2. • 15 years of experience covering
development, project management, team
leadership, coaching and training.
• Successfully applying Agile methods for
the last 10 years.
• Championed Agile and Lean Thinking with
the BBC, Yahoo! and EMC Consulting.
• Founding member of the Lean Software
and Systems Consortium and the Limited
WIP Society.
Karl Scotland
agile coach
Twitter: @kjscotland
10. 10
Ball Flow Game
RULES:
You are one big team
Your goal: Process 20 balls by
passing them through a
pipeline, following a set of
rules.
Balls must have air time
Everyone must touch each ball
No balls direct to your neighbor
Start point = End point
PLAYBOOK:
1. Prepare (2 mins)
2. Estimate time
3. Process
4. Change system & re-
estimate
5. Repeat 5 times
6. Debrief
Basic background to the name
“The two pillars of the Toyota production system are just-in-time and automation with a human touch, or autonomation. The tool used to operate the system is kanban.”
Taiichi Ohno, Toyota Production System (adopted 1962)
Deming, Ohno, Einstein
http://www.flickr.com/photos/iboy/4528401870/
Systems Thinking - Vanguard Method
Thinking -> System -> Performance
Purpose -> Measure -> Method
Kanban enables method, and measure, but requires thinking to change
Kanban is a change management method
Simon Sinek – startwithwhy.com
The Model
All models are wrong. Some are useful
Visual Management
The flight plan table at the Battle of Britain War Rooms.
Meaning: Visualise, Interact, Persist
Mental Model: Collective, Collaborative, Clarity
Empowerment of team, allowing management to be Operational (solve problems) over Strategic (direct work)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fenoswin/2223822081/
Boundary Objects – Communities of Practice and Interest
Common Point of Reference
Different Meanings
Coordination and Alignment
Translation
Plastic / Working Agreements
Different Concerns Simultaneously
http://www.exampler.com/testing-com/writings/marick-boundary.pdf
http://www.flickr.com/photos/snapeverything/4037213574/
Edward Tufte – The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Design Types – Data Maps, Time Series, Space Time Narratives, Relational
Data Ink, Junk and Density
Variants
LED tunnel. Titled Multiverse, installed by artist Leo Villareal in a 200-foot-long tunnel in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
Wikipedia defines a multiverse as the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes that together comprise everything that physically exists: the entirety of space and time, all forms of matter, energy and momentum, and the physical laws and constants that govern them.
A Kanban Multiverse can be defined as the hypothetical set of multiple possible Kanban Boards that together comprise everything that physically could be visualised: the entirety of scope and time, all forms of work type, status and flow, and the organisational laws and constants that govern them.
Taking a 2d space and visualising multiple dimensions:
Scope, Time, Resource, Quality
Capacity, Demand
Priority, Status, Issues, Risk, Constraints, Dependencies, Assumptions
http://www.flickr.com/photos/generated/3411162184/
Workflow
Demand
Status
Software Development / Product Development has randomness and variation.
We could just shrug and accept the randomness and variation.
We could treat is like a black box, but make the results visible.
Or we could understand the mathematics and science behind the randomness and variation
This allows us to take advantage and exploit the randomness and variation by influencing our process
VSM gives us this transparency into our process.
Archaeology.
Many layers.
Not always what you expect.
Often discover problems underneath
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianturk/2461951857/
Demand analysis
e.g. Power supply demand at half time in the Cup Final
WIP Limits allow capacity allocation per demand type
http://www.flickr.com/photos/callumalden/23479213/
Capacity
Resources
WIP
Core principle of Kanban
Avoid too much work starting at the same time / at once
Stop starting and start finishing
http://www.flickr.com/photos/steveverdon/378787509/
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Littles Law: Cycle Time = WIP / Throughput
Traffic Flow Theory: Flow = Speed * Density
Cycle Time & Throughput are key metrics
Cycle Time – how soon can we deliver?
Throughput – how much can we deliver?
Cycle Time v Lead Time
3 Projects
Write the 1st 10 digits in a column
Write the 1st 10 letters in a column
Write the 1st 10 roman numerals in a column
Sequential (non multi-tasking) - Column by column
Parallel (multi-tasking) - Row by row
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78205255@N00/96887547/
Keep the work flowing - “Flow where you can, pull when you must” – Mike Rother and John Shook: Learning to See
Keep the work busy (flowing), not the worker. Economy of flow, not of scale (cost or utilisation)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/manugomi/2884678938/
Learning
Impediments
Bottlenecks
Dependencies
Remove tokens & Expose the Rocks
Create a bottleneck & Fix the issues
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cuppini/2775740314/
Continuously Improve until Kanban aren’t Needed – Empty Slots
Remove the tokens
http://www.flickr.com/photos/48600079400@N01/114239479/
Anxiety = expose the rocks
Boredom = free up slots
What is the value?
How do you break it down, and put to back together again?
Benefits -> Features -> Stories -> Tasks
http://www.flickr.com/photos/inoxkrow/151406522/
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Bubbles of slack form around the work
Don’t need to schedule slack (e.g. XP Gold Cards)
Maximising Flow
Capability
Time
Quality
Establish a reliable and dependable capability
Demonstrates a predictable capacity.
Gives some confidence in co-ordinating the upcoming work when we are triggering rather than scheduling work.
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Example
Transaction Costs and Co-ordination Costs
Establish cadence based on existing costs, then seek to reduce costs to improve cadence (lower batch sizes)
Transaction cost and Co-ordination Cost influence cadence
http://www.flickr.com/photos/photograham/429123216/
How much stuff can we get done.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stu_p/1162383895/
How long does it take to do stuff
Class of Service – different types of demand
http://www.flickr.com/photos/randar/477625846/
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Reliability
How many people got the tube and used the timetable?
How many people got the train and used the timetable?
Regular and frequent release cadence, with understood cycle-time, reduces the need for planning overhead.
Measuring performance against purpose to set expectations. Not a promise.
Information. Truth, not targets.
Forecast quarterly goals and objectives
Prioritise MMFs to meet those goals and objectives
Release regularly
Build trust that the team is working to its full capacity
http://www.flickr.com/photos/twenty_questions/2632614879/
My final thoughts plus opportunity for questions
http://www.flickr.com/photos/horiavarlan/4290549806/
The Model
All models are wrong. Some are useful
Kanban is a meta-language to help describe and think about process.
It is not a methodology.
Value Streams
Visualisation
Limiting WIP
Cadence
Improvement
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lupos/2058121759/
Levers to adjust either way, rather than knobs to turn to 11.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jameswest/2779581337/
Difficulty "black 10". It's in the Valle Nevado ski center and starts at 3600 meters above sea level.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ramonarellano/31436545/
Path of lower resistance – less big bang change
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevlar/3889217496/