Slide deck from talk given at General Assembly on 20 October 2015

1. AN
INTRODUCTION
TO KANBAN
David Lowe
#GA_Kanban

2. Doing
too much
Don’t know
where we are
Can’t see
our position
Can’t predict
our output
Not all playing by the
same rules
Revolutionary
change
Not improving

3. David Lowe
Agile & lean coach
Scrum & Kanban Ltd
@bigpinots

4. Before we start
The Kanban Method is …
a set of ideas (not prescribed processes)
for knowledge work (not manufacturing)
from lean (not agile)

6. No “Big Bang” changes

7. No “Big Bang” changes
Foundational principles:
1. Start with what you do now
2. Respect the current process, roles,
responsibilities & titles
3. Agree to pursue evolutionary change

8. 6 core properties

9. 1) Visualise your work

10. Map current processes;
not roles
Identify dominant activities
that discover new knowledge
Visualise your work

11. Visualise your work
Helps you understand
how work flows through
your system
Helps spot areas
needing change

12. Visualise your work
Common to translate
processes to a board
Consider how best to
visualise your workflow
different types
of work
different
priorities
different
customers
blocked items
of work
who is working
on what

13. 2) Limit work-in-
progress

14. Limit WIP
East Gardens, Imperial Palace, Tokyo

15. Limit WIP
East Gardens, Imperial Palace, Tokyo

16. Limit WIP
?
East Gardens, Imperial Palace, Tokyo

17. Limit WIP
Using a pull system?
Agree capacity of the system
Use tokens (e.g. cards) to denote capacity
Attach a token to each piece of work
When run out of tokens, stop taking on new work
Only take on new work when a token is available
(one in, one out)
System can’t become
overloaded

18. Limit WIP
Many believe that working on multiple items
at the same time increases efficiency
But allowing too much work in progress at
the same time can have negative effects …
… as can having too little
Aim is to get WIP limits to the “sweet spot”
where you have the optimal flow

19. Limit WIP
Fast food drive-thru video to explain:
WIP limits
Cycle Time/Lead Time
Delivery Rate
“WIP: why limiting work in progress makes sense” on YouTube
http://youtu.be/W92wG-HW8gg

20. Limit WIP
Limiting WIP helps because it:
encourages swarming
encourages small work items
encourages flow of work
encourages finishing work items
“Focus on finishing things, not working on
things”

21. Limit WIP
Start with what you have now …
Can you:
Limit WIP per column on the board?
Limit WIP per section of the board?
Limit WIP across the whole board?
Limit WIP across the whole organisation?

22. 3) Manage flow

23. Manage flow
Measuring the flow of work through your
system helps you identify problems
Every process has at least one bottleneck
Your system can only work as fast as your
slowest point
So make changes to your process in an
attempt to improve flow

24. Scrum has a burn down chart
Kanban has a variety of reports:
Cumulative Flow Diagram
Scatterplot
Histogram
Manage flow

25. Manage flow - CFD
The CFD shows us:
Flow of items through process
Current level of WIP
Lead/Cycle Time
Bottleneck warnings

26. Manage flow - Scatterplot
The Scatterplot shows us:
Cycle Time variability
Outliers
Standard percentile lines (e.g. 85%)
“Investigate
performance to attack
sources of variability”

27. Manage flow - Histogram
The Histogram shows us:
Frequency of each Lead/Cycle Time
A guide for the time that future stories will
take
Gives us much greater
understanding than a
burn down chart!

28. 4) Make policies
explicit

29. Make policies explicit
It’s difficult to improve a situation if you don’t
know the rules (responses will be emotional
and subjective)
Acknowledge any policies in your process by
stating them explicitly

30. Make policies explicit
Entry criteria
Definition of ‘Done’
Classes of Service
Standard
Expedite
Fixed
Intangible

31. 5) Feedback
loops

32. Showcases
Feedback loops
Operations Reviews
Review data and experiences regularly.
Encourage feedback from inside and outside
the team:
RetrospectivesStand-ups
Customer feedback Stakeholders

33. 6)Evolutionary
improvements

34. Improve collaboratively,
evolve experimentally
Use scientific method
Continuous evolutionary improvements
(“Kaizen”), rather than revolutionary change
All the other Kanban ideas lead to this and
should provide data to help improve
Start where you are now. Seek to “attack the
sources of variability” in your processes

35. Different work types
Sources of variability
Different sizes of work
Having to rework items
Different classes of service
Accepting unknown work
Environmental / platform problems

36. Although it’s from lean,
it shouldn’t break the
Agile Manifesto
Set of ideas;
not prescribed process
Evolutionary change,
not revolution
Knowledge work;
not manufacturing
Pull system;
not push system

37. David J. Anderson
“Kanban”
Mike Burrows
“Kanban from the inside”
That’s the basics … want more?

38. That’s the basics … want more?
scrumandkanban.co.uk

39. General Assembly and I would love to
hear your honest feedback: you will
receive an email requesting feedback on
today’s session shortly.
We encourage you to complete this as it
will allow us to improve the quality and
value we provide.
Thank you.