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Recipe for Success

Focus on QualityReduce (or limit) Work-in-ProgressBalance Demand against ThroughputPrioritize

And for advanced credit

Reduce variability in the process and its flow

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Map the value streamMeasure flow of valued work

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Example: Corbis Sustaining Eng

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Backlog Dev Queue

Dev

New

Approved

StartedOnHold

Test Queue

Test

Started OnHold

Resolved

Failed

UAT Queue

UAT

Started

Failed,Scope Changed

Passed

SOX

Production Queue

Complete

Passed

ClosedReleased

Transferred to Proj TeamPending Future Project

By DesignDuplicateWont Fix

No Repro

New

Analysis

More Info

InfoReceived

Abandoned

XIT Change Request

Resolved(needs

exception)

Re-opened

Example:MicrosoftXIT

Virtual Kanban limitinitially8 = WIP + 7 daysbuffer

Virtual Kanban limitinitially8 = WIP + 7 daysbuffer

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And chart the throughput throughthe value stream

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Manage quantitatively and objectivelyusing only a few simple metrics

QualityWIP (work-in-progress)Lead timeWaste / Efficiency

Throughput

Across those five:Trend

Variation

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Hold a monthly Operations Reviewand present all the data, invite

anyone who wants to come

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Educate the work force torecognize process problems that

affect performance

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Bottlenecks

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WasteIdentification

and Elimination

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Variability inprocesses and

flow of work

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Map the value stream and track workon a white board

Hold a standup meeting every day in

front of the board

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and track it electronically

Queries and Reports forspecific projects in this casesustaining engineering - can berun from within MS Outlook with a

single click

Results of Query 610 Dev Shows work items currently insoftware development plus anydefects associated with work-in-progress. Defects are not countedagainst kanban limit

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or create an application thatlooks like a whiteboard but

provides the archival advantage ofan electronic system

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Kanban limits create a pull system andwhite board provides visualization of flow

through to delivery

Pull

Flow from EngineeringReady to Release Ready

Kanban Limit regulates WIP at eachstage in the process

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Kanban tickets hold a lot of informationthat enable decentralized control and localdecision making when deciding priority of

items to pull through the system

Electronic ID number

Date Accepted clockstarts on SLA

Signifies item that has exceededSLA indicates that item should beprioritized if possible

Hard delivery date for regulatory, legal, orstrategic reasons

Issue attached tochange request indicates managementattention required

Assigned engineer

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Colors are used to designateclasses of service for work items

Change Requests andProduction Bugs Customervalued and prioritized bygoverning board

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Quantity of blue tickets on the board is animmediate indicator of development

quality that is impeding flow of customervalued work and reducing throughput

Engineering Defects directindicator of quality impact onproductivity, linked to yellowsticky, not counted againstkanban limit

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Non-customer valued but essential work istracked as a different class of work

IT Maintenance Work Technology department reservingcapacity for its own maintenance

difficult to prioritize withbusiness count against kanbanlimits

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Expediting the Silver Bullet

Process allows for a single Silver

Bullet expedite requestSilver bullet is hand carried throughthe system

Personal attention from projectmanager

Automatically jumps queuesRequired specialist resources dropother work in preference to workingthe s ilver bullet

Release dates may be adjusted to

accommodate required delivery date

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Extra Bug Special class of

production bug, worked by slack developer resources andspecially selected not to impactsolutions analysis. Tested bydevelopers not testers. Allowsmaximum exploitation forimproved throughput

Temporary classes of work may beintroduced tactically to maximize

exploitation of the system

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Kanban delivers iterationless development

Releases were agreed and planned for every2nd WednesdayPrioritization Board meetings were held everyMondayRelease content is bound and published only5 days priorPrioritization meetings are required only toanswer the question, Which items from thebacklog do we want to select this week to fillany empty slots in the input queue?Prioritization holds change request selectionuntil the last responsible moment It keeps (real) options open

b l l d l

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Kanban innovates on typical agile/iterative developmentby introducing a late binding release commitment

