Jon Terry, COO of LeanKit put together this presentation on Kanban - An Evolutionary Approach to Agile.

1. Team Members and Stakeholders can:Kanban
An Evolutionary Approach
to Agility

2. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Jon Terry is Chief Operating Officer of LeanKit. Before LeanKit, Jon
held a number of senior IT positions with hospital-giant HCA and its
subsidiary, HealthTrust Purchasing Group. He was among those
responsible for launching HCA’s adoption of Lean/Agile methods.
Jon earned his Global Executive MBA from Georgetown University
and ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, and his Masters
Certificate in Project Management from George Washington
University. He is a Project Management Professional, a Certified
Scrum Master and a Kanban Coaching Professional.
follow @leankitjon
ABOUT JON TERRY

3. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Agile
Scrum
XP
Lean /
Kanban
Agile
Scrum
Avoid a
narrow IT-
focused view
of modern
management
methods

4. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1960s-1980s 1980s 1990s 2000s Today
TOC
Just-In-Time
Kanban
Lean
Manufacturing
Lean
Healthcare
Lean Software
Development
Lean
Construction
Toyota
Production
System
Six Sigma
TQM
Agile
XP
Scrum
Focus on rapid flow and feedback vs.
planning and “efficiency.”
A Broader Perspective

5. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Visualize the (current) workflow
2. Implement feedback loops
3. Manage (for smooth) flow
4. Make process policies explicit
5. Limit Work-in-Progress (WIP) *
6. Improve collaboratively
using Kanban to become Lean
THE KANBAN METHOD Evolution
The
quickest
path to
agility is to
start from
where you
are today.
* Often implicitly at first

6. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
This is Greek to me. So are many/most
project deliverables to non-specialists

7. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
A picture translates complexity into a
simple pattern we can all digest

8. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Have each team member write
down a few of their current work
items
2. Ask each person to pick one at a
time
3. Have them describe:
– What am I doing to it now?
– Who had it before and what were
they doing with it?
– Who will I hand it to next, to do
what?
Visualize
Workflow
Map out
your real,
current
process

9. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Cards are (usually) nouns, lanes are verbs

10. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Have each team member list their
current workload
2. Have them assign each item a
type: UX feature, API feature,
defect, task, etc
3. Collate the work types they
defined into one list and assign
each a card color
4. Turn the lists into cards and place
them in the correct lane on the
board
Catalog
the Work
As the
manager,
only add
your
“official”
list after.

11. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Be succinct and focus on results. Try to
limit types of work

12. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Stop at current state, resist the urge to
“improve” now

13. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Allow a fixed time period – 10-
15 min
2. Ensure board is complete &
accurate
3. Are there expedites or
blockers?
4. Otherwise, walk the board from
right to left a card at a time
– What’s needed to advance this item?
– Who can help?
5. Stop when time runs out
Feedback
Loops
Daily
standups
focus on
value &
completion,
not activity

14. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Hold regular retrospectives …. but stop-
the-line for bottlenecks

15. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?
2. Common root cause answers:
– Hidden WIP
– Stop starting, start finishing
– Downstream/external blockages
– Uneven sizing
– Parallel processes
– Rework
3. Let data be your guide
Feedback
Loops
Retrospectives
focus on critical
issues, & small
incremental
changes

16. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Control charts allow targeted process
improvement
Easily see typical delivery patterns vs outliers and drill into them

17. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Look for trends in your delivery speed for different
work
In time, better decomposition & effective categorization can replace estimates

18. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Splitting process steps into active/waiting
queues makes flow more clear

19. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Swimlanes can represent different
workflows or partner teams

20. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Once work visible & process is clear, WIP
limits can balance capacity

21. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Eliminate
Waste
Build Quality
In
Create
Knowledge
Defer
Commitment
Deliver
Fast
Respect
People
Optimize the
Whole
Lean PD
System
Process
1. Work-In-Process
2. Delays
3. Extra Features
4. Technical Debt
5. Handoffs
6. Task Switching
7. Defects
Lean Principles nicely map to &
enhance Agile IT best practices

22. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
1. Visualize the (current) workflow
2. Implement feedback loops
3. Manage (for smooth) flow
4. Make process policies explicit
5. Limit Work-in-Progress (WIP) *
6. Improve collaboratively
using Kanban to become Lean
THE KANBAN METHOD REITERATED Evolution
The
quickest
path to
agility is to
start from
where you
are today.
* Often implicitly at first

23. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Release 1
Iteration 1
Iteration
Planning
Daily
Standup
Demo /
Retro
Iteration n
Iteration
Planning
Daily
Standup
Demo /
Retro
Iteration
Backlog
Fixed Time and Resource
Not
Done
Iteration
Backlog
Not
Done
Product
Owner
Ideas
Product Backlog
Release Planning
Release Backlog
Scrum mandates new roles, “rituals” and
cadence for a small team.
THE SCRUM PROCESS Scrum
master

24. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
Scrum
• A structure of new roles, “rituals” and cadence
• No prohibition against visualization, WIP
limitation or flow measurement
• A mature scrum team with good technical
practices often looks awfully Kanban-ish
Kanban
• Evolution through measurement
• No opinion on roles or iterations
• Software dev teams who use Kanban to
become more Agile often act quite Scrum-my
WHERE’S THE CONFLICT? You can
do both.

25. Team Members and Stakeholders can:
The Phoenix Project: A Novel About IT, DevOps,
and Helping Your Business Win
Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, George Spafford
Implementing Lean Software Development:
From concept to cash
Mary and Tom Poppendieck
Kanban: Successful evolutionary change for your
technology business
David J. Anderson
LeanKit.com for blog posts, case studies, and more!
FURTHER LEARNING
Thank You!