The document discusses how the London School of Economics (LSE) used Kanban principles to improve their web operations processes. It provides background on the issues they faced with high workload variability and dependencies. It then describes how they designed and implemented a Kanban system using a board to visualize workflow and limit work-in-progress. The system involved categorizing requests, tracking dependencies, and metrics to identify bottlenecks. This approach helped improve flow, reduce queue times, and collaboratively refine their processes.

1. Using Kanban to Improve Web
Operations
LSE Case Study
LSE Kanban Case Study
Nov 2012 1

2. Contents
 Web Operations: the Issue
 Kanban
 System as designed
 System in practice
 Lessons learned
LSE Kanban Case Study
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3. LSE Kanban Case Study
Nov 2012 3
Horia Varlan

4. Complex workload mix
Wide range of skills
Short deadlines
Lots of intangibles
(hard to track)
(hard to manage & improve)
Lots of external parties
LSE Kanban Case Study
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Lingaraj G J

5. The Spiral of Death
People can’t see &
understand workload
Low confidence
Make noise
(status reports, etc)
Reduced capacity
to deliver Add work
“just in case”
Context switching
Large backlog
Effort to manage
Effort to prioritise
Rework
LSE Kanban Case Study Queuing delay
Nov 2012 5

6. Kanban
 Literally “signal card”
 “Pull” system using signal cards to
manage the flow of work
 5 Principles
 Visualise the workflow
 Limit WIP
 Manage flow
 Make process policies explicit
 Improve collaboratively (using models
and experiments)
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7. Board

8. Best Practice
 No such thing as the perfect kanban system
 Mindset:
Start where you are
Make bottlenecks visible
Evolve through experiments to eliminate bottlenecks
 Kaizen
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9. Reasons for managing WIP
 Surface flow issues (dependencies, capacity
limits, etc)rapidly & resolve them by:
 Swarming
 Adjusting policies
 Raising an issue
 …
 Reduce queuing delays and hence:
 Speed up feedback loops, so we learn and refine faster
 Reduce time wasted on context switches, requirements decay, etc
 Improve speed of response to requests
 Kill the spiral of death
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10. Starting Point
LSE Kanban Case Study
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11. Backlog Input Queue Work in Progress Output
Displaced
Done
External Analysing Ready Doing In Production Usage
Requests WIP = 3 + WIP = 1 anal. WIP = Team size + 1 + Reviewed
expedite + 2 inter-team Expedite
High WIP=3 In-House
Expedit
e
Management & Governance
Medium WIP=3 Analysis Interteam
Expedit
e
Interteam
Operations
Low
Production
Expedit
Analysis Interteam e
Interteam
Operations
Internal Design
Expedit
e
Strategy & Analysis Interteam
Interteam
Capacity Operations
Improvements Editorial
Expedit
High WIP=3 e
Analysis Interteam
Interteam
Medium Operations
WIP=3
Rich Media
Expedit
Analysis Interteam e
Low
Interteam
Operations
Agency Issues
LSE Kanban Case Study IT
Nov 2012
Client

12. Name Deadline
ID
Ownership
Originator Worker / Internal Owner
Interdependencies
Related Items
Systems / Components
Description & Notes
Also use
• Colour (Originator)
• Size (Effort estimate)
• Rotation (Blockage)
14

13. Name
Done
Doing
Timing
Ready
Stage
Backlog
Analysis
Displaced
In Production
Date &
Team
Usage Reviewed
Date
Date
Date / Team 1
Date / Team 1
Date / Team 2
15
Date / Team 2
Date / Team 2
Date / Team 1
Date / Team 1
Date / Team 1
ID
Date
Deadline
Date

14. Backlog Input Queue Work in Progress2) Finish item
Output
Displaced
Done
External Analysing Ready Doing In Production Usage
Requests WIP = 3 + WIP = 1 anal. WIP = Team size + 1 + Reviewed
expedite + 2 inter-team Expedite
High WIP=3 In-House
Expedit
e
Management & Governance
Medium WIP=3 Analysis Interteam
Expedit
e
Interteam
Operations
Low
Production
Expedit
Analysis Interteam e
Interteam
Operations
Internal Design
Expedit
e
Strategy & Analysis Interteam
Interteam
Capacity Operations
Improvements Editorial
Expedit
High WIP=3 e
Analysis Interteam
Interteam
Medium Operations
WIP=3
Rich Media
Expedit
Analysis Interteam e
Low
Interteam
Operations
Agency Issues
LSE Kanban Case Study IT
Nov 2012
Client

15. Backlog Input Queue Work in Progress4) Internal depend
Output
Displaced
Done
External Analysing Ready Doing In Production Usage
Requests WIP = 3 + WIP = 1 anal. WIP = Team size + 1 + Reviewed
expedite + 2 inter-team Expedite
High WIP=3 In-House
Expedit
e
Management & Governance
Medium WIP=3 Analysis Interteam
Expedit
e
Interteam
Operations
Low
Production
Expedit
Analysis Interteam e
Interteam
Operations
Internal Design
Expedit
e
Strategy & Analysis Interteam
Interteam
Capacity Operations
Improvements Editorial
Expedit
High WIP=3 e
Analysis Interteam
Interteam
Medium Operations
WIP=3
Rich Media
Expedit
Analysis Interteam e
Low
Interteam
Operations
Agency Issues
LSE Kanban Case Study IT
Nov 2012
Client

16. Name Deadline
ID
Timing
Date &
Team
Date / Team 2
Date / Team 2
Date / Team 1
Date / Team 1
Date / Team 1
Date / Team 2
Date / Team 1
Date / Team 1
Date
Date
Date
Date
Stage
Backlog
Awaiting Resource
Analysis
Analysis
Ready
Sign Off
Displaced
Doing
Done
In Production Working
Usage Reviewed 26

17. Metrics & Reporting
Backlog Cycle
Analysis Await Resource External Working Sign Off
 Size of backlog
 No of items; rough estimate of time to complete them
 Cycle time versus size of work item
 Min, max, average, distribution
 Percent of cycle time item is
 In Analysis (Ready-Analysis time)
 Awaiting resources (Doing-Ready + Doing-Displaced time, across internal teams)
 Being worked on internally (Done-Doing time across all internal teams)
 Being worked on by external team (Done-Ready time for external teams)
 Awaiting sign-off (In Production-Done time)
 Throughput
 No of items completed over a period, and hence average throughput
 Usage
 Actuals (usage statistics, satisfaction) versus targets in PD
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18. Board

19. Graham Oakes Ltd
 Making sense of technology…
 Many organisations are caught up in the
complexity of technology and systems.
 This complexity may be inherent to the
technology itself. It may be created by the pace of technology change. Or it may arise from
the surrounding process, people and governance structures.
 We help untangle this complexity and define business strategies that both can be
implemented and will be adopted by people throughout the organisation and its partner
network. We then help assure delivery of implementation projects.
 Clients…
 Cisco Worldwide Education – Architecture and research for e-learning and educational systems
 Council of Europe – Systems for monitoring compliance with international treaties; e-learning systems
 Dover Harbour Board – Systems and architecture review
 MessageLabs – Architecture and assurance for partner management portal
 National Savings & Investments – Helped NS&I and BPO partner develop joint IS strategy
 The Open University – Enterprise architecture, CRM and product development strategies
 Oxfam – Content management, CRM, e-Commerce
 Thames Valley Police – Internet Consultancy
 Sony Computer Entertainment – Global process definition
 Amnesty International, Endemol, tsoosayLabs, Vodafone, …
LSE Kanban Case Study
Nov 2012 37