Kanban is The New Scrum! - Agile Tour Paris

Shahin Sheidaei | @sheidaei | sheidaei.com | © Elevate Change Inc.
Kanban is The New Scrum!
Shahin Sheidaei
@sheidaei

Entrepreneur & Coach
Trouble Maker & Problem Solver!
15 Credentials in Agile & Counting
Scrum, Kanban, Change, DevOps, Agile, Linux, J2EE, ...
Hello, It’s Nice to Meet You!
Shahin Sheidaei
Founder & Principal Coach
Elevate Change Inc.
Elevate To Coach Program Agile Games Canada

In Your Experience, Which is Most Successful When
it Comes to Agile Transformation?
1. Go to sli.do (www.sli.do)
2. Enter code #agiletour
3. Enter your thoughts
3

A very quick introduction on Kanban and Scrum
David Anderson initial work of 2004 at Microsoft
David Anderson work 2006–2007 project at
Corbis in which the kanban method was
identified.
4
1986 HBR article “The New New Product
Development Game”, Takeuchi and Nonaka
In 1995, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber,
”The SCRUM Development Process”
sli.do #agiletour

Shahin Sheidaei | @sheidaei | sheidaei.com | © Elevate Change Inc. 5

My Engagement with a Government Organization
First Story!
Are you ready?
7

Government Story
Kanban
CIO Direction
8

Government Story
Kanban
A big program to go Agile
Support for transformation
visible
Sign: big consulting
company there
Success with Kanban Very
Early
A big program to go Agile
Support for transformation
visible
Sign: a huge room used
for visualization of flow
9

Government Story
Kanban
Scrum
Everyone else doing
scrum
We don’t need much
support as before.
We can do it, we learned
all secrets
Scrum seems to be easy
for Dev teams!
Successful
Let’s expand that to other
part of organization
10

Government Story
Kanban
Scrum
Still lots of handoffs, many
miscommunication,
missed requirements ...
Still lots of dependencies,
with other teams to make it
Done Done!
Scrum working well for
Dev teams.
However, we don’t see
Done Done!
11

Government Story
Nature of work disruptive
People not attending
events (what’s sprint
planning)
Seeing SM as not effective
For Infrastructure Teams
Tried “Scrum”
Not as expected
Security Tooling Incident Infra
12

Government Story
Kanban Kanban
Scrum
Infrastructure teams
“Nature” fits Kanban very
well.
CIO changed.
Let’s do Kanban.
We know how to do it!
Hire coaches to help with
Kanban
Scrum is good for small
dev teams.
What shall we do about
externals to the team?
13

Government Story
Kanban for the
Infrastructure Team
It’s a gentle change, meet
them where they are
...
It’s a flow, let’s Kanban! Security Tooling Incident Infra
14
My
Engagement
Started Here

Government Story
Started locally, to elevate
all to a level that we can
talk about flow.
To show them the
common denominator to
agree upon.
If you think about it, each
providing a service.
Although the systematical
looking was a service for
Dev teams.
15

Government Story
We got some local to
whole flow optimization:
Agree on Dissatisfactions
was not there: The basis
of evolution.
Each providing a service.
Changes of managers in
between, managers
contractors, not there for
the full picture.
16

What Happened at Last?
Was it the culture the root
cause?
A complex domain it is.
No more consultants!
On process, quality,
project delivery ...
No more transformations!
Organization-wide cease.
Was it the layers of
Decision Making?
Was it the vision?
17

What’s the Lesson?
● Locally Optimizing can be done in Kanban
or Scrum
○ None would be effective
● Leadership Direction
○ Constant vision about Transformation
helps a lot
● No real urgency
○ Business Model Monopoly
● Speed to market not a concern
○ Customer have to come to them
● Shall we put all pins on Culture?
○ We saw an organization that raised
thought leader and lost them too
Why Not Adopt Kanban (Principles):
Do not Adopt it if you can’t find an environment
in which it’s Principles can impoverish: (in this
case)
● Agree to pursue improvement through
evolutionary change
● Encourage acts of leadership at every
level
● Focus on the customer
18

Is that All? More Story? Around It? In Depth?
19

Speed of “things” ...
Startup
Telecommunications
Banks
Government
20

Work/Life Balance
After a month
No one showed up
This was for a session to
agree on change
21

Doers v.s. Deciders
Security Tooling
Incident
Support
Infrastru
cture
4 Senior
Leadership
w/o CIO
Team of 6
22

Decision Making
Complicated Decision
Making
By people not doing the
groundwork
23

Kanban or Scrum? What’s the Real Lesson?
It doesn’t matter what you pick!
24
It even doesn’t matter if your culture is ready or not!
It matters how much you are prepared for change.

The Real Lesson?
25

The Big Bank Story
Biggest Bank in Canada
It has presence in US as well, and huge there too!
Agile Program Coach
For a multi-million dollar program expanding over
multiple years
Few hundreds people program
27
Rapid Kanban
Scrum

The Big Bank Story
Teams are Agile for over 2
years (they are mature)
Value Streams, SoS,
Product Owner ...
My perception:
Transforming VPs and
Directors and what they do
28

The Big Bank Story
They had their own
framework. Umbrella Level
It works for them I said!
Top down
Scrum
Masters
Scrum
Master
29
My
Engagement
Started Here

The Big Bank Story
Felt more like this!
Scrum
Masters
Scrum
Master
30

The Big Bank Story
My Initial Understanding of
the program.
More Vertical.
PM ⇒ SM
Scrum
Masters
Scrum
Master
31

The Big Bank Story
Scrum
Masters
Scrum
Master
32
Two Pizza Rule!

