Learn how to implement a Kanban system into your company.

1. Extrem improvements
in five quarters
Kanban - Chapter 4

2. Introduction
• Dragos Dumitru became Programm-Manager
in Oktober 2004
• contractor in india responsible for software
maintenance of the XIT business unit
• team consisted of 3 developers, 3 testers and
local managers

3. The problem
• team with the worth reputation regarding
customer service
• long lead times
• political environment of his work
• but many requirements in a very high quality

4. The visualization of the
workflow

5. Factors with impact on
productivity
• cost estimation for every requirement
• monthly meeting for prioritization
• 70 or more requirements newly planned and
prioritized

6. Factors with impact on
productivity
• wasted time and supplies - not used data
• 11 days for one average requirement
• cost estimations (ROM) consume a lot of effort
• additional tasks in form of PTCs

7. Workflow with ROM and
PTC

8. Make process rules explicit
• team follows the process
• a process is a set of rules which determine
their behavior
• process contains unfavorable rules

9. Estimations represent waste
• team should no longer estimate
• free capacities for developing und testing
• improvements of predictability

10. Restrict
Work In Progress
• WIP: 1 requirement per developer and tester
• additional queue for PTCs

11. Establish a rhythms for
the input
• weekly meeting with product manager
• guaranteed delivery time of 25 days after
placing an order

12. Workflow with WIP limits
and queues

13. Proposal for a new
arrangement
• weekly prioritization meeting
• restricted WIP
• no more team estimations
• delivery after 25 days

14. Introduce changes
• many were doubtful
• but it worked
• satisfied delivery time
• meetings proceeded with problems

15. Adapt the rules
• every entry older than 6 months will be
deleted from backlog
• developer alert manager, if requirement is too
big
• weekly meetings were omitted

16. Lookout for further
improvements
• developer as bottleneck, therefore 2 testers
and 4 developers
• increase the quality of performance
• enhancement of the budget for 2 additional
team members

17. Compensation of
ressources

18. The result
• increased performance
• reduced lead time
• satisfy delivery dates
• no changes to software developing process

19. Conclusion
• KANBAN enables
• incremental changes
• changes with little political risk
• improvements without major changes of the
developing methods