The document describes a workshop on Kanban principles using the metaphor of a donut factory. Participants role-play as donut makers and go through several rounds, with insights provided after each round. In Round 1, they visualize their workflow but see undone work piling up. In Round 2, they map their workflow and see bottlenecks form. In Round 3, WIP limits are introduced to smooth the flow. In Round 4, process policies are made explicit to improve quality. In Round 5, an expedited order is received to test responsiveness. In Round 6, increased demand requires prioritizing work from the backlog. The workshop helps illustrate how Kanban principles like visualizing workflow, limiting WIP, measuring

1. The KANBAN Donut Factory
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Conceptualized by
Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ(I)

2. This would be a fun filled session along with a bunch of learnings around Kanban .
The workshop helps in gaining insights into the essential Kanban principles using the
metaphor of a 21st century Donut Factory that has a health conscious vision as a
strategy, targeted for the younger kids who love eating Donuts!
1. Visualize the workflow
2. Limit the work in progress (WIP)
3. Measure and manage the process
4. Make Process Policies Explicit
5. Continuously optimize process (recognize opportunities)
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Objectives of the Workshop
© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

3. Logistics for the workshop
Number of participants: 28 people, Maximum limit: 30
4 teams with not more than 7 members each , rest can be observers.
Stage Setting:
The session is divided into various parts, it uses “Making a Donut” activity for diving into the
Kanban principles as it unfolds through the various stages! This workshops helps participants
gain an insight into the Kanban fundamentals through an engaging and a participative
workshop.
Materials Required:
Play Dough, Charts, Glue stick, Scissors, Straws, Post its, Charts, Blue tape, Markers
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Duration: 90 minutes workshop
© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

4. Number of teams : 4
• Quality Stud– one per team
• Donut makers - 6 per team
Donut Making steps:
1. Step1: Cut the white paper, in shape of doughnut to form a base, color it.
2. Step 2: Prepare Donut additions using play dough.
3. Step 3: Add them as additions to the Donuts (prepared in step 2 above).
Toppings: Cashew-3, Badam-2, Apricot-5.
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Donut Making steps

5. Round #1
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1. Self organize and form 4 teams.
2. Team – (6 members + 1 Quality Stud)
3. Team has 7 ½ minutes, start making as many donuts as possible
4. Cashew-3, Badam-2, Apricot-5.
5. As the donuts get produced, they would be tested by the Quality Stud and
scored.
 Incomplete Donuts get - 5 points and completed donuts get +5 points
No of donuts
passed the test #
No of donuts failed
the test – not
completed donuts
#
Score
# # Net Score
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

6. Inspect the Round #1
Inspect Round #1:
1. Look at your process of making donut, in terms of visualization of workflow.
2. Look at the amount of undone work.
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

7. Round #2
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1. Visualize the flow for creating your Donuts, depict the workflow on the charts provided
2. Quality Stud to help with visualization by creating the charts
3. Team has 7 ½ minutes.
4. Label the stations, personal at each stations.
5. As the donuts get produced, they would be tested by the Quality Stud and scored.
 Incomplete Donuts get - 5 points and completed donuts get +5 point
 Quality Stud makes a note of time it takes for each Donut to get done as they arrive.
Donut Cycle Time Pass Fail
Donut 1
Donut 2
Donut 3
No of donuts
passed the test #
# * +5
No of donuts
failed the test #
# *-5
Net Score
2
© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

8. 8
Inspect the Round #2
Inspect Round #2
1. Look at how the work was distributed
2. Are materials piling up at the end of the round?
3. Check the cycle time.
4. How was the quality.
5. which station was overloaded and why?
Base Cashew Badam Apricot Quality-Check
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

9. Round #2 Learning
Kanban Principle #1: VISUALIZE YOUR WORKFLOW
The first step in any Kanban implementation is to visualize the workflow. It helps how the work items
flow through various stages during development without which making any changes or improvement
would be difficult. Making the work visible—along with blockers, bottlenecks and queues leads to
increased communication and collaboration.
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

10. Round #3
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1. Donut making in progress
2. Team has 7 ½ minutes.
3. Visualize the flow for creating your Donuts, depict the workflow on the charts provided.
4. Limit the work in progress at each stage
5. As the donuts get produced, they would be tested by the Quality Stud and scored.
 Completed Donuts get +5 points
 Incomplete Donuts get - 5 points, each extra topping gets -2 points.
 How was the overall quality of the donuts, in terms of size and shape
 Quality Stud makes a note of time it takes for each Donut to get done as they arrive
Donut Cycle Time Pass Fail
Donut 1
Donut 2
Donut 3
No of donuts
passed the test #
# * +5
No of donuts
failed the test #
# *-5
Net Score
3
© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

11. 11
Inspect the Round #3
Inspect Round #2
1. Observe the cycle time. Was there any improvement from previous cycle, How did WIP limits
help???
2. Look for the quality of donuts, talk about what can be done to inspect the quality and avoid
rework. How can one improve the quality and have a common understanding of when an item
can move from one stage to another stage, so that problems are detected earlier rather than at
the later stages.
Base (WIP)
Cashew
(WIP = 3)
Badam
(WIP= 4)
Apricot
(WIP = 7)
Quality-Check
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Base(WIP) Cashew(WIP)
Doing||Done (Definition of Done)
Badam(WIP)
Doing||Done (Definition of Done)
Aprcot (WIP)
Doing||Done (Definition of Done)
Cycle time Score
© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

