kanban - extreme improvements in five quarters

Extrem improvements in

five quartersKanban - Chapter 4

Introduction• Dragos Dumitru became Programm-Manager

in Oktober 2004

• contractor in india responsible for software maintenance of the XIT business unit

• team consisted of 3 developers, 3 testers and local managers

The problem• team with the worth reputation regarding

customer service

• long lead times

• political environment of his work

• but many requirements in a very high quality

The visualization of the workflow

Factors with impact on productivity

• cost estimation for every requirement

• monthly meeting for prioritization

• 70 or more requirements newly planned and prioritized

Factors with impact on productivity

• wasted time and supplies - not used data

• 11 days for one average requirement

• cost estimations (ROM) consume a lot of effort

• additional tasks in form of PTCs

Workflow with ROM and PTC

Make process rules explicit

• team follows the process

• a process is a set of rules which determine their behavior

• process contains unfavorable rules

Estimations represent waste

• team should no longer estimate

• free capacities for developing und testing

• improvements of predictability

Restrict Work In Progress

• WIP: 1 requirement per developer and tester

• additional queue for PTCs

Establish a rhythms for the input

• weekly meeting with product manager

• guaranteed delivery time of 25 days after placing an order

Workflow with WIP limits and queues

Proposal for a new arrangement

• weekly prioritization meeting

• restricted WIP

• no more team estimations

• delivery after 25 days

Introduce changes• many were doubtful

• but it worked

• satisfied delivery time

• meetings proceeded with problems

Adapt the rules• every entry older than 6 months will be

deleted from backlog

• developer alert manager, if requirement is too big

• weekly meetings were omitted

Lookout for further improvements

• developer as bottleneck, therefore 2 testers and 4 developers

• increase the quality of performance

• enhancement of the budget for 2 additional team members

Compensation of ressources

The result• increased performance

• reduced lead time

• satisfy delivery dates

• no changes to software developing process

Conclusion• KANBAN enables

• incremental changes

• changes with little political risk

• improvements without major changes of the developing methods