Kanban in the
Land of Scrum
Choose your own
Scrumban
Adventure
fernando@squirrelnorth.com
@fer_cuenca
Fernando Cuenca, AKC, AKT
SQUIRRELNORTH
ALTERNATIVE PATHS TO AGILITY
November 22nd, 2019
SquirrelNorth
martin@squirrelnorth.com
@martinaziz
Martin Aziz, AKC, AKT
squirrelnorth.com

SquirrelNorth
Tailored Agility
Our
Mission
We focus on pragmatic ways that fit your existing company's
processes, culture and marketplace challenges. We help you identify
where you want to be & the obstacles that are currently preventing
you from being there. We do this by involving everyone at all levels:
sustainable practices for your teams, tools for managers to improve
their services, and approaches for executives to manage risk and
scale across their enterprise.

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Scrumban?
What is this thing?

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Scrum
Kanban
“Vanilla” Scrum plus:
• More explicit workflow visualization
• WIP limits / pull system
• Flow Metrics
• Aging used to manage flow

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Scrum Kanban
New
(Blended)
Framework
Scrumban Framework
• Sprint + Scrum Events + Artifacts
• Respect & Retain current roles
• Work types, Classes of Service, Workflow visualization
• CD3 prioritization, Flow Metrics
• WIP limits
• Service-oriented Kick-start, Gradual, guided evolution

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Emergent, context-adapted process
• Continuous flow
• WIP-limited, quantitatively managed flow
• Decoupled cadences
• Evolutionary change
Existing
Scrum
Implementation
Kanban
Method
Evolved
• Improvement
Plateau
• Context Shift

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“Kanban is a way of seeing”
-- Andy Carmichael
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmmL4qtCBZY
So, what do
you see?

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https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scrum_Framework.png
Roles
Artifacts
Events
Timebox

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From
someone’s
needs…
… to those needs
being fulfilled.
Work as Flow
Commitment
Point
Delivery
Point
The Kanban Lens
Choose to see…
Activity 1 Activity 2 Activity 3
Time
Replenishment Delivery
Service Request
Manager
Service Delivery
Manager
Lead Time
Start with
what you do
NOW

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Do you wish to:
1. Look at sprints. Go to next slide.
2. Look beyond sprints. Come back
in 20 minutes
The Adventure begins!

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1st adventure: “Kanbanizing” the Sprint
Team Flow

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Who’s working
on what?
Preassigned
work?
Overburdening
Early
Commitment
Lack of
Customer Focus
We visualize the
tasks we work on

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Visualize Units of
Customer Value
Customer enters
the picture
Early
Commitment
Multitasking and
overburdeningAll stories ”in
progress”?

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Per person WIP
limits with
Avatars
“Late binding” of
assignment
”Idle work” –
committed too
early
2
p/p

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Team Agreements
• …
• …
• …
• “Focus on
Finishing rather
than Starting”
WIP limit on
Stories
Sprint Backlog,
with deferred
commitment
Tasking deferred
Prioritization
decoupled from
assignment
Opaque
Workflow
Explicit Policies
2
p/p

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3
Shift from “WIP limit
on people” to “WIP
limit on the work”
Focus on managing
flow through a
workflow
More explicit
workflow
Visualization of units
of delivery (rather
than tasks)

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3
Raising blockers
Walk the board in the direction of pull
“Flow-based”
daily stand-up
Let team members
self-organize around
the work

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3
Signal that work
is ready to
progress further
∞
Unbounded
Queues

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3
Accountability
signal
3
Workflow about
to stall!

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3
3
Team
Agreements
• …
• …
• …
• “Focus….
Finishing to
Starting”
1st adventure: “Kanbanizing” the Sprint
Sprint Planning
Daily Scrum
Sprint Review &
Retrospective
Visualize the
Work
Limit WIP
Make Policies
Explicit
Manage Flow
Scrum Roles
Sustainability
Agenda

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Do you wish to:
1. Look at sprints.
COMPLETE!
2. Look beyond sprints.
Go to next slide.
The Adventure
continues!

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2nd adventure: Life beyond the Sprint
Team Flow
? ?
Sprint
Planning
Definition
of Done
Daily
Standups

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How does work
get here???

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OK, and what
else happens
here?
Sprint Planning
Backlog
Grooming

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Sprint Planning

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By the way, does
this mean “in the
user’s hands”?
Sprint Planning

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More process we
can visualize!

