AN INTRODUCTION TO KANBAN

Nov 2014
Chandler Chen
Agile Coach
Beijing Operations Center

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Experience Sharing
1. Challenges
2. Kanban usage
3. Whats different?

FAQ
. Kanban the word
. Kanban & BAU
. Kanban & Tools
. Kanban & Waterfall
. Kanban & Scrum

TYPICAL CASE 1
A long prioritizing list

PDM TEAM
Plan 1

Item1
Item2
Item3
Item 4
Item5
Item6
Item7
Item8

Non-synchronized priorities
& plans between teams
BA TEAM
Plan 2

DEV TEAM 1
Plan 3

DEV TEAM 2
Plan 4

QA TEAM
Plan 5

Production TEAM
Plan 6

To do Item1

To do Item2

To do Item1

To do Item6

To do Item1

To do Item6

To do Item2

To do Item4

To do Item5

To do Item3

To do Item7

To do Item2

To do Item3

To do Item6

To do Item3

To do Item18

To do Item27

To do Item27
.
.
Sorry, Im currently busy on
.
.
.
finishing
spec for Item10.
Please
wait.
.
.

To do Item45

.
.

To do Item21

To do Item83

.
When can we finish
the work on Item3??
.

We got question on Item3

details. Could you help us?

TYPICAL CASE 2
A long prioritizing list

PDM TEAM
Plan 1

Item1
Item2
Item3
Item 4
Item5
Item6
Item7
Item8

Non-synchronized priorities
& plans between teams
BA TEAM

DEV TEAM 1

Plan 2

Plan 3

DEV TEAM 2
Plan 4

QA TEAM
Plan 5

Production TEAM
Plan 6

To do Item99

To do Item2

To do Item1

To do Item6

To do Item1

To do Item6

To do Item1

To do Item4

To do Item5

To do Item3

To do Item7

To do Item2

To do Item2

To do Item6

To do Item3

To do Item18

To do Item27

To do Item27

To do Item45.

.
.
Please help develop
Item99 by. this week due .
to business
. urgency
.
.
.

Oh, Im afraid I have to wait

2 months as last time.

.
Sorry, we currently busy with
.
Item6, Item3,Item21.
And
we have an
. agreed plan for
this month. Please meet all
teams, and go through
change control process.

.
.
Sorry, we currently busy with
.
Item4,
Item2,Item9. And
we
. have an agreed plan for
this month. Please meet all
.
teams, and go through
.
change
control process.

TYPICAL CASE 3
A long prioritizing list

PDM TEAM
Plan 1

Item1
Item2
Item3
Item 4
Item5
Item6
Item7
Item8

Non-synchronized priorities
& plans between teams
BA TEAM
Plan 2

DEV TEAM 1
Plan 3

DEV TEAM 2
Plan 4

QA TEAM

Production TEAM

Plan 5

Plan 6

To do Item1

To do Item6

To do Item1

To do Item6

To do Item5

To do Item3

To do Item7

To do Item2

To do Item3

To do Item18

To do Item27

To do Item27

To do Item45.

To do Item33

To do Item45

To do Item83

To do Item1
To do Item2
I think Dev can finish the
To things
do Item2
do Item4
within 8Todays.
I
can
give
them
2
more
To do Item3
To do Item6
DEs to do now..
.
.
.

.
.

Oh, dont put too much

work on us, there is
already a long list from
different sources.

EXPECTATION FROM DIFFERENT VIEWS

Working team
The simple questions are:
what should I focus on by now?
what should I do after I finish the work in hand?

Customer
When can I get what I need?
Can I get the staff earlier?

Management
How many deliverables per year/month?
Can we deliver most important things in first place?

WHATS KANBAN

E.g., Lead Time

WHATS KANBAN
Kanban is a lean / agile system
that can be used to enhance any software development
lifecycle including Scrum, XP, Waterfall, PSP/TSP and other
methods.

Kanban promotes the lean concept of flow ==>

to continuously and predictably deliver value.

The work and the workflow is made visible ==>

to make activities and issues obvious.

Kanban limits work in progress (WIP) ==>

to promote quality, focus and finishing.

A KANBAN DAY

A KANBAN DAY

A KANBAN DAY

A KANBAN DAY

A KANBAN DAY

13

A KANBAN DAY

14

A KANBAN DAY

Break boundaries
between teams

15

A KANBAN DAY

16

A KANBAN DAY

17

Case 1: News BAU

Delivery is increased 91%

Cycle time / project is shorten from about 45 to 31 days
18

Case 2: News Team (cont.)

Tip:
Change behavior and habit step by step
Examples:
Use Jira Planning board (a priorities list) with PM for similar user
experience as before (like excel)
Update status in Jira and provide link to stakeholders to involve them
in
Push information from Jira by adding stakeholders as Watchers,
rather than teach them the skill to Watch issues at beginning
Also consider customize notification scheme, add Watcher to email
group, etc

19

Case 2: Media Team

Original delivery cycle is one month Dev + one month QA, i.e., about 60 Days.
After Kanban implementation:

Time Period
7/26 - 9/22
9/23 - 11/3

Delivery #
12
11

Avg Cycle Time

25.4 Days
34.6 Days

Further focus on engineering practices, e.g., effective branching

20

Case 2: Media Team (cont.)

21

Case 2: Media Team (cont.)

Benefits
Shorter cycle time
Less pressure BUT more busy team (within working hour)
Higher tolerance to the communication/collaboration between
product and dev team (or made it easier)
Visible

Difficulties
Requires much more QA env (hardware/maintain effort)
Much more complex code/release management
Even more overhead on code mgmt/context switching while
waiting time (in mid stage) gets long. (priority reason)
Action on tools and automation

22

Case 2: Media Team (cont.)

