taking kanban to the masses - agile cambridge

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Taking kanban to the masses

John StevensonLean Agile Machine

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/


Who is John Stevenson

● Runs Limited WIP Society in London● Coach ● Atlassian ambassador in UK● Community geek

London Java, Graduate Devs, London Scala, London Clojurians, etc.

● Dabbles with Clojure



Motivation



My inspiration / motivation

● The Journey of Po to become the Dragon warrior

Asperation Passion Needs a goal and motivation



A long journey of discovery



The right motivation



Po reaches his goal



My Journey

● Started with Personal Kanban● Applied kanban to projects● Learn about a lot of barriers ● Coached receptive teams and

individuals● Sharing experiences with

conferences and Limited WIP Society talks



Typical approach to kanban

● Workshop format discuss the purpose of kanban give people a situation it interact with - MAFIA roleplay games – negative and positive outcomes

● Encourage personal kanban helps with adoption and practice



Why adopt kanban



Lessons learnt in corporate kanban

A case study in pain and dissapointment



Everything is fine



Economic downturn



Things not what they used to be



Competition gaining / overtaking



Shareholders arent happy



Customers a little unhappy



Frustrated staff



”This is not a blame cluture”



Running out of ideas...



Loosership over leadership



CxO decrees

You must work harder – make your targetsYou must work harder – make your targets



Just fix it

● Take out the competition

● Outsourcing / insourcing

● Hire more consultants

● Efficiency improvements



Competition now overtaking



Shareholders ”sending the boys round” for a friendly

visit



Really angry customers



Staff even more frustrated



Rest of Org in a bad way

● Confused, demotivated, undervalued● In-fighting● Barriers between

people and teams● High staff turn around● High number of consultants getting training● Outsourcing / insourcing



Limited understanding of Value

● Table stakes – not just for dinner

● Differentiators – we dont need no stinking differentiators

● Spoilers – no time to watch TV● R&D – if the budget allows

● Where is the vision ??



Sink to survive...



So what's going on?



Disfunctional Org

● Finds it hard to look at itself● Too busy to step back and understand root

causes● Too focused on the bottom line and budgets● More ”command & control” put in place



Usual Suspects

● Ego driven devs● Empire builders

● ”The Management”● Budget driven PM's



Nicky ”the nose” Tagliano

● Overbearing & Combative IT Director Tells staff what to do, but not why Doesnt communicate well

Relies on his own experience more than others

”I knows whats best for you”



Fabiano Skankypants

● Ego driven developer Keeps everything to

himself Always ”the hero” Always in charge Always the loudest Always has to get his way

● Holding everyone to ramsom



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



MAFIA (toxic) Culture



In seach of Trust...



Kanban vs The MafiaKanban vs The Mafia

Give people a situation to explore



MAFIA ”organisation”



How would you make a change ?

● Big bang process improvement ? Prince2 / DSDM – takes time to adopt Scrum – only local improvements without buy-in XP – technical improvemets tiny compared to org

disfunction● More shouting ?● Achievement Culture ?

What are we trying to achive and how best should we do that?



Is there a better way to change ?



Introducing kanban



The first rule of kanban...



What is your goal?



Set valuable goals



The bare neccessities...



Understanding your goals

Table stakes / foundations

SpoilersDifferentiators

Accelerators



Next three goals



G.R.O.W your goals● Goal

Visualise and emote..● Reality

Honest view of situation...● Options

Scenarios to achieve the goal● Way forward

Take and option and evaluate



What outcome do you want?● You meet up with your friends a year from now

What do you want to tell them you have been doing?



Change seems scary...