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Elaboration Development Release
Commitment
Points
Discovery
Workflow
Release
Workflow
Replenishment Delivery
Decoupled
Cadences
Manage Flow Here Manage Flow Here
Service Request
Manager
Manage Flow Here
Service Delivery
Manager

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Replenishment Delivery
1 2 3
A
C
B
D
E
3

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Replenishment Delivery
1 2 3
A
C
B
D
E
4
3
F
G
H
I

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Replenishment Delivery
1 2 3
A
C
B
D
E
4
3
F
G
H
I
5

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Replenishment Delivery
1 2 3
A
C
B
D
E
4
3
FG
H
I
5 6 7 8
Work moves
through
workflow
Sprints organize
people’s activities
Each sprint
contains work at
various stages
Each sprint
contains work at
various stages
Each sprint
contains work at
various stages

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The Organization as an Ecosystem of Services
Product
Design
Software
Development
Compliance
Operations
Design and UX Marketing
The Kanban Lens
Choose to see…

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Replenishment Delivery
Service Request
Manager
Service Delivery
Manager
Dev Team
Release
Management
Team
Architecture
Team
Marketing &
UX Team
Ecosystem of
Services
Other Scrum
Team
Addressing Systemic Barriers to Flow

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Replenishment Delivery
Service Request
Manager
Service Delivery
Manager
But it’s part of a
larger workflow
2nd adventure: Life beyond the Sprint
Scrum still exists
(mostly) here
Service-
OrientationAgenda

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Other adventures
we could take…. if
we had more time…

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Kanban Cadences

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Replenishment
Customer
Commitment
Point
Asynchronous
Commitment
Nebulous
Selection &
Prioritization
Process
Top 5
Work pulled when
there’s capacity
Customers can
change their minds
at any time here

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Replenishment
Upstream
Kanban
Customer
Commitment
Point
Synchronous
Commitment
End-to-end Customer Pull

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time
impact
time
impact
time
impact
time
impact
Expedite
Fixed Date
Standard
Intangible
Classes of Service, Capacity
Allocation & SLAs

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Team
A
Team
B
Hierarchical
Work Types
Flight Levels

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Add Product
to Shopping
Cart
Test server
unavailable
Date: 24/10/2018
Environment
Outage
Missing
Information
SME
availability
Blocker Clustering

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This approach to
Scrumban is really just the
Kanban Method ;-)

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A look under the hood?

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Under the Hood: The KMM
Evolutionary Change Model /
Coaching Model
Adventure 1:
ML1
Consolidation
Adventure 2:
ML2 Transition

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“You have permission to modify your process.
You have permission to be different. Your
situation is unique, and you deserve to
develop a unique process definition
tailored and optimized to it”
-- David J. Anderson, “Kanban”

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THANK
YOU!
fernando@squirrelnorth.com
@fer_cuenca
Fernando Cuenca, AKC, AKT
SQUIRRELNORTH
ALTERNATIVE PATHS TO AGILITY
SquirrelNorth
martin@squirrelnorth.com
@martinaziz
Martin Aziz, AKC, AKT
squirrelnorth.com

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Martin Aziz
Principal Consultant, SquirrelNorth
Martin brings years of experience working in the Fortune 500 as a senior leader, executive and change agent. A
teacher and guide, he has a track record of developing new leaders and transforming companies. For the last
two decades he has a history of building and transforming: bringing everyone along with him acting as teacher
and guide in developing new leaders.
Martin is actively affiliated with Lean Kanban Inc. as an accredited Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) and
Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT). He speaks regularly at conferences focusing on improving how businesses
are organized.
martin@squirrelnorth.com
Fernando Cuenca
Principal Consultant, SquirrelNorth
Fernando started as a developer in the early 90s (C++ used to be his best friend), discovered Extreme
Programming in the early 2000s, carried the “dev manager” title for a brief period, and became a full time Agile
Coach by 2009. Since then, he has worked for organizations in various industries (such as Finance & Banking, Oil
& Energy, Marketing, Correctional Services, etc.), coaching teams to better understand the way they do work,
introduce technical engineering practices and help them improve their processes incrementally, drawing from
the Agile and Kanban bodies of knowledge.
His focus these days is working with leadership “above the team” to better manage the end-to-end flow of
work in ways that yield better, systemic results. He holds a degree in Information Systems Engineering, and a
Kanban Coaching Professional accreditation from Lean Kanban University.
fernando@squirrelnorth.com