Practical Experiences and Tools Applied to a Kanban Sustaining

Engineering System

Alisson ValeTechnical Leader

http://alissonvale.com/

Looking for Sustentability in

Software Development

Practical experiences using Lean and Kanbansince Jan/2008...

...and tooling experimentations.

some self-introduction...

Coming from...

Brazil

1994 2003

Developer

Business Analyst

System

Architect

Manager

Professional Timeline

2009

Brasília

1994 2003

Programmer

Business Analyst

System

Architect

Manager

Professional Timeline

2009

Brasília

1994 2003

Professional Timeline

2004

1994 2003

Professional Timeline

2004 2008 2009

Vitória

1994 2003

Professional Timeline

2004 2008 20092006

Heavy paticipation inBrazilian Agile Community

1994 2003

Professional Timeline

2004 2008 2009

1994 2003

Professional Timeline

2004 2008 2009

1994 2003

Professional Timeline

2004 2008 2009

Where do I Came From?

Brazil

Who are we?...

We offer software

and services for educationalinstitutions

ERPfor

Universities and Schools

More than200

operations

100%Web-based

1.000 webpages

almost 1Milion

lines of C# code

about our product...

We have two types of customers...

The big ones..15,000 students or more

Requireconstant evolution andcustomization

The big ones..15,000 students or more

higher budget for IT

The small ones..3,000 students or less

Very low budget for IT services

The small ones..3,000 students or less

constant evolution is not required but is welcome

The small ones..3,000 students or less

no hosting infra-structure(a shared datacenter is used)

both are looking for a stable and long term relationship with their software vendor(SaaS)

Contracts andAgreements

We have long term contracts that provide

sustainability for us and stability for them

our agreements

Quick resolution of problems

Help in using and getting benefits from the product

Problem Solving Agreement

Support Agreement

Improvements for Sustainability

Keeping the current business processes running by doing adaptations and customizations

New Value Agreement Keeping the product up-to-date, adding new capabilities and generating new business opportunities

These agreements are conflicting perceptions of

Value

A Mutual Trust Relationship emerges

when we create balancebetween those agreements

The Management Model

Most obvious Management Model

Support Team Development Team

Group for unplanned work

ServicesNew

SoftwareBugs and

emergencies

Most obvious Management Model

Support Team Development Team

Group for unplanned work

ServicesNew

SoftwareBugs and

emergencies

Different, non-integrated and non-value based purposes

X

Poor communication

unpredictable

X

Negative influences

Competition over collaboration

Our Management Model

Create sustainability and a Mutual Trust Relationship with

our customers by delivering software and services

continuously

Integrated Work Cells

Single Purpose

Our Management Model

DemandManagement

WIP Management

Delivery Management

Agreements and Classes of Services

Problem Solving Agreement

Support Agreement

Improvements for Sustainability

New Value Agreement

Different perceptions of value are integrated in a single piece flow through the process

Demand Managementthe injection of work into the system

Size ApplicabilityTime

Associated SLAVisual

Signalization

Reference-1The size reference.

1 or 2 days 3 days

Reference-3Three times more

complex or difficult

than the reference.

3 or 4 days 5 days

Reference-5Five times more

complex or difficult

than the reference.

5 to 10 days 15 days

Setting ExpectationsSLA References

The Front of the System

The Front of the SystemPreparation Areas: Planned and Unplanned

The 7 most important items

2 weeks of work in average for planned items

The Front of the SystemPlanned and Unplanned Areas

The slot is empty because the item was pulled

PULL

The Front of the SystemPlanned and Unplanned Areas

The new empty space formed at the bottom signalizes the need to pull another card from the previous stage

PULL

The Front of the SystemWaiting for LRM Area

The previous stage contains 14 cards waiting for a chance to go forward along the prioritization filter

The Front of the System

Waiting for a chance to reach the next level on the priority filter

The Backlog

The prioritization filter makes the demand flow until reaching the WIP

area

Some tools are available to help us with the

prioritization process

Information about the percentage of demand injected for each customer

Spliting System Capacity

serving smallercustomers andcontinuously improvingwith surplus capacity

Spliting System Capacity

What about the work that is being done right now?

WIP Management

We have areas where each Team Member organizes the work that they are involved in at the moment.

What cards are we working onright now?Limit = 1/team member

The Team is responsiblefor the quality assurance ofits own work

Everyone is a qualityinspector

Cards are assigned for inspections using twopolicies:

#1 – A queue for team members#2 - Expertise

Something went wrong here!

Policy: Stop and Fix it!

Pre-assigned or interrupted work

1 23

4

5

What is the most important thing to do next?

Policy1. Feedback First 2. Inspection 3. Enqueued 4. In Progress 5. Input Area

This panel signalizes team overloading

PolicyWhen the WIP level gets high we stop pulling from input and start helping each other finish what is in progress

Preventing excessive injection of work into the WIP area

Collaboration is a key mechanism to balance WIP levels by

Promoting faster reduction of the work level in WIP

X

Collaboration

Cards move vertically to get more people involved

Collaboration

“hands-off” is motivated by the need of Collaboration

not Specialization

Collaboration

These vertical movements generate small and self-organized groups around a card without management intervention

Collaboration

A card might become an invitation for collaboration and conversation

Collaboration

69

The Team is notified when a card is moved on the Kanban board or when someone adds a note to it

Electronic tools keep the team aware of what is happening

Collaboration

Delivery Management

Business Activities

It’s not just about

features

Business Activities

Their progress is followed by Parking Lots on our board

Business Activities are Atomic!

Finished cards associated to Business Activities remain in a “Waiting for Release” stage until the whole package is done

They move to the “Release Ready Area” as one single package.

While other cards go to this area individually

The Release Ready Area contains features and

services ready to be sent back to the customer

A Sign to stop the line...

7304

2.0.6.807

7286

2.0.6.806

Release Ready

WIP

The build 807 is suspected because there is a previous version which is

still in WIP

A red light warns the team not to release the

Build

After we send the release or service back to the customer,

we finally label the work as “Delivered.”

Traceability andRelease per Feature

TraceabilityFrom the board to

theTracking System

82

TraceabilityFrom the

board to theBuild Report

83

Full Automated Deployment

...is about manage the risks involved in advancing from

release N to N+1

Delivery Management...

Quick Demo

Read more...Blog Articleshttp://alissonvale.com/englishblog

Interview on InfoQ Brazil (Portuguese)http://www.infoq.com/br/news/2009/01/brasil-representacao-conferencia

The History of a Kanban System (Portuguese)http:// alissonvale.com/englishblog/post/A-Historia-de-um-Sistema-Kanban.aspx

Kanban: When Signalization Mattersalissonvale.com/englishblog/post/Kanban-When-Signalization-Matters.aspx

ContactMail: alisson.vale@phidelis.com.brBlog: http://alissonvale.com/englishblogTwitter: http://twitter.com/alissonvale

Thank You!