Agile and Lean principles leveraged to focus on client value delivery where an individual will likely be slowed down in order to speed up the overall delivery.

1. Matt Anderson, PMP, PMI-ACP
Director, Cerner Technology Services
Slow Down to Speed Up:
It’s All About Delivery

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Tortoise and the Hare
• Aesop’s Fable
• Agile
• Agile processes promote sustainable development
• The sponsors, developers, and users should be able to maintain a
constant pace indefinitely
• Lean
• Create Continuous Process Flow to Bring Problems to the Surface
• Use Pull Systems to Avoid Overproduction
• Level Out the Workload
• Win the “Development Game” – Alistair Cockburn
• “Speed is not the objective, it is a means to an end; the objective is
making money” – Don Reinertsen

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Utilization Versus Throughput
100% Road utilization
=> Terrible throughput
Car in Car out

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Utilization Versus Throughput
Size
matters…

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Start and Stop vs Flow

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MODOT Flow Problem
• Springfield, MO
• 4-lane highway overpasses not able to handle the
volume of traffic
• Option 1
• Tear down existing and build a new 6 lane overpass
($10 M cost)
• Option 2
• Find a better way to achieve throughput with
existing structure

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Double Cross-over Diamond (DCD) Exchange
• https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/publicroads/10novdec/01.cfm - Cost $3.2M

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8
DCD Improvements in Flow
• In comparison to conventional model
• Total delay
• 67% reduction per vehicle
• Total number of vehicle stops
• 50% reduction
• Time spent stopped
• 75% reduction
• Capacity
• 30% increase
• 4 lane DCD = 6 lane conventional
• Improved efficiency saves cost of construction of 2 lanes
• Able to refactor existing bridge infrastructure as opposed to rebuilding
• Safety
• 5 year comparative study
• DCD – 11 light injury accidents (no fatalities)
• Conventional – 23 fatal or severe injury accidents
• Vehicle speed
• Slower per vehicle (24 mph vs 34 mph)

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Elimination of Conflicts
• Traditional
• 26 conflict points
• DCD
• 14 conflict points
• Conflicts =
Handovers in
software
development

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Roundabouts
• Throughput
• Delays reduced by 89%
• Number of vehicles stopping by 56%
• Average 20% increase over 4 way stop
• Average 40% increase over stop light
• Safety
• More than 90% reduction in fatalities
• 76% reduction in injuries
• 35% reduction in all crashes
• Reduce conflict points from 32 to 8
• Fuel consumption reduced by 32%
• Speed reduced to 15-25 mph
• 5-10 mph slower than conventional
• Mythbusters study
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvoFjirrgYA

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Queuing System:
items in queue &
items in service
Arrivals Departures
Simple System Dynamics

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12
Queuing Theory
• Mathematical study of waiting in lines (or queues)
• Key Measures
• Lead Time
• Time from client request to client deployment – “arrival rate”
• Cycle Time
• Time from work started to when item is ready for delivery – “completion rate”
• Goal
• Fastest possible average time of delivery
• Not as concerned about a single item as with overall throughput
• Method
• Reduce Wait Times
• Largest contributor to slow cycle times

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13
Little’s Law and Arrivals
L = λ W
Average number of
items in a system
Average wait time in the
system for an item
Average arrival rate• Assumptions:
• Stable system (stationary processes)
• Long Running Averages
• Consistent Units

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Little’s Law Restated for Cycle Time
WIP / Throughput = Cycle Time
100 projects 10 projects/week 10 weeks
150 projects 10 projects/week 15 weeks
50 projects 10 projects/week 5 weeks
• Little’s Law
• Average Cycle Time = Average WIP / Average Throughput
• Ways to improve Cycle Time (aka System Performance)
• Increase Throughput
• Decrease WIP

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Wait Time Based on Utilization – Low Variability
Wait time at 95% is 25x
greater than at 75%

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Wait Time with Variability

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Ways to Reduce Cycle Time
• Change the way work arrives
• Example: Lights at on-ramps to busy freeways
• Reduce Variability
• Change the way work is processed
• Example: High Occupancy/Carpool (HOV) Lanes, DCD
Intersections, Roundabouts
• Modify batch size to create a steady rate of service
• Theory of Constraints – Find and fix bottlenecks
• Do not fix other areas as it will not increase throughput and is
waste
• Eliminate Waste