”The only thing to fear it fear itself”



Explaining Kanban


Kanban board - Wall of Facts


Start with a simple approach

DoneDoing Planning

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”



Or Map the existing process

Planning Analysis Development QA Release

If you have more buy-in, map your existing process – Value stream mapping



Let the board run...Planning Analysis Development QA Release

Let the problems reveal themselved, if not already apparent



Get People Interacting

● We learn best by doing● Use Kanban boards to run the workshop● Get people building a board

Introduce different aspects along the way ● Using roleplay and games to introduce further

concepts Limited WIP, Fast Feedback, consistent flow of

work



Opportunities to change

● Visualising work show opportunities

● Managing work load give you time to change



Let kanban help you learn

● Work on only on one thing at once● Everyone responsible for any priority changes

Even your manager● If forced to switch, record and reset task to

begining Review ”task switching” overload



Add WIP Limits

Planning Analysis Development QA Release (1)

● WIP limits show the constraints in the process Start to adjust work in other areas...



Show work ready

Planning Analysis Dev Release (1)Ready toRelease (2)

● Ready lanes give you options on what to work on next



Balance work to resources

Ready forAnalysis (4) Analysis (1)

Ready forDev(4) Release (1)

Ready toRelease (2)

● WIP limited to resources of the team Promotes faster feedback Helps identify areas that need more resources / change in practices

Dev (4)



Pull system



Be as creative as needed



Dont forget the card design



Beware being overworked

● Huge backlog is demoralising

● Everything is a priority

● Never seem to get anywhere

● Never sure what value you are delivering



Experditing

● Visualisation for a high priority task Big red sticker Experditing lane Record other tasks being blocked

● Review why you get high priority task Consider it a constraint / bottleneck



Experditing lane



Ask about Vision

● Step up and ask the difficult questions Five whys You wont be thanked for it because often no

answer is known Need to hightlight this as an issue

● Encourage the business to communicate its intent with you

Help them help you become more effective



Lessons learnt from Lean & System thinking



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”



Data dashboard effect

● Manager can instantly see what you are working on

● Manager can evaluate priorities easily Or go back and ask for clarification with business

● Gives data on issues Recording task swapping, time to work on tasks Data to review at retrospective on current

approach



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



Subtle ”Theory of Constraints”

● What is stopping you achieve your goals ? Identify all the current challenges

● Find how to work effectively With respect to the biggest challenge

● Incrementally improve around biggest challenge

● Review the challenges



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



Value stream mapping

● Weird name, important concept● The (often wide) path to getting things done● The activities that help get things done

effectively



Cost of Delay

● Value hard to assess● What if we dont do it● What if we dont

deliver when you want

● What else could you be doing ?



Predictability / Cadence

● Work towards smaller task

● Feedback from board helps you understand your capacity

● A 400Km cycle ride needs a good cadence to survive



Change at the speed of acceptance

● Effective change cannot be pushed

● kanban estoles pull, change should be pulled

● Odd that some many agile projects start and end with a big bang



Lean Startup

● Business canvas model● Real options● Last responsible moment● Least responsible change



Lessons from Service Desk

● Variation of personal kanban Sticky notes at the side of the keyboard One priority at once Need business reason to change priorities

Record reason and number of times you had to revisit the task



DevOps overload

● Lots of last minute patches

● Deployment like buses, nothing for a few days then three come at once for the same night

● DevOps have no time to script deployments

● Have to deal with long, boring deployment documents

● Repeatedly swiched from infrastructure work, vastly increasing time taken.



DevOps Goal keeper

● Team rotates people around role ● Goalkeeper fields all issues● Rest of team allowed to

focus on a (bigger) task● Use visual indicator to show

who is the Goalie



Summary of Kanban

● Visualse work● Manage WIP● Engage with business

Shared ownership● Encourage realistic

priorities

● Helps you stay sane

● Show you are productive

● Deal with micro-management


Final form of feed back

● Find a better company

● Start your own thing


Thank you



Feedback & Refs

● Website:

john.jr0cket.co.uk● Blog:

blog.jr0cket.co.uk● Email:

[email protected]


taking kanban to the masses - agile cambridge

Technology

purpose of kanban

personal kanbanapplied

london scala

london clojurians

teamshigh staff

directortells staff

mafia roleplay games

ukcommunity geek london