Kanban: Foundation for Leadership

KanbanFoundation for Leadership
Do What Makes Lean Sense
Dean’s Twitter @leanopinions
Email Dean.Stevens@Synaptus.com

“Management is doing things right;
Leadership is doing the right things.”
… Peter Drucker
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Product Owner and Kanban
Product Owner Role in Scrum
Responsible for the business value of the project
Feed business value increments to the development team
Product Backlog
Sprint Backlog
This gets harder at scale
Kanban Method
Foundation for Leadership
Based on Lean & Deming Principles
Promotes adoption of Agile values and principles beyond the team
Pull based Authority–
Earn the authority to lead
Do what makes Lean sense
3

Customer Stakeholders
Lead Time
Speed
Time from start to finish
Reliability & Quality
Works as expected
4

Business Stakeholders
Predictability
“Make promises you can keep”… most of the time
“Predictable service delivery”
Velocity is average completion rate
Return
Forecasted Return?
Actual Return!
5

Development Stakeholders
Positive Work Environment
Focus on one or two meaningful things at a time
Work together productively across functions
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Kanban Method
“Make everything as simple as possible,
but no simpler.”
… Albert Einstein
“Do what makes Lean sense.”
… Dean Stevens
7

Kanban MethodFive Core Properties
Visualize Workflow
Limit Work-in-progress
Measure and Manage Flow
Make Process Policies Explicit
Use Models to Recognize Improvement Opportunities
Key Thinking
Address Stakeholder needs
Start where you are
Agile dev teams? Fine
Start now
8
This is
Leadership

Visualize Work FlowWhat We Want
Value
Dev Team
Analyze(3)
Develop(5)
Ready(5)
Accept(3)
Ready for Release
Ready for Accept
Ready for Dev
Dev
Analyze
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Story
Urgent
Extended Team
9

Limit Work in ProgressLittle’s Law
Lead Time = WIP / Throughput
(time) = (items) / (items/time)
Where:
Lead Time: Time from start to finish
WIP: Work in Progress
Throughput: Average completion rate
Reduce WIP to improve Lead Time
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Makes Customer Happy

Limit Work in ProgressExposes Problems
But, reducing WIP exposes hidden problems due to
Complexity
Delay
Variability
Reduce WIP AND solve problems to
Establish predictable throughput
Promote quality, team work and trust
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This is
Leadership
Makes Employees Happy
Makes Business Happy

Measure & Manage Flow
“The easy way out usually leads back in.”
… Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline
“Beware of common sense.”
… Dean Stevens
12

Measure & Manage FlowWhat’s the Problem?
What’s the problem?
Anything that inhibits flow
Anything that inhibits our Why’s
Why Flow?
Speed
Return
Predictability
Quality
Work Environment
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Measure & Manage Flow Look for Causes – Agile Manifesto
Individuals and interactions over process and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
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Causes – too much of the items on the right
Lead to complexity, delay and variation

Measure & Manage Flow Potential Solutions – Agile Manifesto
Individuals and interactions over process and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan
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Experiment with potential solutions
Bias for more on the left and less on the right

Measure & Manage Flow Analyze for Causes – Lean Thinking
Remember, reducing WIP exposes hidden problems due to
Complexity
Delay
Variability
No problem, no good
Expose problems
Look for root cause
5 Why, not 5 Who
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Measure & Manage Flow Potential Solutions – Lean Thinking
Kanban Method Recipe for Success
Focus on Quality
Reduce Work-in-Progress
Deliver Often
Balance Demand against Throughput
Prioritize
Attack Sources of Variability to Improve Predictability
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Experiment with potential solutions

Measure & Manage Flow Decide on Solutions
Transaction Costs: Set up and clean up activities
Coordination Costs: Activities that involves communicating or scheduling
Failure Load: Demand that may have been avoided through higher initial quality
Speak in business language
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Make Process Policies ExplicitAction Plan
“So much of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to work.”
… Peter Drucker
Help your team discover “the right things”
19
This is
Leadership

Make Process Policies Explicit
Customer/ Business
“Make promises you can keep”… most of the time
Establish SLA with the business
Project/ Process Leadership
Lead to better ways to work together
Reach agreements collaboratively
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Continuous Improvement
A3 Thinking – PDCA
Reflect on the system
Do it again
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Change is Hard

Summary
Get started – visualize work flow
Earn the authority to lead
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Further Reading
Leanopinions.blogspot.com
DennisStevens.com
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Kanban: Foundation for Leadership

by DeanStevens1 on May 18, 2011

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Kanban: Foundation for Leadership — Presentation Transcript