Agile Cambridge 2011 talk on my experiences taking kanban practices to a variety of organisations and sharing ideas the wider community.

1. Taking kanban
to the masses
John Stevenson
Lean Agile Machine
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2. Who is John Stevenson
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Runs Limited WIP Society in London
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Coach
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Atlassian ambassador in UK
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Community geek
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London Java, Graduate Devs, London Scala,
London Clojurians, etc.
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Dabbles with Clojure
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3. Motivation
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4. My inspiration / motivation
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The Journey of Po to become the Dragon
warrior
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Asperation
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Passion
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Needs a goal and motivation
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5. A long journey of discovery
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6. The right motivation
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7. Po reaches his goal
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8. My Journey
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Started with Personal Kanban
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Applied kanban to projects
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Learn about a lot of barriers
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Coached receptive teams and
individuals
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Sharing experiences with
conferences and Limited WIP
Society talks
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9. Typical approach to kanban
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Workshop format
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discuss the purpose of kanban
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give people a situation it interact with - MAFIA
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roleplay games – negative and positive outcomes
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Encourage personal kanban
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helps with adoption and practice
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10. Why adopt kanban
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11. Lessons learnt in
corporate kanban
A case study in pain and dissapointment
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12. Everything is fine
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13. Economic downturn
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14. Things not what they used to be
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15. Competition gaining / overtaking
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16. Shareholders arent happy
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17. Customers a little unhappy
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18. Frustrated staff
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19. ”This is not a blame cluture”
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20. Running out of ideas...
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21. Loosership over leadership
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22. CxO decrees
You must work harder – make your targets
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23. Just fix it
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Take out the
competition
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Outsourcing /
insourcing
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Hire more
consultants
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Efficiency
improvements
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24. Competition now overtaking
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25. Shareholders ”sending the
boys round” for a friendly
visit
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26. Really angry customers
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27. Staff even more frustrated
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28. Rest of Org in a bad way
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Confused, demotivated, undervalued
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In-fighting
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Barriers between
people and teams
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High staff turn around
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High number of consultants getting training
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Outsourcing / insourcing
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29. Limited understanding of Value
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Table stakes – not just for
dinner
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Differentiators – we dont need
no stinking differentiators
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Spoilers – no time to watch TV
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R&D – if the budget allows
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Where is the vision ??
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30. Sink to survive...
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31. So what's going on?
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32. Disfunctional Org
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Finds it hard to look at itself
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Too busy to step back and understand root
causes
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Too focused on the bottom line and budgets
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More ”command & control” put in place
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33. Usual Suspects
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”The Management” ●
Ego driven devs
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Budget driven PM's ●
Empire builders
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34. Nicky ”the nose” Tagliano
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Overbearing & Combative IT Director
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Tells staff what to do, but not why
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Doesnt communicate well
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Relies on his own
experience more
than others
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”I knows whats
best for you”
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35. Fabiano Skankypants
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Ego driven developer
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Keeps everything to
himself
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Always ”the hero”
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Always in charge
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Always the loudest
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Always has to get his way
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Holding everyone to
ramsom
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36. Allycat Fabiano
● Confused and overworked
DevOps
● Deploys lots of patches
● Deals with poor
deployment docs
● Re-writes lots of
deployment scripts
● Lots of work from all dev
teams
● Multiple high priorities
● No vision on actual value
of their work
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37. MAFIA (toxic) Culture
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38. In seach of Trust...
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39. Give people a situation to explore
Kanban vs The Mafia
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40. ©LeanAgileMachine
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41. MAFIA ”organisation”
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42. How would you make a change ?
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Big bang process improvement ?
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Prince2 / DSDM – takes time to adopt
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Scrum – only local improvements without buy-in
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XP – technical improvemets tiny compared to org
disfunction
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More shouting ?
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Achievement Culture ?
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What are we trying to achive and how best should
we do that?
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43. Is there a better way to change ?
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44. Introducing kanban
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45. The first rule of kanban...
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46. What is your goal?
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47. Set valuable goals
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48. The bare neccessities...
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49. Understanding your goals
Table stakes /
foundations
Differentiators
Spoilers
Accelerators
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50. Next three goals
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51. G.R.O.W your goals
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Goal
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Visualise and emote..
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Reality
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Honest view of situation...
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Options
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Scenarios to achieve the goal
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Way forward
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Take and option and evaluate
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52. What outcome do you want?
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You meet up with your friends a year from now
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What do you want to tell them you have been
doing?
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53. Change seems scary...
”The only
thing to
fear it
fear
itself”
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54. Explaining Kanban
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56. Kanban board - Wall of Facts

