Key Note - SEPG 2013 - Kanban and the End of Methodology

Kanban
and the End of Methodology

Presenter:
David J. Anderson
SEPG North America
Pittsburgh
October 2013
Release 1.0

dja@leankanban.com @lkuceo

Lessons we
can learn
from Bruce
Lee’s
journey in
martial arts

The End of Methodology


Is Kanban heralding in a new era?
It’s the end of methodology!*

Reflective Improvement
Frameworks** are the
future!

Alistair Cockburn

Kanban is such a Reflective
Improvement Framework

* http://alistair.cockburn.us/The+end+of+methodology
** Cockburn’s suggested name for this new class of methods

A methodology defines behavior
• A software engineering methodology is a
description of techniques
– what to do
– how to do it
– When to do it - sequences or workflows
– Who does what - definition of roles and
responsibilities

• Ideally, a methodology should tell us why and
give us a context to define its appropriateness

Many styles of software engineering
emerged over several decades
• Some just personal preferences
in style (e.g. PSP versus XP), but
others for specific contexts or risk
profiles (e.g. the many risk
profiles captured in a 2dimensional grid in Cockburn's
Crystal methods).
• Some styles came in schools or
movements - such as the Agile
movement
• While others came as large
frameworks such as Rational
Unified Process designed to be
tailored to a context*
*CMMI ML3 includes specific practices for process definition & tailoring

The Kanban Method was born out of
frustration with these many styles
In 2002, I was questioning whether
the specific methodology really
made that much difference
The question wasn't whether a
methodology worked or
not, or whether
appropriateness of context had
been assessed correctly or not,
the problem was organizations
were being seduced into pursuing
changes that were too large and too
ambitious. These change initiatives
were beyond their capability and
maturity to manage them

CMMI has a bl nd sp t!
• While CMMI is all about improvement - there
is no process area(s) for change management
• IMO a flaw in the model that inhibits success


Change to mature or mature to change?
It's chicken and egg - a
causality dilemma!
In order to improve
capability and
maturity, you have to be
able to manage change. In
order to manage
change, you have to first
improve capability and
maturity

Managing change has greater leverage
than picking the right methodology
I came to the conclusion (circa 2002) that the important
issue in creative knowledge work wasn't the selection of the
right methodology

Instead the bigger challenge with the greater
leverage on outcome was learning to
manage change in the organization

Traditional Change is an A to B process
Designed
Current
Process

Defined
transition

Future
Process

• A is where you are now. B is a destination.
– B is either defined (from a methodology definition)
– or designed (by tailoring a framework)

• To get from A to B, a change agency* will guide a
transition initiative to install destination B into
the organization
*either an internal SEPG or external consultants

Change initiatives fail (even) more often
than projects
Change initiatives
often fail (aborted)
or produce lack
luster results

They fail to
institutionalize
resulting in
regression back to
old behavior (and
lower maturity
levels)

How we process change…
I logically evaluate
change using System 2

I feel change emotionally
using System 1
Silicon-based
life form

Carbon-based
life form
Daniel Kahneman


Methodologies challenge people
psychology & sociologically
• New roles (defined in a methodology) attack their identity
• New responsibilities using new techniques & practices
threaten their self-esteem and put their social status at
risk
• Most people resist most change because individually they
have more to lose than to gain
• It is safer to be conservative and stick to current practices
and avoid shaking up the current social hierarchy
• Only the brave, the reckless or the desperate will pursue
grand changes

The Kanban Method…
• Rejects the traditional
approach to change
• Believes, it is better to avoid
resistance than to push
harder against it – Don’t
install a new methodology
• Is designed for carbonbased life forms Evolutionary change that is
humane

The Kanban Method…
• Catalyzes improvement
through use of kanban
systems and visual boards*
• Takes its name from the use
of kanban but it is just a
name
• Anyone who thinks Kanban
is just about kanban (boards
& systems) is truly mistaken
*also known as "kanban" in Chinese and in Japanese when written with Chinese characters

The Kanban Method is a new approach
to improvement

Kanban is a
method
without methodology

Bruce Lee’s Journey in Martial Arts


Bruce Lee rejected traditional teaching
and styles of Chinese martial arts
• There are some parallels
in the story of Bruce Lee
and the emergence of his
approach to Kung Fu
• Lee rejected the idea of
following a particular style
of Chinese Martial Arts


