. He is a Project Management Professional, a Certified Scrum Master and a Kanban Coaching Professional.
follow @leankitjon
ABOUT JON TERRY
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Agile
Scrum
XP
Lean / Kanban
AgileScrum
Avoid a narrow IT-focused view of modern management methods
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1960s-1980s 1980s 1990s 2000s Today
TOC
Just-In-Time
Kanban
Lean Manufacturing
Lean Healthcare
Lean Software Development
Lean Construction
ToyotaProduction
System
Six Sigma
TQM
Agile
XP
Scrum
Focus on rapid flow and feedback vs. planning and “efficiency.”
A Broader Perspective
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Visualize the (current) workflow
2. Implement feedback loops
3. Manage (for smooth) flow
4. Make process policies explicit
5. Limit Work-in-Progress (WIP) *
6. Improve collaborativelyusing Kanban to become Lean
THE KANBAN METHOD Evolution
The quickest path to agility is to start from where you are today.
* Often implicitly at first
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
This is Greek to me. So are many/most project deliverables to non-specialists
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
A picture translates complexity into a simple pattern we can all digest
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Have each team member write down a few of their current work items
2. Ask each person to pick one at a time
3. Have them describe:
– What am I doing to it now?
– Who had it before and what were they doing with it?
– Who will I hand it to next, to do what?
Visualize Workflow
Map out your real, current process
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Cards are (usually) nouns, lanes are verbs
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Have each team member list their current workload
2. Have them assign each item a type: UX feature, API feature, defect, task, etc
3. Collate the work types they defined into one list and assign each a card color
4. Turn the lists into cards and place them in the correct lane on the board
Catalog the Work
As the manager, only add your “official” list after.
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Be succinct and focus on results. Try to limit types of work
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Stop at current state, resist the urge to “improve” now
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Allow a fixed time period – 10-15 min
2. Ensure board is complete & accurate
3. Are there expedites or blockers?
4. Otherwise, walk the board from right to left a card at a time
– What’s needed to advance this item?
– Who can help?
5. Stop when time runs out
Feedback Loops
Daily standups focus on value & completion, not activity
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Hold regular retrospectives …. but stop-the-line for bottlenecks
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
2. Common root cause answers:
– Hidden WIP
– Stop starting, start finishing
– Downstream/external blockages
– Uneven sizing
– Parallel processes
– Rework
3. Let data be your guide
Feedback Loops
Retrospectives focus on critical issues, & small incremental changes
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Control charts allow targeted process improvement
Easily see typical delivery patterns vs outliers and drill into them
Let’s investigate this!
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Look for trends in your delivery speed for different work
In time, better decomposition & effective categorization can replace estimates
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Splitting process steps into active/waiting queues makes flow more clear
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Swimlanes can represent different workflows or partner teams
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Once work visible & process is clear, WIP limits can balance capacity
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Eliminate Waste
Build Quality In
Create Knowledge
Defer Commitment
Deliver Fast
Respect People
Optimize the Whole
Lean PD System
Process
Skille
d Peo
ple
Tools & Technology
1. Work-In-Process2. Delays3. Extra Features4. Technical Debt5. Handoffs6. Task Switching7. Defects
Lean Principles nicely map to & enhance Agile IT best practices
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Visualize the (current) workflow
2. Implement feedback loops
3. Manage (for smooth) flow
4. Make process policies explicit
5. Limit Work-in-Progress (WIP) *
6. Improve collaborativelyusing Kanban to become Lean
THE KANBAN METHOD REITERATED Evolution
The quickest path to agility is to start from where you are today.
* Often implicitly at first
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Release 1
Iteration 1
Iteration Planning
Daily Standup
Demo / Retro
Iteration n
Iteration Planning
Daily Standup
Demo / Retro
Iteration Backlog
Fixed Time and Resource
Not Done
Iteration Backlog
Not Done
Product Owner
Ideas
Product Backlog
Release Planning
Release Backlog
Scrum mandates new roles, “rituals” and cadence for a small team.
THE SCRUM PROCESSScrummaster
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Scrum• A structure of new roles, “rituals” and cadence• No prohibition against visualization, WIP
limitation or flow measurement• A mature scrum team with good technical
practices often looks awfully Kanban-ish Kanban• Evolution through measurement• No opinion on roles or iterations• Software dev teams who use Kanban to
become more Agile often act quite Scrum-my
WHERE’S THE CONFLICT? You can do both.
Team Members and Stakeholders can:
The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business WinGene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
Implementing Lean Software Development: From concept to cashMary and Tom Poppendieck
Kanban: Successful evolutionary change for your technology businessDavid J. Anderson
LeanKit.com for blog posts, case studies, and more!
FURTHER LEARNING
Thank You!