Planning (Estimation? Commitment? Assignment?)
Estimate continually
No commitment to individual item most of time
Assignment more dynamic (good or not)
Tracking (Who? When? How?)
PM/Feature lead
Daily meeting / casual communication
Daily email between CN/US
Jira
Technical actions after Kanban was adopted
Build more QA env
Tool for code management
Tool for build/deployment
Automation testing
Modularization
23

Case 3: DE work in ADD team (trial)

Current task board shows lot

of items wait for UAT by now
The Cumulate Flow Diagram
shows its not single case
UAT activity seems abnormal

Resource?
Priority?
24

CASE 4: C&E Team

25

PULL ?

Higher
Priority
Lower
Priority

Pull from customer

- Priority
Pull from downstream
- WIP

DIFFERENCE
Excel, SharePoint, Feature Plan, etc
All items
Status as a field
Priority as a field
Good for PM view

Kanban
Ongoing work
Visualize work flow
Visualize Priority
Good for Team view
27

BEHAVIOUR CHANGES
CHANGES

Traditional method

Kanban method

PLAN

Plan for periodical schedule

(yearly, monthly, etc)

Focus on current high priorities

Plan on details of each Item

(date, assignment, effort, etc)

Only for really urgent things;

Forecast target date base on
empirical data.

A lot of schedule changes

No waste for the changes of not

started work

Tracking by separate Project

Managers

Self-manage for normal case

PM track TL or Individuals for

detailed progress

Real-time Status is Visible on board

Multi-task due to dependencies

Control Work In Process

TRACKING

EXECUTION

Still too complex? So forget them at beginning

Just VISUALIZE how we are working is already a good start!
28

FROM STAKEHOLDER VIEW

Improve Transparency on:
1. End to End view
2. Work Status & Process Constraint
3. Historical Trend

Still provide forecast on:

4. Target of yearly/monthly Delivery number
5. Forecasted delivery date base on empirical data

ITS BEGINING, NOT END

Improve Transparency firstly
Emerge the obstacles which block quick delivery
Integration ?
Test ?
Especially regression test -> automation, risk based

Deployment ?

30

SUCCESS & FAILURE

Success
4 teams continue on Kanban after trial
Measure: shortened delivery cycle; no obvious change on quality
by now

Failure
1 team stop Kanban usage temporarily, as Product Managers
feel inconvenient. Product Managers need work with several Dev
teams, only one team change the working method will make
them work on different backlog.
Next step
Start from Dev internally, influence related stakeholders with real case
Higher level management direction for wider scope may help, but not
waiting for that

31

FAQ
Kanban the word
Kanban & BAU
Kanban & Tools
Kanban & Waterfall
Kanban &
Continuous
Delivery
32

KANBAN WHATS THE WORD MEAN?

What we often see with the context
Lean manufacturing Visual Card
Lean software development Visual Board
Anyway, the key is Visual
and same concept of WIP, JIT, PULL

33

KANBAN ONLY FOR BAU?

Kanban is NOT only applicable for BAU
Within our context, it satisfy the management
needs for BAU mostly
Other examples:
Scrum-ban
Support Kanban

34

KANBAN & CONTINUOUS DELIVERY?

Same Business Target
Shorten deliver cycle time
With confidence of quality

Kanban remove the management barrier, need

continuous focus to deal with technical obstacles
good reference in Continuous Delivery practices.

35

PULL OR PUSH?
Look at the whole system
New work is pulled into the system when there is capacity to
handle it
A pull system cannot be overloaded, capacity is determined by
the number of signal cards

Look at each team

PUSH: each team produce as much as possible, no matter if
downstream can handle
PULL: each team STOP produce if downstream cannot handle.
Instead, they need to help; or at least, remove waste from
producing too many un-completed pieces

Go or No Go decided from customer view

KANBAN Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology
Business David J. Anderson
36

HOW WIP HELPS?

WIP Work In Process
Limit WIP is a powerful tool to
Reduce waste of partially done items
Reduce multi-tasking and keep focus
Enforce Pull system

Sadly, we didnt apply it very well. Looking for

experience here.

37

KANBAN LOOKS LIKE WATERFALL?

The Kanban columns look like Waterfall phases
But the basic difference is
Waterfall move staffs together by phase
Kanban encourage to complete work items one by one to
deliver business value quickly

38

WHAT TOOL IS GOOD FOR KANBAN?

White board is enough for local team, while e-system is useful
for
1. multi-site or cross team cooperation
2. transparency for management & stakeholders
3. collecting historical data

Ideally, same tool serves from end to end

Experience: difficult to get end to end Kanban in large org
- When the process is very complicated
- E.g., Multi to Multi interfaces

- When improve process from bottom up

Workaround:
Delivery team (most resources) work on Kanban Board.
Focus & Collaborate on active ongoing items.
Product Owner may work on a full list, prioritize and pass only highest
priorities to each delivery teams Kanban Board.
Linkage is helpful
39

OUR THOUGHTS OF AGILE OVERVIEW

(BY NOW)
Scrum (new Prod) / Kanban (BAU)

Goes Smoothly

Scrum Team
Tech Ops

Scrum of
Scrum

Scrum Team

Scrum Team

Disciplined Development

Iterative Development
Test Automation
Continuous Integration

Challengeable
Early Integrate in a larger
scale
Test Driven Development

Hard to Change

Dependencies caused by
architecture & org structures

40

REFERENCE
What is Kanban
Kanban and Scrum - making the most of both
highly recommend if have Scrum background

Many information about Kanban on web, just search

THANKS !

42