Presentation used at General Assembly session covering the basics of The Kanban Method.

1. David Lowe
Agile & lean consultant
Scrum & Kanban Ltd
@bigpinots

2. An introduction
to Kanban

3. #GA_Kanban

4. Doing too
Don’t know much
where we are
Can’t predict
our output
Can’t see
our position
Revolutionary
change
Not all playing
by the same rules
Not
improving

5. Before we start
The Kanban Method is …
a set of ideas (not prescribed processes)
for knowledge work (not manufacturing)
from lean (not agile)

7. No “Big Bang” changes

8. No “Big Bang” changes
Foundational principles:
1. Start with what you do now
2. Respect the current process, roles,
responsibilities & titles
3. Agree to pursue evolutionary change

9. 6 core properties

10. 1) Visualise your
work

11. Map current processes;
not roles
Identify dominant activities
that discover new knowledge
coding & testing
analysing
designing
releasing
Visualise your work

12. Visualise your work
Helps you understand
how work flows through
your system
Helps spot areas
needing change

13. Visualise your work
Common to translate
processes to a board
Consider how best to
visualise your workflow
different types
of work
different
priorities
different
customers
blocked items
of work
who is working
on what

14. 2) Limit work-in-
progress

15. Limit WIP
Use a pull system?
Agree capacity of the system
Use tokens (e.g. cards) to denote capacity
Attach a token to each piece of work
When run out of tokens, stop taking on new work
Only take on new work when a token is available
System can’t
become
overloaded

16. Limit WIP
East Gardens, Imperial Palace, Tokyo

17. Limit WIP
East Gardens, Imperial Palace, Tokyo

18. Limit WIP
East Gardens, Imperial Palace, Tokyo

19. Limit WIP
?
East Gardens, Imperial Palace, Tokyo

20. Limit WIP
Kanban assumes stable flow (i.e. one in, one
out, similar sized stories) and pull system
Allowing too much work in progress at the
same time can have negative effects …
… but so can having too little
Aim is to get WIP limits to the “sweet spot”
where you have the optimum/optimal flow

21. Limit WIP
Fast food drive-thru video to explain:
WIP limits
Cycle Time/Lead Time
Throughput Rate (now ‘Delivery Rate’)
“WIP: why limiting work in progress makes sense” on YouTube
http://youtu.be/W92wG-HW8gg

22. Limit WIP
Limiting WIP helps because it:
encourages swarming
encourages small work items
encourages flow of work
encourages finishing work items
“Focus on finishing things, not working on
things”

23. Limit WIP
Start with what you have now …
Can you:
Limit WIP of tasks in progress per story?
Limit WIP per column on the board?
Limit WIP per section of the board?
Limit WIP across the whole board?
Limit WIP across the whole organisation?

24. 3) Manage
flow

25. Manage flow
Measuring the flow of work through your
system helps you identify problems
Every process has at least one bottleneck
Your system can only work as fast as your
slowest point
So make changes to your process in an
attempt to improve flow

26. Manage flow
Scrum has a Burndown Chart
Kanban has a variety of reports:
Cumulative Flow Diagram
Control Chart
Histogram

27. Manage flow
The CFD shows us:
Flow of items through process
Current level of WIP
Lead/Cycle Time
Bottleneck warnings

28. Manage flow
The Control Chart shows us:
Mean Lead Time / Cycle Time
Upper & lower control limits
Outliers
“Investigate
performance to attack
sources of variability”

29. Manage flow
The Histogram shows us:
Frequency of each Lead/Cycle Time
A guide for the time that future stories will
take
Gives us much greater
understanding than a
burndown chart!

30. 4) Make policies
explicit

31. Make policies explicit
It’s difficult to improve a situation if you don’t
know the rules (responses will be emotional
and subjective)
Acknowledge any policies in your process by
stating them explicitly

32. Make policies explicit
Entry criteria
Definition of ‘Done’
Classes of Service
Standard
Expedite
Fixed
Intangible

33. 5) Feedback
loops

34. Feedback loops
Review data and experiences regularly.
Encourage feedback from inside and outside
the team:
Retrospectives / Operations reviews
Daily stand-ups
User feedback
Stats & reports
Feedback from stakeholders / the business …

35. 6)Evolutionary
improvements

36. Improve collaboratively,
evolve experimentally
Use scientific method
Continuous evolutionary improvements
(“Kaizen”), rather than revolutionary change
All the other Kanban ideas lead to this and
should provide data to help improve
Start where you are now. Seek to “attack the
sources of variability” in your processes

37. Sources of variability
Differing sizes of work items
Differing work types (eg bugs, features, debt)
Differing classes of service
Having to rework items
Accepting unknown work
Problems with platforms/environments

38. Although it’s from lean,
it shouldn’t break the
Agile Manifesto
Knowledge work;
not manufacturing
Pull system;
not push system
Evolutionary change,
not revolution
Set of ideas;
not prescribed process

39. That’s the basic … want more?
David J. Anderson
“Kanban”
Mike Burrows
“Kanban from the inside”

40. That’s the basic … want more?
scrumandkanban.co.uk

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