KANBANOptimising for predictability
Topics
Principles & Definitions Visualising workflow Limiting work in progress (WIP) Measuring & Reporting Continuous improvement Benefits to Kanban Q&A (if I can)
Topics
Principles & Definitions Visualising workflow Limiting work in progress (WIP) Measuring & Reporting Continuous improvement Benefits to Kanban Q&A (if I can)
LEAN
Principles & Definitions
“A methodology for managing the flow of work to allow for evolutionary change”
Is based on visualisation Follows a pull not push principle Believes in constraining the process to improve predictability and
quality Has continuous improvement at its core
Visualising workflow
Visualising workflowThe
board
Visualising workflowA set of columns that are defined
by the team
Visualising workflowThey are
activities and not job roles
Visualising workflow
Work in progress
Visualising workflow
Work done (in the buffer)
Visualising workflow
Lead time
Visualising workflow
Visualising workflow
Cycle time
Visualising workflow
Visualising workflow
“Houston we have a problem!”
Visualising workflow
WIP limits / constraints
Limiting WIP
Following a lean principle Kanban limits the work in progress to encourage a JIT delivery of features from one stage to the next
Limiting WIP
Limits can be controversial in is almost certainly why Kanban adoption fails.
Some calculations can be done as a starting point for how teams should set their limits
– DEVELOPMENT = ½ of development resources• This encourages paired programming, better training and knowledge share amongst
the team and ultimately better quality code
– ANALYSIS/ELABORATION = ½ of development limit– TESTING = 2/3 of development limit– DEPLOYMENT = 1
Limiting WIP
Limits can be controversial in is almost certainly why Kanban adoption fails.
Some calculations can be done as a starting point for how teams should set their limits
– DEVELOPMENT = ½ of development resources• This encourages paired programming, better training and knowledge share amongst
the team and ultimately better quality code
– ANALYSIS/ELABORATION = ½ of development limit– TESTING = 2/3 of development limit– DEPLOYMENT = 1
Agencies = 3 stories for
every 4 devs.
Limiting WIP: Example
Limiting WIP: Example
Bottleneck
Limiting WIP: Example
BA or Dev resource could help to test to
clear this bottleneck
Limiting WIP: ExamplePull = Flow
Measuring & Reporting
We use Cumulative Flow Diagrams to assess:– Bottlenecks– Lead time– Cycle time
From these we can determine where we need to address issues in quality, invest in training or add additional resources to the team
Reporting is done daily so we start seeing feedback very quickly
Measuring & Reporting
Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement is about polishing with tiny changes. It is not about drastic changes to processes and systems.
It can be project specific in terms of tools or resources. It could be more generic, such as knowledge sharing and
fostering a culture of collaboration. The following are the things that I believe can make the biggest
impact…
Continuous Improvement: CI
Get as close to one click deployments as you can Train a DevOps team to be responsible for regular deployments Consider innovative approached to infrastructure making it easy
to setup and teardown environments Invest in automated testing at both unit and functional levels that
can be executed at deployment Focus on zero downtime deployments
Continuous Improvement: T-shaped People
Its important to embrace that we can all do more than our job title– As a BA I can do some testing. I could even do a little bit of HTML!!– Our designers can do HTML– Our HTML people can do some designing– Our developers could test each others code
Continuous Improvement: T-shaped People
Its important to embrace that we can all do more than our job title– As a BA I can do some testing. I could even do a little bit of HTML!!– Our designers can do HTML– Our HTML people can do some designing– Our developers could test each others code
All of you could do my
job, it’s easy ;-)
Benefits to Kanban
The output of deliverables becomes predictable– Which means forecasting becomes predictable– In theory the process also becomes scalable to increase predictable outputs
It breaks down walls and encourages ‘team delivery’– Everyone is focused in shipping features, not just the guy at the end of the
process
It encourages greater collaboration and innovation– Teams focus on finding leaner ways of doing things that take less time or cost
less
Q&AIf we have time...
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