Driving Change with DataGetting Started with Continuous Improvement

Troy Magennis, President of Focused Objective

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Poll Question

1. Where are you in your continuous improvement efforts?

• We have not started measuring to improve our process• We would like to start improving, but don’t know how to• We have started tracking key metrics to improve • We are actively using metrics to drive improvement

initiative

Introducing Troy Magennis

– President, Focused Objective LLC– Brickell Key Award Winner – Consultant for LeanKit Analytics Team

troy.magennis@FocusedObjective.com@t_magennis

Kanban Practices:• Visualize• Limit Work in Progress• Manage Flow• Make Policies Explicit• Feedback Loops• Improve and Evolve

Start with what you do now.Agree to pursue improvement through evolutionary change.

DON’T STOP HERE

UseData!

Manage the work NOT the worker!

hire good people and let the team self organize around the work

= Measure the WorkNOT the worker

Backlog of options Doing Archive

Options Do Next (Top n) Investigate Implement(2)

Deliver Validate(2)

Cycle time (or time in process)

Lead time

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Count of cards in different states of progress

Getting started with improvement data• Advice: Don’t try and improve everything at once – what’s most important?

• Improve responsiveness (respond quicker) – measure lead time• Customers report issues and need resolution. E.g. IT Operations, Call centers• Step 1: Set policies about what work gets started first (and why)

• Improve delivery performance (get more) – measure cycle time• Once we commit to something, how can we get more of it. E.g. Development• Step 1: Identify and fix where does work sit idle

• Often critical work and normal work need to be considered differently

Setting up a board for insightsBoard design ideas and patterns to maximize analytics and insights

Define and Use Card Types• Identification of similar items• 3-5 typical• For analytics, it helps

compare apples vs apples• Use color wisely• See on board at 6ft distance

• Avoid using for prioritization

Card Priority• Priority helps people see what they should

finish first (not start first)• Have a clear policy of why work falls into

each priority• For analytics, these help order the most

important work higher in a list

Card Tags• Help filter and link work items of different types and priorities• Helps keep card priority and card type for what they are intended for• Allows individuals to filter by their terms, every user can have their

own and the organization can agree on a few common ones• For analytics, tags• Allow each user to filter just work with some set of tags• Helps reduce noise (too much data)• Allows people to focus on just the “things” of interest

Board Design Matters - OperationsBacklog of options (NOT started) Doing (Started) Finished

Options Do Next (Top n) Investigate Implement (10)

Deliver Validate

Ongoing

Improvements

How many things get created in

Doing?

Are we pulling work in order?

Do we have the “right” mix of work?

How can we avoid failing in Validate?

Ready Doing

Board Design Matters - Development

Backlog of options (NOT started) Doing (Started) Finished

Options Do Next (Top n) Design (2) Develop (5) Validate (3)

Features / Stories

Improvements

How many things get created in

Doing?

Are we pulling work in order?

Do we have the “right” mix of work?

How can we avoid failing in Validate?

In Dev

Dev Done

Insights and actionsUsing Leankit reports for insights and actions in real work teams

Analytics – Helping see “un-usual”• See something that isn’t normal• Snow in December in Alaska isn’t unusual, snow in Los Angeles is unusual…• Is it a NEW normal?

• Compare apple to apples • Don’t expect or want some types of work to take less time than others • Normal for some types of work is unusual for others

• Goal is to create a visual tracking system that helps see the unusual• Analytical analysis can help

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Where do we discuss un-usual & Improve• Stand-ups

• Daily meetings where the team recounts lessons and looks to refine plan

• Planning meetings / Input Replenishment Meetings• Team looks at work that is going to be attempted for the next “period”

• Status review meetings / Demos• Team and stakeholders look at what was done and determine what’s next

• Team or project Retrospectives• Team or teams(s) look at what happened previously and how to improve

• Operations Review• Everyone gets to understand how an organization is performing and learn how to work

better in the future with an eye on entire organization operational health

Decreasing cycle time – Speed

Demand on this team decreasing?

Cycle-time stable

Bulk close? Stable“Long term” distribution

Decreasing cycle time – Speed & Stability• Good for ops-reviews, retrospectives and improvement meetings• Shows

• System stability• Throughput• Cycle time distribution for the entire date range window • How cycle time average changes over shorter periods (day, week, month)

• Tip: Set the date range for double the period of interest to see trend• Tip: Filter by each card type to see contribution to change• Tip: Start by looking how cycle time trend changes by week or month• Tip: Hover and filter by selecting different items to look for common root causes

that impact above-average items

Finding things impacting flow - Exceptions

Exception report• Good to use during stand-up or status review meetings• Shows

• Stale = not moved in x days• Set the stale delay days to help trigger discussion at stand-up

• Blocked = the blocked flag is set in the item• Missed start date = didn’t start by the planned start date• Missed finish date = didn’t complete by the planned finish date

• Tip: Start from the top bar and work down, items are in priority order• Tip: Click on the bars to filter to just those items in the detail section• Tip: Use card types and tags to minimize noise; some types age differently• Tip: Set teams the target of keeping empty and celebrating

What work are we doing? Distribution

What work are we doing? Distribution• Good to show during planning and stand-up

• Discuss changing demand on different work types, priority, user or class of service• Look for too much work in progress for a type of work based on capacity

• Shows• Card counts by priority, type, class of service, user and lane• Percentage allocation to not started, started and finished

• Tip: Remove the archive lane to hide “done” work that swamps detail• Tip: Remove and backlog and queue lanes to see JUST in progress items

and see if you have enough capacity or are passive blocking• Tip: Use the Lane counts to identify actual work in progress counts

Board Design Matters - OperationsBacklog of options Doing Archive

Options Do Next (Top n) Investigate Implement (10)

Deliver Validate

Project (6)

Ongoing (3)

Improvements (1)

How many items wait here?

Ready Doing

Seeing flow – cumulative flow

Batched releases, ~ 1 week delay?

Cumulative flow – showing bottlenecks• Good for ops-reviews, retrospectives and improvement meetings• Shows• Where work in progress is accumulating (in buffer or other columns)• Arrival and departure rates of work into and out of the board

• Tip: Adding buffer columns for the purpose of seeing work waiting for free resources• Tip: Hide the backlog and complete to see work in progress for one or

more column with a zero line (not cumulative) • Tip: Use it to see if WIP limits should be added or changed

Find balance… In changing conditions

And competing forces

Predictability(how repeatable)

Responsiveness(how fast)

Quality(how well)

Productivity(how much, delivery pace)

• Escaped defect counts• Forecast to complete defects• Measure of release “readiness”• Test count (passing)

• Throughput • Releases per day

• Lead time• Cycle time• Defect resolution time

• Coefficient of variation (SD/Mean)• Standard deviation of the SD• “Stability” of team & process

Do’s• Deepen you Kanban journey• Measure the work• Leave space for improvements• Look for exceptions• Balance multiple metrics

• Start improving!

Do Not’s• Stop at visualizing the board• Measure the worker• Only do if you have time• Explain the normal• Focus on a single metric

• Be scared of analytics….

Q & A

• How to effectively link continuous improvement efforts back to desired outcomes – I.e., traceability?

• We would like to know the differences in how to practice continuous improvement at the strategic level as well as in daily management?

• How to address this issue with people: “I have no time to document my improvements?”

Next Steps

Checkout the following resources:1. 7 Lean Metrics to Improve

Flow - https://leankit.com/learn/kanban/lean-flow-metrics/

2. Improved Insights into the Distribution of Work - https://leankit.com/blog/2016/08/improved-insights-distribution-of-work/

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