Kanban system breaks constraint of typicalagile/iterative 2-4 week cycleRequests can take up to 100 days toprocess but releases still made every 14daysAverage item takes 14 days of engineeringInput and sizing is decoupled from cadenceof releasesDecision on content of release made 5 daysprior to release

No estimation is done on individual itemsEffort to estimate is turned back toproductivity (analysis, coding, testing)

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Kanban uses a daily standup meeting as acentral enabler of a Kaizen culture

In this example more than 40 peopleattend a standup for a large project

with 6 concurrent developmentteams. The meeting is usually

completed in approximately 10

minutes. Never more than 15.

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Look how the board has changed by March!Empirically adjusted Kanban limits reacting to

industrial engineering issues. Much neaterpresentation pride in the process is forming

n aga n n pr more c anges o

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n aga n n pr , more c anges oKanban limits and forward extension of

the process to business analysis

W bi l i d d b

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Waste bin spontaneously introduced by team tovisually communicate rejected CRs that wasted

energy and sucked productivity

A d d il j d

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A report was created to detail rejected orcanceled work items

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Spontaneous Quality Circles started forming

Kanban board gives visibility into processissues ragged flow, transaction costs ofreleases or transfers through stages inprocess, bottlenecksDaily standup provides forum for

spontaneous association to attack processissues affecting productivity and lead timeFor example, 3 day freeze on testenvironment was a transaction cost onrelease that caused a bottleneck at buildstate. This was reduced to 24 hours after a3 person quality circle formed to investigatethe policies behind the freeze. Result wasimproved smooth flow resulting in higherthroughput and shorter lead time

O h li i l

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Other spontaneous quality circlekaizen events

Empirically adjusted kanban limits several timesE.g. test kanban too small, causing ragged flow

UAT state addedPrompted by test who were experiencing slack time

Expanded kanban limit on Build Ready state, addedTest Ready state

Introduced to smooth flow post release due toenvironment outage transaction cost

Introduced kanban board, daily standup, colored post-itnotes for different classes of service, notations on thepost-itsPoor requirements causing downstream waste resultedin an upstream inspection to eliminate issues withpoorly specified requests

S t b 2007 B i A l i d

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September 2007 Business Analysis andSystems Analysis merged eliminating 25% of

lead time consumed as queuing waste

A d h h i i b i i d d

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And the technique is being introduced tomajor projects with much longer time

horizons. This example has a monthlyintegration event rather than a releaseevery two weeks

5 h l i ifi h

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5 months later significant changes areevident

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Major project with two-tiered kanban board

M j P j t ith t ti d k b

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Major Project with two-tiered kanbanboard using swim lanes for feature sets

L t j j t i t bl

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Less mature major project in troubleadopts kanban to bring a focus to daily

routine and visibility to work-in-progress toteam and management

N t D T i t i g i kl

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Next Day Team is maturing quicklyand has refactored the board withswim lanes for functional areas

Bargaining Democracy & Collaboration

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Bargaining, Democracy & CollaborationFirst 8 weeks prioritization board wouldbargain against the available slots and WIPlimit

Ive got two small requests can you treat them asone?

People started to lobby each other and build

business cases to get items selectedFamiliarity with the system led to theconsensus decision to adopt a democraticprocess

3 months later it was evident that democracydidnt always select the best candidateAnd it was replaced with a collaborativeprocess based on strategic and current

tactical marketing objectives

The process has shown remarkable

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The process has shown remarkablerobustness to gaming from the business

Prioritization board consists of VPs from 6business unitsUnderstanding that expediting coststhroughput and lead time has resulted in anexpectation that only critical items qualify for

Silver Bullet statusAttempts to game prioritization by setting adelivery date are tightly scrutinized by theboardAs a result the process is self-regulating withthe prioritization board enforcing the anti-gaming rulesAs a result the Silver Bullet and delivery dateoptions are seldom used