57. Start with a simple approach
Planning Doing Done
Current process is not always know, or often not understood
or valued
- Start simple to get started, review and evolve
- Standups & Retrospectives should include ”the process”
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58. Or Map the existing process
Planning Analysis Development QA Release
If you have more buy-in, map your existing process
– Value stream mapping
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59. Let the board run...
Planning Analysis Development QA Release
Let the problems reveal themselved, if not already apparent
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60. Get People Interacting
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We learn best by doing
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Use Kanban boards to run the workshop
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Get people building a board
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Introduce different aspects along the way
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Using roleplay and games to introduce further
concepts
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Limited WIP, Fast Feedback, consistent flow of
work
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61. Opportunities to change
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Visualising work ●
Managing work load
show opportunities give you time to
change
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62. Let kanban help you learn
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Work on only on one thing at once
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Everyone responsible for any priority changes
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Even your manager
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If forced to switch, record and reset task to
begining
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Review ”task switching” overload
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63. Add WIP Limits
Planning Analysis Development QA Release (1)
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WIP limits show the constraints in the process
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Start to adjust work in other areas...
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64. Show work ready
Ready to
Planning Analysis Dev Release (2) Release (1)
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Ready lanes give you options on what to work
on next
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65. Balance work to resources
Ready for Ready for Ready to
Analysis (4) Analysis (1) Dev(4) Dev (4) Release (2) Release (1)
● WIP limited to resources of the team
● Promotes faster feedback
● Helps identify areas that need more resources / change in practices
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66. Pull system
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67. Be as creative as needed
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68. Dont forget the card design
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69. Beware being overworked
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Huge backlog is
demoralising
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Everything is a
priority
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Never seem to get
anywhere
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Never sure what
value you are
delivering
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70. Experditing
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Visualisation for a high priority task
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Big red sticker
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Experditing lane
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Record other tasks being blocked
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Review why you get high priority task
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Consider it a constraint / bottleneck
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71. Experditing lane
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72. Ask about Vision
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Step up and ask the difficult questions
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Five whys
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You wont be thanked for it because often no
answer is known
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Need to hightlight this as an issue
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Encourage the business to communicate its
intent with you
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Help them help you become more effective
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73. Lessons learnt from Lean &
System thinking
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74. Explaining flow
● Flow gives you fast feedback
● Limited work on progress means low time between
roles – reduced overall cycle time
● Establish a regular cadence – consistent pace
● If you are cycling from London to Brigton, you dont set
off at top speed
● Small sized tasks help attain flow
● WIP limits create a pull system, driving flow
● Work is done at the speed of the slowest process
● eg. Boy scouts in ”The Goal”
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75. Data dashboard effect
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Manager can instantly see what you are
working on
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Manager can evaluate priorities easily
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Or go back and ask for clarification with business
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Gives data on issues
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Recording task swapping, time to work on tasks
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Data to review at retrospective on current
approach
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76. Kanban effect
● Fast feedback between people
● Devs get fast feeback if problems releasing
● BA's improve requirements from dev feedback
● Business feeds back sooner to steer development
● Adapt to changing priorities easier
● Impact of changes easier to see
● Work effort becomes predictable and trust increases
● Effort is converted into working software sooner
● See results sooner – identify work with business
benefit
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77. Subtle ”Theory of Constraints”
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What is stopping you achieve your goals ?
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Identify all the current challenges
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Find how to work effectively
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With respect to the biggest challenge
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Incrementally improve around biggest
challenge
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Review the challenges
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78. Drop the Backlog
● The backlog is a omnipresent
sign of overload
● Useful for pushing back to
the management
● Bad for team moral
● Hide it away (eg. JIRA)
● When team are in tune with
value, tasks flow more
naturally – opportunities are
not drowned out
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79. Value stream mapping
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Weird name, important concept
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The (often wide) path to getting things done
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The activities that help get things done
effectively
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80. Cost of Delay
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Value hard to assess ●
What else could you
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What if we dont do it be doing ?
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What if we dont
deliver when you
want
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81. Predictability / Cadence
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Work towards ●
A 400Km cycle ride
smaller task needs a good
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Feedback from board cadence to survive
helps you understand
your capacity
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82. Change at the speed of
acceptance
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Effective change
cannot be pushed
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kanban estoles pull,
change should be ●
Odd that some
pulled many agile projects
start and end with a
big bang
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83. Lean Startup
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Business canvas model
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Real options
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Last responsible moment
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Least responsible change
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84. Lessons from Service Desk
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Variation of personal kanban
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Sticky notes at the side of the keyboard
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One priority at once
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Need business reason to change priorities
– Record reason and number of times you had to revisit
the task
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85. DevOps overload
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Lots of last minute ● DevOps have no time to
patches script deployments
● Have to deal with long,
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Deployment like boring deployment
buses, nothing for a documents
few days then three ● Repeatedly swiched from
come at once for the infrastructure work,
same night vastly increasing time
taken.
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86. DevOps Goal keeper
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Team rotates people around role
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Goalkeeper fields all issues
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Rest of team allowed to
focus on a (bigger) task
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Use visual indicator to show
who is the Goalie
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87. Summary of Kanban
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Visualse work
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Manage WIP
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Helps you stay
sane
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Engage with business ●
Show you are
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Shared ownership productive
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Encourage realistic ●
Deal with micro-
priorities management
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88. Final form of feed back
● Find a better
company
● Start your own
thing

89. Thank you
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90. Feedback & Refs
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Website:
Leanagilemachine.co.uk
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Blog:
Leanagilemachine.com
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Email:
John@leanagilemachine.com
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