12. Round #3 Learning
Kanban Principle #2: LIMIT WORK IN PROGRESS
• Establishing the WIP Limits , prevents clogging of work in any particular stage thus allowing a smooth
flow of work through the Kanban stages.
• By imposing WIP limits, you can reduce the time it takes for an item to travel through the Kanban
system.
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Kanban Principle #3: Measure & Manage Flow, Cycle Time
© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

13. Round #4
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1. Donut making in progress
2. Team has 7 ½ minutes.
3. Visualize the flow for creating your Donuts, depict the workflow on the charts provided.
4. Introduce the WIP limits
5. Have explicit exit criteria for each stage.
6. As the donuts get produced, they would be tested by the Quality Stud and scored.
 Completed Donuts get +5 points
 Incomplete Donuts get - 5 points
 Quality Stud makes a note of time it takes for each Donut to get done as they arrive
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

14. 14
Inspect the Round #4
Inspect Round #4
1. Talk about the concept of having Explicit process policies, how it helped in the
quality.
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

15. Round #4 Learning
Kanban Principle #4: Make Process Policies Explicit
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Other examples of Process Policies may include:
• The Product Owner will re-evaluate the priority of the work on Tuesdays and Thursdays (not
• The size of the work on each card must be less than 16 hours effort
• If multiple stories/tasks required to complete functionality, an “epic” may be used
• Any code ready for the Friday deployment must be frozen on Thursday evening (unless it is a
You need to determine what process policies make sense for your organization…
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

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More Example Criteria/DoD By Phase
Analysis Design Build Validation
In Process  Acceptance
Requirements being
finalized
 Detailed requirements
being resolved
 Cross-functional team
creating specs, actively
interfacing with internal
and/or external
stakeholders as needed.
 Coding is underway (may be
on a workstation or Dev
environment)
 QA is executing test cases
on this functionality
 Business is executing test
cases on this
functionality.
Blocked  Issue or Question about
the story’s requirements
pending an external
party
 Issue or question with the
design pending an
external party’s help
 Issue is preventing the team
from developing this story
(other work? Environment?
Etc.)
 An issue is preventing
some test cases from
being executed
 Code not passing a smoke
test
 Business can’t execute
tests
Done  Acceptance criteria
finalized
 Any detailed questions
about the requirements
complete
 Design has been agreed
upon and is ready to
implement
 CDS has been drafted &
internally reviewed
 The functionality for this
story has been developed
 Code checked in
 Code is reviewed
 Code unit tested & validated
within the Dev environment
 All tests pass with
expected results
 OR unexpected test
results acceptable to
business; another
story/task being written
as needed.
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

17. Round #5
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1. Donut making in progress
Business Need: The Nutri-Donut factory entered into partnership with a Nutri-Jelly Fruity-Donuts firm that
places urgent orders in case of a sudden demand for Donuts for teeth less kids who can eat only very soft
donuts
• Fruity Donuts Recipe: Instead of normal crust, teams have to make the base using litchi, blue berry, and other fruit
jelly with some very soft toppings.
• - 3 fruit toppings
• -3 saffron flowers
• As the teams start making their Nutri-Donuts, the Nutri-Fruity-Donut agent places sudden order based on demand.
Quality Stud, makes a note of time it takes for each of NUTRI-FRUTY Donut to get done as they arrive.
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

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Inspect the Round #5
Inspect Round #5
1. Inspect how fast was the team able to deliver the Nutri-Fruity Donughts ??????
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

19. Round #5 outcome : Expedite lane
• Introduce the Expedite lane and how can the same board be modified to accommodate the Expedite
lane to cater to the urgent requests.
• A Kanban board, complete with Expedite lane for high-priority tickets, and sticky notes for each ticket
are an effective tool that can help a team stay on top of support work. When a team needs to deal
with an emergency or critical work that suspends other cards, and expedite process may be used.
• When an expedited card is on the board, the team may ignore WIP limits until the card work is
complete. We recommend setting up an expedite agreement such that only one card may have this
status at any time.
• Expedite lane =>
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© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

20. 20
Round #6
Looking at the awesomeness of the Nutri-Donut factory, many new customers started
partnering with them, demand increased, they started getting orders for making donuts of
different shapes to attract kids .
Use the play dough to make the donuts of different shapes.
1.Donuts Recipe: Teams have to make the base of different shapes along with the normal
donuts
© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

21. Inspect the Round 6#
Inspect Round #6:
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1. Inspect on how did the team pull donuts from the backlog
2. Talk about few common smells like taking the easier ones first and so on. Talk about
why is prioritization important and how is it done in Kanban ?
© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ

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Madhavi Ledalla
Agile Consulting Coach,
SolutionsIQ(I)
© Madhavi Ledalla, SolutionsIQ