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Theory of Constraints – Smooth Flow
Team
Goal
Problem
Strategy
Adapted from Henrik Kniberg

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19
Suboptimization
Specialist 2Specialist 1 Specialist 3
Specialist 2
Specialist 1
Specialist 3
January February March April May June July
6 months
3 months
Done!
Done!
We’re a lot faster!
I’m a bit
slower
We’re slow!
I’m fast!
Adapted from Henrik Kniberg

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20
Kanban Core Principles
• Visualize the workflow
• Limit WIP (work in progress)
• Manage Flow
(measure and optimize)
• Make Process Policies
Explicit
• Implement Feedback Loops
• Improve Collaboratively
(using models)
To do Dev Release
H C
2
Test
35
Done!
3
D
G
K
A
B
FLOW
“Don’t build features that nobody needs right now. Don’t write more specs than you
can code. Don’t write more code than you can test. Don’t test more code than you
can deploy”
– Corey Ladas

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0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
Day 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
To Do
Build
Test
Release
Done
Cumulative Flow Diagram
Cycle Time
Lead Time
WIP
Arrival Rate
Completion
Rate
RemainingWork
Backlog

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Combining Scrum and Kanban Boards
• Use Kanban for end to end workflow
• Use Scrum for development team
Cards are Stories or Epics
Cards are Tasks

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Economics of Fast Feedback
• Scenario: 2 digit lottery with $1.00 ticket price and $100 payout
• Options:
• Purchase both digits immediately for $1
• Purchase one digit for $.50 and only purchase second for $.50 if first matches
Pay $1
Pay out = $0
Pay out = $100
Expected net gain = $0
99%
1%
Pay $.50
Pay out = $0
Pay $.50
90%
10%
Pay out = $0
Pay out = $100
9%
1%
Expected net gain = $45
Spend $100 to get $100
Spend $55 to get $100
Adapted from Don Reinertsen

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24
So now what???

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25
Value Stream Mapping – Video Game
Draft
Concept
Pres.
Assign
Team
Graphics
Design
Sound
Design
Dev
Integr. &
Deploy
2d 1m
4h
6m
8
Game backlog
1w 6m 6m
15
Design-ready
games
12
Production-ready
games
1m 3w 3m
(1m+2m)
3w2h 1d
3 m value added time
25 m cycle time
= 12%
Process
cycle
efficiency
 Games out of date
 Missed market windows
 Demotivated teams
 Overhead costs
Adapted from Henrik Kniberg

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26
Waste, Flow and Value
• Lean’s primary objective is commonly equated to
eliminating Waste
• The true end goal is to deliver Value
• Flow and Waste Elimination are tools to meet that goal
• Value trumps Flow
• We may interrupt overall flow to deliver faster on a specific high
value work item
• Expedite policies
• Class of Service policies
• Defect Management policies
• Flow trumps Waste Elimination
• There are times when we purposely introduce “waste” to
improve flow
• Buffers and Queues

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27
How to Focus on Delivery
• Determine how your team delivers Value to the Client
• Tool: Value Stream Mapping
• Synchronize work with the entire delivery stream
• Tool: Value Stream Mapping and Kanban
• Determine your Team speed limit
• Avoid over commitment and high congestion
• Team assigned projects/capabilities, not individually assigned
• Tool: Kanban and WIP Limits
• Find the bottleneck(s)
• Ensure the bottleneck is never “starved”
• Tool: Kanban with a Buffer column before the bottleneck
• Tool: “Done” queues to show where work is stuck

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28
How to Focus on Delivery
• Decompose all work to small batch sizes
• Tool: Epics, User Stories and Tasks
• Tool: Fast Feedback loops
• Slow Down to Speed Up
• Eliminate/Reduce stops and starts
• Avoid Suboptimization
• Tool: Agile Continuous Planning, Cross-Functional Training
• Make all work visible
• Tool: Kanban/Scrum boards
• Control the Input Queue
• Tool: Kanban, Keep teams together, Prioritization

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How to Focus on Delivery
• Understand and plan for variability with each project
• Tool: Definition of Done in Kanban columns
• Tool: Scatterplots and Monte Carlo Simulations
• Measure and Optimize Flow
• Tool: Cumulative Flow Diagrams
• Tool: Create Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

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Q&A

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