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Achievinghigh

maturity requires ashift in

culture andmindset

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The Agilecommunity hasbeen slow to

embraceobjective,

quantitativetechniques that

drive for

predictableresults(CMMI Level 4)

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Predictability requires a focuson reducing variability

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Predictability can be used todrive competitive advantagethrough shorter lead times

h ll

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High Maturity allows a team tobe more agile to respond to

change faster

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Measures used in Kanban tofacilitate quantitative

measurement and predictability

Cumulative Flow

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Cumulative Flow

CR Only CR, Bugs and PDUs

WIP growth due to additionalresource allocation (good) and somesloppy management of kanban limits(bad)

Businessencouraged tore-triage backlog

Issue Management Cumulative Flow

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g

Executive Dashboard

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Revisiting Cumulative Flow

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g

CR Only

53 Days73 Days

35 Days38 Days

Lead Times are lengtheningagain due to environmentrebuild and business requesteddelay waiting for expediterequest

43 Days

Mean Lead Time Trend

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Mean Lead Time Trend

0.0

10.0

20.0

30.0

40.0

50.0

60.0

Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May

D a y s CRs

BugsCombo

SLA

Due Date Performance Detail

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Lead Time Distribution

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

1 6 1 1

1 6

2 1

2 6

3 1

3 6

4 1

4 6

5 1

5 6

6 1

6 6

7 1

7 6

8 1

8 6

9 1

9 6

1 0 1

1 0 6

Days

# C R s

MARCH

Lead Time Distribution

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

1 8 1 5 2 2 2 9 3 6 4 3 5 0 5 7 6 4 7 1 7 8 8 5 9 2 9 9 1 0 6

1 1 3

1 2 0

1 2 7

1 3 4

1 4 1

1 4 8

Days

C R s

& B u g

APRIL

Outliers

Majority of CRs range 30 -> 55

Kanban summary

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Kanban summaryCulture Change

Trust, empowerment, objective data measurement,collaborative team working and focus on quality

Policy ChangesLate-binding release scope, no estimating, late-bindingprioritization

Regular delivery cadenceCross-functional collaborationPreviously unheard of VP level selfless collaboration onbusiness priority

Self-regulating process robust to

gaming and abuseContinuous ImprovementIncreased throughput, high quality, process continuallyevolving, kanban limits empirically adjusted

K b i i

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Kanban is emerging as amethod to achieve agilityand high maturity

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Kanban creates the desiredcultural shift to an objective,

consensus-based, empoweredkaizen culture

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Kanban hasenabled agileteams to breakthrough toCMMI Level 4behaviors

Learn More about kanban

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Learn More about kanban

Join the Kanbandev Yahoo! GroupLeading thinkers

Corey LadasKarl ScotlandAaron Sanders

Eric WillekeEric LandesKenji HiranabeAlisson Vale

Kanban Collected Knowledgehttp://availagility.wordpress.com/kanban/

Agile Management Bloghttp://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/blog.html

http://availagility.wordpress.com/kanban/http://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/blog.htmlhttp://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/blog.htmlhttp://availagility.wordpress.com/kanban/

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About

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AboutDavid Anderson is a thought leader inmanaging effective software teams. He leadsa consulting firm dedicated to improving

economic performance of knowledge workerbusinesses improving agility, reducingcycle times, improving productivity andefficiency in technology development.

He has 25+ years experience in the softwareindustry starting with computer games in theearly 1980s. He has led software teams

delivering superior productivity and quality usinginnovative agile methods. He developed MSF for CMMI Process Improvement for Microsoft.He is a co-author of the SEI Technical Note,CMMI and Agile: Why not embrace both!

Davids book , Agile Management for SoftwareEngineering Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results , introducedmany ideas from Lean and Theory ofConstraints into software engineering.

David was a founder of the APLN , a not forprofit dedicated to promoting better standards ofleadership and management in knowledgeworker industries. Emaildja@agilemanagement net