Kanban on different flight levels - with an implementation example
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Agile In Business - Switzerland
Courtyard Marriott Zurich, 2014-11-20
KANBAN on different Flight-Levels
Michael RUMPLER
Head of Project Management &
Requirements Engineering
KABA MIC AWM
www.agileinbusiness.com
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/home/mike$ whoami
Michael RUMPLER
42, Austrian
Dipl.-Ing. (MSc) Computer Sciences TU Vienna 1996
CSM, CSPO, Kanban, Different Coaching & Facilitation educations
Head of Project Management and Requirements Engineering at
KABA MIC AWM (4 Sites + Outsourcing partners)
15+ years experience in SW-Engineering and project
management in Avionics und Railway business
Agile methods since 2006
Engagement with Lean & Agile in regulated and safety critical
environments (Avionics, Railway) since 2009
UNICOM Presents
Agile Switzerland - 2014
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KANBAN Flight Levels – LEVEL 1 fact sheet
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
• Team or department level
• Input is NOT coordinated
• Push from outside
• A lot of work on the table
• Simple start, «Guerilla Kanban»
• Improved visibility & communication
• Focus on finishing work
• Improved team efficiency
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• Working on the wrong things
• Imbalance of demand and capability
• Many expedite requests
• A lot of re-prioritization
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KANBAN Flight Levels – LEVEL 2 fact sheet
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
• team or department level
• input is coordinated
• pull from the outside/upstream
• modern change management required
• demand and capabilities are being
balanced
• less re-prioritization, less expedite work
• working on the right things more efficiently
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• local optimization only
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KANBAN Flight Levels – LEVEL 3 fact sheet
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
• optimization of (parts of)
the value stream
• pull across the value stream
• (more) global optimization
• modern change management mandatory
• optimization of the interaction of teams/departments
• doing the right thing at the right time
• significant reduction of queue sizes
• balancing demand vs. capability across the value stream
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• often focus on project
goals only
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KANBAN Flight Levels – LEVEL 4 fact sheet
MAIN CHARACTERISTICS
• optimization of program or
portfolio
• multi-project, multi-customer
risk decisions
• more stop-and-go than flow
• often quite easy to start with
• making conscious business decisions about projects/customers
• focus on business goals and not on project goals
• stop starting, start finishing of projects
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Agile Switzerland - 2014
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KANBAN Flight Levels Conclusions
• The Flight Levels model...
• is a communication tool
• shows what's possible with Kanban
• helps to clarify where you start and the change process
• Flight Levels are NOT a maturity model
• Kanban on flight level 1 could be more mature than on flight
level 3
flight level 1: organizational unit, uncoordinated input
flight level 2: organizational unit, coordinated input
flight level 3: value stream
flight level 4: portfolio
UNICOM Presents
Agile Switzerland - 2014
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The KABA implementation
The development organization (simplified)
Product Management Product Management Product Management
Project Management / Requirements Eng.
Quality Assurance
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Agile Switzerland - 2014
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Starting Point
• 2 Scrum Teams for biggest product
• Scrum (but) Process
• Many interdependencies
• Inefficient use of resources
• Not focused on flow
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NOW One Development Team
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12 Developers
4 Testers
2 Technical Writers
3 POs
3 PMs
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Team process characteristics
• 4 independent «Feature Trains»
• The team commits a capacity for each Feature Train
• The team decides who works on which feature
• 2 week iterations with queue replenishment, iteration review
and retrospective
• Definition of Done (DoD) in place for each handover point
• Coordinated input from initiative/release management
• WIP limits on persons (only 2 magnets per person)
• WIP limits on swimlanes (per item type)
• Express lane to react to urgent problems
• External support requests
• Team-internal problems/deadlines
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Team board elements
WIP limits per person
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Commited work
Near future backlog
Feature Train (swimlane)
Express Lane
DoD for handover stage
WIP limits per Feature Train
and per work item type
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One up Value Stream Board (FL3)
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Project / Initiative Level
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Project/Initiative process characteristics
• Value-driven process
• Different phases driven by different teams along the value chain
• Handover points guarded with Definition of Done to ensure
proper input for the next phase
• Aligned on the most sensitive part of the value chain
• In this case the development and acceptance phase, as
capacity there is always less than demand
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Value Stream Board elements
Input Queue
Different Types
ofWork
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Definition
of Done
Phases
Team(s) working on item
denoted by magnet
red-external
VALUE STREAM
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One up Project Portfolio Level (FL4)
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Project Portfolio Level
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Portfolio process characteristics
• Shows capabilities
• Assigns initiatives to capabilities
• Provides a view to current and future committed work
• Anything that is not shown is not committed
• Has WIP limits by not allowing more than 2 initatives per
capability at the same time
• More than one only in transition phases
• Used to communicate with all stakeholders of the Innovation
Department
• Not a physical board (except during portfolio meetings) as
information has to be distributed to different parties not at the
same site or in the same organizational entity
UNICOM Presents
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