Lean Kanban:Our Journey So FarHow we improved the way we work, increasing business agility with Lean Kanban.

Lean Kanban

1. Our Fears

2. Our Experience

3. Our Mistakes

Lean Kanban

1. Our Fears

2. Our Experience

3. Our Mistakes

Who are we?

• Small, agile team

• Client-facing developers

• Consulting and professional services

What do we do?

• Effort divided across three work streams:

- Develop software

- Assist OpenMarket Sales

- Support live clients

How were we doing it?

• Software Development

• Agile; manual scheduling

• Sales

• Best effort

• Client-support

• As required

• Resources distributed reactively

How was that working out?

• Delivered software on time

• Problems:

- Work stream starvation

- Predictions were unreliable

- Difficult to react

Introduction to Lean Kanban

• Two days in May 2014

• Myself and my tech lead

What we liked

• Lots of things

What we feared

• Model all work items the same

• Impose strict WIP limits

• Past measurements inform future predictions

What we feared

• Model all work items the same

• Impose strict WIP limits

• Past measurements inform future predictions

Model all work items the same• Technical sales• Product demos• RFPs• Security audits• Requirements gathering• Solutions design• Client training• Product maintenance• Managed services• Platform integration• Custom reporting• Bespoke web applications

Model all work items the same

If we model all work items the same, won’t our lead times and run rate vary wildly?

What we feared

• Model all work items the same

• Impose strict WIP limits

• Past measurements inform future predictions

Impose strict WIP limits

• Constrained resources

• Small team

• Lots of customers

• Limit work in progress

• Reduced utilisation

Impose strict WIP limits

• Constrained resources

• Small team

• Lots of customers

• Limit work in progress

• Reduced utilisation

Impose strict WIP limits

If we stick to strict WIP limits, won’t we get less done?

What we feared

• Model all work items the same

• Impose strict WIP limits

• Past measurements inform future predictions

Past measurements inform predictions

• Effort is:

- divided across Sales, clients and dev

- allocated reactively

- allocated inconsistently

- unevenly distributed

Past measurements inform predictions

Last week:

Last week:

Past measurements inform predictions

Last week:

Past measurements inform predictions

Last week:

Past measurements inform predictions

Last week:

Past measurements inform predictions

? ? ? ? ? ? ? Next week:

Last week:

Next week:

Past measurements inform predictions

Last week:

Next week:

Past measurements inform predictions

Past measurements inform predictions

If every day is different, won’t predictions based on past measurements be useless?

It all averages out, over time.

Reassuring assertion

We were sceptical

Why Lean Kanban?

• We had problems to tackle:

- Work stream starvation

- Predictions were unreliable

- Difficult to react

• We were curious

Lean Kanban

1. Our Fears

2. Our Experience

3. Our Mistakes

Were our fears justified?

• Model all work items the same

• Impose strict WIP limits

• Past measurements inform future predictions

Were our fears justified?

• Model all work items the same

- If we model all work items the same, won’t our lead times and run rate vary wildly?

Model all work items the same

• Divided work into categories

• Tracked metrics per category

• High lead time variance

• Low run rate variance

• Many categories had similar profiles

Model all work items the same

• Merged categories over time:

• Pre-Sales

• Sales demos, RFPs, requirements gathering, etc.

• Post-Sales

• Software development

Model all work items the same

• High variance

• Conservative scheduling

• Working to reduce

• Scheduling:

• Easy

• Reliable

Were our fears justified?

• Impose strict WIP limits

- If we stick to strict WIP limits, won’t we get less done?

Pre-Sales Development

Not started

In progress

In review

Delivered

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2 3

The board

Impose strict WIP limits

• Output has stayed about the same

• Professional Services:

• Steady stream

• Projects take longer

• More predictable

• No work stream starvation

Were our fears justified?

• Past measurements inform future predictions

- If every day is different, won’t predictions based on past measurements be useless?

Use past measurements to inform future predictions

• Scheduling based on run rate and lead time

• It does seem to be working

• Increasingly confident

• Treat the team as a ‘black box’

• Predictions based on past measurements:

- Easy

- Accurate

• More reactive

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Use past measurements to inform future predictions

Lean Kanban

1. Our Fears

2. Our Experience

3. Our Mistakes

Traps we fell into

• Making changes

- Before you understand your current process

- Before you have good data

- Before you have any data

- Making changes all the time

Traps we fell into

• Complexity creep

- New rules for every exception

- Fixing problems with process

- Swim lanes everywhere

Traps we fell into

• Misplaced confidence

- You want your new system to deliver

- Your real lead times might sound bad

Traps we fell into

• Failure to communicate

• Good communication is key

- Fear within

- Confusion outside

Summary

• Consistent, predictable

• Low overhead

• More reactive

The Future

• More work to be done

• Committed to continuous improvement with Kanban

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Questions?

Pre-sales

• Technical sales, RFPs

• Optimised for quick turnaround

- First come, first served

• Time-boxed to 25% of available time

Post-Sales

• Software development

• Optimised for predictability

- Roadmapped commitments

• Time-boxed to 50% of available time

Client support

• Reacting to client system failure, questions

• Optimised for responsiveness

• Time is unrestricted