The Big Bank Story
SoS run by Program
Manager (Status update)
Scrum
Masters
Program
Manager
33

Middle Managers heavily
involved
Rely on Middle Managers
a lot, not much self
empowerment
Scrum
Masters
Program
Manager
Middle Managers take part
in Retro and take action
items
They tell what others have
to improve on!
34
The Big Bank Story

UI Mid MFDB
Order of n^2
That’s for when we know
the nodes in the graph!
35

Communication
Complexity increases at
the order of n^2 with any
addition to the system.
UI Mid MFDB
Scrum
Masters
Program
Manager
36

Communication, it’s not all
that!
MainFrame One man
Show
UI Mid MFDB
Scrum
Masters
Program
Manager
Agile in Budgeting land
Move to Product Model
37
The Big Bank Story

Chief Product Owner, Duh!
Decides amongst the
Product Owners
UI Mid MFDB
Scrum
Masters
Program
Manager
We never stop working on
“things” it is a product after
all
38
The Big Bank Story

Give up, Kanban is a
gentle approach to change
Start from where you are!
UI Mid MFDB
Scrum
Masters
Program
Manager
It’s a flow, it’s not fit for
Scrum
Path of no resistance.
Let’s do
Kanban!
39

UI Mid MFDB
M
Scrum
Masters
Program
Manager
40

Middle Managers still not
agree need to change UI Mid MFDB
M
Scrum
Masters
Program
Manager
Old habits from Scrum
days (doesn't matter which
framework)
Wait Still
...
41

Locally looking at the
flows.
We’re locally optimizing
UI Mid MFDB
Scrum
Masters
Program
Manager
Relying on middle
managers.
Making it efficient rather
than effective.
Result
42

What Happened at Last?
Was it the “Scrum” for
them?
It’s a complex domain.
No Transformation
Director left!
No more transformations!
Was it the silos?
Was it the middle
managers?
43

Prioritize the followings over introducing Kanban
● Become productive over following the
hype
● Breaking the Silos
● Culture of Blame, Finger Pointing
● Locally Optimizing, thinking about your
immediate gain v.s. the system
● Encourage Bravery
○ Willingness to address the root causes
Why Not Adopt Kanban (Principles):
Do Adopt if you can find an environment in
which:
● You can get to agree to pursue
improvement through evolutionary change
● You can encourage acts of leadership at
every level
● You can focus on the customer
44

It doesn’t matter what you pick!
45

True Kanban Story
Another Financial Store
47

True Kanban Story
Let’s pick the easiest
project.
The one with the highest
chance of success.
We might use JIRA too!
That’s Agile!
48
Kanban
Scrum

True Kanban Story
We did not know what
Agile shall be.
Let’s get together and
figure it out.
We sit around a table, and
will call it Agile.
We make it happen!
49

True Kanban Story
We give it all the support
they need.
All the escalation needed.
All the support needed.
All the push needed.
50

True Kanban Story
It was successful!
Let’s expand it.
The nature of the work and
the people working in it,
are used to language of
service.
51

True Kanban Story
Vola! You are amazing!
Let’s do more complex
work in Agile. (Scale)
We picked the easiest
project. The one that has
the highest chance of
success.
At the same time:
In larger organization we
are making movement
toward agile and we need
a standard!
52

True Kanban Story
Start in Scrum!
Supported by the
organization.
It is time boxed too.
It can help with everything.
We put people in Agile
teams.
With them not knowing
what Agile is.
53

True Kanban Story
Moved from Simple to
Complex.
It only bring in Chaos.
Finding who to blame very
fast.
6 PMs on the project and
changing.
54
My
Engagement
Started Here

True Kanban Story
Moved from Simple to
Complex.
It only bring in Chaos.
The projects deemed
Waterfall after a year of
being worked on.
55

Prioritize the followings over introducing Scrum
● Focus on the foundations before moving a
team into Agile
● Stop finger pointing if things go wrong and
try finding the underlying cause
● Be brave to say No
● Be transparent on what you are selling
Why Not Adopt Scrum:
Do not Adopt if you can not find an environment
in which:
● You can not at least set the foundations for
a successful transformation.
● There is no No being said in that
environment.
● You can not “Encourage acts of leadership
at every level”
● You can not “Implement Feedback Loops”
56

One size doesn’t fit all
57

Any Questions?
● Will be glad to see you more!
a. Toronto, Canada 43.666667, -79.416667
b. LinkedIn /in/sheidaei
c. Twitter @sheidaei
d. Website shahin.sheidaei.com
e. Email shahin@sheidaei.com
Thanks
Shahin Sheidaei
Founder & Principal Coach
Elevate Change Inc.

Kanban is The New Scrum! - Agile Tour Paris

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