Accelerating Agile Teams with Kanban Practices

1. Applying Kanban practices to
accelerate agile teams
 Jasper Sonnevelt

2. Job
Clients
Contact
Jasper Sonnevelt
Agile Consultant & Trainer
jsonnevelt@xebia.com
jaspersonnevelt
@jaspersonnevelt
Financials, Telecom, Insurance, Government

3. By: Daniel Burm
SCRUM

4. 58% uses Scrum
From: 10th State of Agile Survey – VersionOne

5. Results stall
- Stable predictability
- Stable velocity
- Few improvements
- Lost that initial energy
- Not sure what the problem is

6. Reasons agile
adoptions fail
IN THREE CATEGORIES

7. We didn’t ask for this
 Top-down change forced upon team
 Forcing to overcome the resistance to change
 Focus on changing existing roles (threatening jobs)

8. This doesn’t work for us
 ‘Why are we changing?’ is not clear
 Failure to identify the right problems and tampering with
things that work
 Lack of discipline

9. It’s not me, its you!
 Coaching style does not match the team phase
 Forcing a method in challenging environment

10. “There is an
epidemic failure
within the game to
understand what is
really happening”
- MONEYBALL (2013)

11. “
”
A hammer. Usually used on delicate devices when a real
screwdriver would be better. Refers to the habit of a
Birmingham inhabitant (i.e. simpleton] to take a rather
simplistic view of maintenance. Similar to percussive
maintenance.
If it don't work - hit it.
If it still don't work, use a bigger hammer.
FROM: HTTP://WWW.URBANDICTIONARY.COM/DEFINE.PHP?TERM=BIRMINGHAM%20SCREWDRIVER
The Birmingham Screwdriver

12. “
”
If all you have is a hammer,
everything looks like a nail
A. MASLOW

13. STATIK
SYSTEMS
THINKING
APPROACH
TO
INTRODUCING
KANBAN

14. STATIK
1. Identify Sources of dissatisfaction
2. Analyze demand & capability
3. Identify work item types
4. Model the knowledge discovery process
5. Identify Classes of Service
6. Design kanban systems
7. Implement!

15. Why did the approach work?
 Principles
 Current process as starting point
 Respecting existing role
 Gradual change
 Practices
 Transparency
 Feedback loops
 Success of the team created a bottleneck elsewhere

16. Applying
the Kanban Method
in a Scrum context
Scrumban is…..

17. Kanban principles & practices
 Principles:
1. Start with what you do now
 Understanding current processes, as actually
practiced
 Respecting existing roles, responsibilities &
job titles
2. Gain agreement to pursue improvement
through evolutionary change
3. Encourage acts of leadership at all levels
 Practices:
 Visualize
 Limit WiP
 Manage flow
 Make policies explicit
 Feedback loops
 Evolve collaboratively

18. Why the Kanban method is useful
 In certain situations disruptive changes are not wanted
 Introducing scrum elements in an evolutionary way
 As a coaching tool
 If tutoring and mentoring are not appropriate
 Team phase calls for a non-directive coaching style
 Improving situations perceived as scrumbut
 ….thereby building shared commitment

19. Cases & Examples

20. Common motivations for change
External
 It always takes a long time!
 I want it NOW (= yesterday)
 It is unclear how long it takes
 You build too many bugs!
 When will my task be build?
 You always miss your deadlines
Internal
 We are extremely dependent on external
(third) parties
 We are highly specialized
 We have multiple product owners
 We are waiting forever for requirements
 We start something and the customer is
no where to be seen
 Our work is too small to write a task for
 We have many ad hoc tasks

21. Problem:
Scrum Team with many ad
hoc requests
Solution:
Introduction of Classes
of Service within the
sprint

22. Incidents
Standard
Daily jobs
Business Requests
Introduction of
Classes of Service
Scrum team with Ad hoc tasks

23. Common motivations for change
External
 It always takes a long time!
 I want it NOW (= yesterday)
 It is unclear how long it takes
 You build too many bugs!
 When will my task be build?
 You always miss your deadlines
Internal
 We are extremely dependent on external
(third) parties
 We are highly specialized
 We have multiple product owners
 We are waiting forever for requirements
 We start something and the customer is
no where to be seen
 Our work is too small to write a task for
 We have many ad hoc tasks

