Xanpan is a hybrid agile methodology that combines elements of Kanban, Extreme Programming (XP), and Lean. It focuses on iterative development, team autonomy over work, quality practices, flow-based prioritization, and visual management. Key practices include breaking stories into tasks, estimating in story points, applying work-in-progress limits, and allowing both planned and unplanned work. The methodology is meant to be adapted by individual teams to their needs rather than followed strictly.
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Xanpan - What do you get if you cross XP and Kanban?
1. What do you get if
you cross Kanban
with Extreme
Xanpan Programming?
allan kelly
BCS Agile
Twitter: @allankellynet LLKD13 day March 2013
http://www.allankelly.net
http://www.softwarestrategy.co.uk
The Cigarettes & Colas talk
2. Allan Kelly
Director, Software Strategy Ltd
– Consulting & Training for Agile
Author
– Changing Software Development: Learning
to be Agile (2008, Wiley)
– Business Patterns for Software Developers
(2012, Wiley - ISBN: 978-1119999249)
97 Things Every Programmer Should Business Analysis
Know and Leadership:
Henney, 2010 Influencing
Context Encapsulation in change
Pattern Languages of Program Design
Penny Pullan &
Volume 5, 2006 James Archer
2013
4. Choose your Cola
Ken & Jeff’s
Scrum-Cola
David Anderson
Kanban-Cola
Kent Beck
XP-Cola
Allan Kelly
Xanpan-Cola
5. Where did Xanpan come from?
1
• Experience (Lean+XP) First XP Kanban
concept & Lean
– Blue-White-Red
• Kanban
• XP XP Kanban
2
& Lean
• Plus Product
Management
– Seeing others
– Reports of other cross-overs
nb an
S P
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an
Ka Le
X
um
&
• Making sense of what I see 3
M
ff
Pr age
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an
od m
st
uc en
er
th
t t
O
6. Principles
• Iteration routine
• Team Centric - Planned & Unplanned work
• Invest in Quality / “Quality is Free”
• Dis-economies of Scale
• Flow: Emphasize, Level, Span, Constrain
• Goodhart’s Law
• Constructivism learning
• Visualise
7. Practice
1. Technical practices: TDD, CI, etc.
2. Teams can work on more than 1 stream
– Flow multiple projects/product to 1 team
3. Break Stories to Tasks
– Colour code work
– Estimate in Points
– Small is better - Think Small!
4. Benchmark against self (velocity)
8. Practices
5. Flow
– Use Product “Ownership” (Product Management
& Business Analysis) to restrict flow
– Apply WIP limits
– Absolute Prioritization
6. Planning levels (horizons)
7. Pick’n’Mix
8. Action over words
9. Practices
9. Fit work to the time
– Deadlines are good
10.Evolutionary change
– Small Bangs are OK but Big Bangs not a good idea
11. Iterations & Flow
• Iterations bring structure
But
• Strict iterations break flow
– “Story must be finished in sprint”
– “Story cannot be bigger than a sprint”
– Sprint tail overwhelmed by finished stories
– Testers drop standards
• Strict iteration
– Difficult at first – learn to think small
12. Iterations & Flow
• Stories spanning sprints levels work
– Break down stories to tasks
– Tasks only counted when completed
– When all tasks done, Story done
• 3 Strikes & you are out!
– Story span 1 Sprint, OK, good
– Story spans 2 Sprints, umm… Red Flag
– Story spans 3 Sprints, Out! Story too big
13. Breakdown
• In planning meeting
• Part
– Software Design
– Requirements elicitation
– Opportunity to reduce scope
– Estimation exercise
Image from Paul Goyette, Creative Commons License
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wrecking_ball.jpg
14. Epic Discouraged but accepted
Blues – Stories
• Business facing
Story
Story • Have automatic business value
Story
Story • Deliverable in own right
• Deliverable sometime soon
• Typically software feature but
anything which brings value –
documentation, etc.
Task
Task
Task
Task Whites – Tasks
• Typically developer tasks
• No business value alone
15. Yes, Estimation
• Estimate White tasks in planning meeting
– Ball-park estimate Blues
• Estimates in Points
– Your currency £ $ €
– One currency I’ve come to
– Forget hours like Planning
Poker but
choose your
own poison
16. Estimation worthwhile? “I can bring a
project in to
the day”
• For scheduling? Perhaps
– Some teams report good results
– Some teams placebo effect
– Long run average accurate enough
• Provides Developers with safety valve
• Useful input to design process
(Forget actuals – retrospective estimates)
18. Planned & Unplanned work
• Work planned in planning meeting
• Unplanned work allowed at any time
– Tag it, e.g. Yellow card
– Retrospective estimation
• At end of the iteration count points unplanned
– Graph/Track planned v. unplanned
– Incorporate into planning velocity
21. Goodhart’s Law
Any observed statistical
regularity will tend to
collapse once pressure is
placed upon it for control
purposes.
Velocity & points break
down if abused
And so do other
Professor Charles Goodhart, CBE, FBA
measurements
22. Is Xanpan useful?
• Maybe
– Take it
– Use it
• Inspiration
– Roll your own
Image from Ildar Sagdejev under Creative Commons license
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2009-02-15_Rolling_a_cigarette.jpg
23. Which brand of Cola
are you drinking?
allan kelly
Software Strategy Ltd.
www.softwarestrategy.co.uk/allankelly
allan@allankelly.net
Twitter: @allankellynet
(c) Allan Kelly http://www.softwarestrategy.co.uk 24