Kung Fu Panda simplified the art to only
four styles
Mantis
Python

Tiger

Monkey

There are in fact very many styles…


“Dry land swimming” provides a false
sense of capability

• The only way to learn is to train with a live opponent
• Lee rejected the many styles of martial arts for various
reasons, mainly that they gave the practitioners a false sense
of capability, putting them at risk in real combat situations
• He was against Kata (learning patterns without an opponent)
and described them in derogatory terms such as "dry land
swimming.“

Lee wanted to start from first principles
and core concepts
Four ranges of combat
•
•
•
•

Kicking
Punching
Trapping
Grappling

Five* Ways of Attack***
• Single Direct Attack (SDA)
• Attack By Combination (ABC)
• Progressive Indirect Attack
(PIA)
• (Hand) Immobilization Attack
(HIA)
• Attack by Drawing (ABD)
• Single Angle Attack (SAA)

*Apparently still called the Five Ways, there are actually now six **with the later inclusion of SAA
**The fact that The Five Ways has six elements is evidence of evolution in action
***Incorporated core ideas such as "center line" and single fluid motion from Wing Chun and parrying from Epee Fencing****
****Not a Chinese Martial Art and hence evidence of "no limitation as limitation"


Lee’s approach still needed a name
• He named his approach Jeet
Kune Do - the way of the
intercepting fist - after one of
the principles taught in his
method. He was quick to point
out that it was just a name, a
way of communicating a set of
ideas. He was passionate that
practitioners shouldn't get
hung up on the name or the
inclusion of any one move or
action.

Jeet Kune Do

Having no
limitation as
limitation

Using no
way as way

Jeet Kune Do encourages development
of a uniquely personal style

"absorb that which is
useful“
discard the remainder

• a framework from
which to pick &
develop a personal
style
• an evolutionary
approach where
adoption of
maneuvers is
learned & reinforced
by training with an
opponent
• Nothing was sacred

Training with an opponent provides the
core feedback loop to drive adaptation
Lee pursued ever
more elaborate
approaches to
protected real
combat training
to enable the
closed loop
learning that was
core to the
evolutionary
nature of JKD

Kata are not adaptive

In comparison with JKD, patterned styles of martial
arts taught with "kata" were open loop and not
adaptive. There is no learning from practicing kata


Water flows around the rock
“be like water”

the rock represents resistance

The Kanban Method


Kanban should be like water*
In change
management,
resistance is from the
people involved and
it is always emotional
To flow around the
rock, we must learn
how to avoid
emotional resistance
* http://joecampbell.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/be-like-water/

Start with what you do now
• The Kanban Method evolved with the principle
that it “should be like water” - enable change
while avoiding sources of resistance
• With Kanban you start with what you do
now, and "kanbanize" it, catalyzing the
evolutionary process into action. Changes to
processes in use will occur
• Evaluating whether a change is truly an
improvement is done using fitness criteria that
evaluate an external outcome

Fitness criteria are metrics that measure
observable external outcomes
• Fitness criteria are metrics that
measure things customers or
other external stakeholders value
–
–
–
–

delivery time
Quality
Predictability
conformance to regulatory
requirements

• or metrics that value actual
outcomes such as
– customer satisfaction
– employee satisfaction


Institutionalize feedback systems to
enable evolutionary change
Operations
Review
System
Capability
Review

manager to subordinate(s)
(both 1-1 and 1-team)


Standup
Meeting

Adaptive capability enables sustainable
competitiveness
• Kanban installs an adaptive capability in the
organization
– the style of working - the methodology - emerges
and evolves, adapting gracefully to changes in
business conditions, risks and uncertainties

• Such an adaptive capability makes the
organization robust and resilient and enables
the possibility of continued sustainable long
term competitiveness

Kanban’s Core Enabling Concepts
Kanban is based on some simple concepts for
managing work
• service-orientation
• service delivery involves workflow
• and work flows through a series of information
discovery activities

Kanban would be less applicable if a serviceorientated view of work were difficult to conceive
or the work was without a definable workflow

6 Practices Enable Process Evolution
The Kanban Method
Visualize
Limit Work-in-progress
Manage Flow
Make Policies Explicit
Implement Feedback Loops
Improve Collaboratively, Evolve Experimentally
(using models & the scientific method)


So, are we at the
“end of methodology?”