24. Problem:
Poor Quality
Unexplainable lead times
Solution:
Visualization
Set policies

25. Long “unexplainable”
lead times
Poor quality in the
team

26. Common motivations for change
External
 It always takes a long time!
 I want it NOW (= yesterday)
 It is unclear how long it takes
 You build too many bugs!
 When will my task be build?
 You always miss your deadlines
Internal
 We are extremely dependent on external
(third) parties
 We are highly specialized
 We have multiple product owners
 We are waiting forever for
requirements
 We start something and the customer is
no where to be seen
 Our work is too small to write a task for
 We have many ad hoc tasks

27. Problem:
Many tiny tasks
Solution:
Set policies
rethink board design

28. “This is too small to
write a stickie for!”

29. Common motivations for change
External
 It always takes a long time!
 I want it NOW (= yesterday)
 It is unclear how long it takes
 You build too many bugs!
 When will my task be build?
 You always miss your deadlines
Internal
 We are extremely dependent on external
(third) parties
 We are highly specialized
 We have multiple product owners
 We are waiting forever for requirements
 We start something and the customer is
no where to be seen
 Our work is too small to write a task
for
 We have many ad hoc tasks

30. Problem:
Many product owners
External Dependencies
Solution:
Parking space
Top 10 column

31. Not sure what work to
do first. Many
“Product Owners” that
need stuff from the
team
“We have work that is
done externally and
we know it’ll take 3
weeks to return”

32. Common motivations for change
External
 It always takes a long time!
 I want it NOW (= yesterday)
 It is unclear why it takes this long
 You build too many bugs!
 When will my task be build?
 You always miss your deadlines
Internal
 We are extremely dependent on
external (third) parties
 We are highly specialized
 We have multiple product owners
 We are waiting forever for
requirements
 We start something and the customer
is no where to be seen
 Our work is too small to write a task for
 We have many ad hoc tasks

33. Problem:
High degree of specialization
among team members
Solution:
Pre-assignment
Set Policies

34. “We are highly
specialized in the work
we do”

35. Common motivations for change
External
 It always takes a long time!
 I want it NOW (= yesterday)
 It is unclear why it takes this long
 You build too many bugs!
 When will my task be build?
 You always miss your deadlines
Internal
 We are extremely dependent on external
(third) parties
 We are highly specialized
 We have multiple product owners
 We are waiting forever for requirements
 We start something and the customer is
no where to be seen
 Our work is too small to write a task for
 We have many ad hoc tasks

36. A cheat sheet
To help you get started

37. Too much Ad-Hoc
(unplannable) work
Long Lead times
(>30 days)
Many external
dependencies
Low predictability
of lead times
High amount of work
items that are discarded
mid process
High degree of
specialization. Strong
need for knowledge
sharing
Kanban Board yes yes With “parkingspace” yes
Mainly for refinement
process
yes
Risk categories on board
With post-it color or on
board
op board
WIP limits Per person per column
Yes, not on the
parkingspace
per person
Operations Review
Meeting
Monthly Monthly Monthly
Backlog Refinement weekly
Demo yes ja ja
Retrospective Every 2 weeks monthly monthly Every 2 weeks Every 2 weeks Every 2 weeks
Daily Stand up yes 1-2 x per week. More if
needed
1-2 x per week. More if
needed
yes yes yes
Lead Time / Control
Chart
yes yes
*Empty cells are optional, but recommended
My little cheat sheet on when to introduce Kanban practices

38. To summarize:
 Teams that get stuck or improve less can accelerate by using Agile practices
 The Kanban Principles and Practices provide a great way to introduce change
with minimal resistance and maximum support
 Every team is different, but some patterns are more common
 The cheat sheet may help you in finding (initial) solutions!

39. Thank you
very much!
Applying
Kanban
practices to
accelerate
agile teams
Jasper Sonnevelt
Agile Consultant @ Xebia
Contact me:
Email: jsonnevelt@xebia.com
Linkedin: jaspersonnevelt
Twitter: @jaspersonnevelt