So does the arrival of Kanban represent
the end of methodologies?
No!
We still need methodologies
There is still a need to
know what to do, how to
do it, when to do it and
who should perform
specific activities.
Alistair Cockburn


Perhaps methodologies should be dead?
• Do we need to define roles and
force people to fit their
definitions? Is it better to let an
individual's identity evolve and
emerge in the context of a given
organization?
• Transitioning methodologies is
I don’t want to change.
not compatible with humans
I do want to grow

Give Permission for personal &
organizational styles to emerge
• Give permission for
• Modern approaches to
personal and organizational
software
styles of software
architecture, design, program
engineering to emerge
ming and deployment all
naturally rather than
encourage fast feedback and
promoting methodology
short cycle times to
and adoption of defined
encourage learning.
methods
• Trends with communities of
• Promote known good
technical practice seem to
practices coupled with fast
indicate growing
feedback mechanisms to
disillusionment with
encourage learning &
methodologies
adaptation

The future of creative knowledge work
should be inspired by Bruce Lee & JKD
• Our opponents are uncertainty
& risk. Engage directly. Validate
speculation quickly
• Teach beginners to set up safeto-fail, learning environments at
the individual, team and project
level
• Validate assumptions early and
Train with live opponents
quickly, deploy fake, prototype
or real code to gain knowledge
No kata
of what works and what doesn't
No "drymodern technical practices
land swimming“
• Use
inside an evolutionary
framework

To get beyond Agile we must embrace
the “end of methodology”
• Perhaps now it is finally time to let go of
methodology and embrace a whole new way of
teaching and performing software engineering?
• The Agile Software Development movement has
taken us some way down this path already. It
encouraged the use of feedback loops and
emergence of modern technical practices. Now
we must complete the job and let go of Agile
methodologies altogether!

Implications for CMMI


What does this mean for the CMMI?
• CMMI is methodology agnostic. A CMMI
appraisal could be performed on an
organization with a uniquely evolved software
engineering method, utilizing evolutionary
frameworks such as Lean Startup & Kanban
• There are implications for the CMMI model,
though…

CMMI Model requires a defined process
• Do we still expect a defined process? Do we expect it
to be “tailored” to a context? If so why? Is this just
bureaucratic overhead?
• Bruce Lee would have viewed a defined process as a
patterned style - dead, without learning or
evolutionary capability
• Intelligent design or evolution which do you trust
more?
• Would it be better to modify the model to look for
safe-to-fail learning environments and evidence of
process evolution rather than defined processes?

The “end of methodology” may
represent a punctuation point in the
evolution of management
• Evolution progresses through a series of
punctuated equilibriums
• The “end of methodology” is an opportunity for
an explosion of new management thinking in
creative knowledge worker industries
• And an opportunity to give the CMMI new
relevance!

Will the "end of methodology" trigger a
new wave of innovation in the CMMI?
• Will the model evolve to reflect recent
understanding in complexity science and the
need for reflective, adaptive organizations that
are robust & resilient in the presence of
uncertain, changing external conditions?


Thank you!

About

David Anderson is a thought
leader in managing effective
software teams. He leads a
consulting, training, publishing
and event planning business
dedicated to developing,
promoting and implementing
sustainable evolutionary
approaches for management of
knowledge workers.
He has 30 years experience in the high technology industry
starting with computer games in the early 1980’s. He has
led software teams delivering superior productivity and
quality using innovative methods at large companies such
as Sprint and Motorola.
David was a co-author of the SEI Technical Note, “Agile &
CMMI: Why not embrace both!” He is the pioneer of the
Kanban Method an evolutionary approach to change and
improved business agility. His latest book is, Lessons in
Agile Management – On the Road to Kanban.
David is a founder of the Lean Kanban University, a trade
association dedicated to assuring quality of Kanban
training through a network for member companies
throughout the world.


Acknowledgements
Joe Campbell first blogged about the similarity in philosophy
between the Kanban Method and the teachings of Bruce Lee. He coined
the phrase “Kanban should be like water”.
“Safe-to-fail Experiment” is a term used by Dave Snowden in his
Cynefin framework for comprehending complexity and managing in
complex domain problems.
This presentation was inspired by Alistair Cockburn’s blog post “The
End of Methodology” and a quote from Peter Senge, “People do not
resist change, they resist being changed!”

Key Note - SEPG 2013 - Kanban and the End of Methodology

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