The document provides 13 tips for instituting Kanban on a time boxed program based on the experiences of a software development team. The tips include taking advantage of all Kanban aspects, making processes and metrics visible, maintaining quality as throughput increases, gaining business trust, and recognizing that productivity does not scale linearly with team growth. Visualizing work, establishing definitions of done, limiting work in progress, and using story maps are emphasized.

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Instituting Kanban on a
Time Boxed Program
13 Tips to Take Advantage Of
Wade Scherer
Michael Byrne
The Spitfire Group, LLC
www.spitfiregroup.com

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Spitfire Group, LLC
Beliefs
• Do projects right
• Efficiently
• High business value
Teams Modeled
on US Army
Special Forces
• Solution Managers
• Business Analysts
• Application
Architects
• Developers
• QA
Consulting
Practice Areas
• Technology
Strategy
• Application
Security
• Custom Software
Development /
Integration
www.spitfiregroup.com

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The Situation
• Use Kanban to Respect Team and Enhance Existing
Methodology – Scrum previously dropped with this team
• Create IT Discipline
Minimal Methodology
Previously in Place
• Goal: Growth / Acquisitions
• Existing IT Infrastructure Not Scalable
Large Back Office
Replacement Program
• 2 years – 6 major components
• Complete Back Office replacement
Aggressive Schedule
• Make the Sale!
• Creativity in Configurations as a Sales Tool
Permissive Business
Process Environment
• If the system can’t support, figure out how to make it work
• Inconsistent data stores, minimal enforced integration
History

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Kanban Aspects of Program
Tip 1: Take Advantage of Every Aspect Available
Tip 2: Be Aware of the All the Aspects

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kanban - Physical Board
Tip 3: Visualization is essential to communicating performance

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Process
Explicit and Visible Definitions of Done
Constructed and Valued by Team
Observance fluctuated
Tip 4: Provides Team an Anchor to refer to

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Analysis Added to Board
Visibility to Avoid Developer Starvation
Analysis Structure including Explicit Policy
Productive Development Team outpaced Analysis Team
Tip 5: Make it VISIBLE!!! Apply Kanban Where Needed

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WIP Gone Wild!
More traffic does NOT Mean Faster!
Tip 6: Need a Lean Advocate to Focus on Fewer Tasks

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Planning – Story Maps
Tip 7: Story Maps Provide Context and a Visual Planning Tool
• Used by Team -> Stopped Using -> Team Wanted Back!

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Tools
Metrics Possible with Weak Tools
No Status Change Time Stamp – No Cycle Time?
Create Your Own!
Tip 8: Work with the Data You Do Have

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Business Trust is Critical
• Difficult to get Cooperation without
Trust
• Avoid an Adversarial Relationship
• Can Severely Impede Progress
Why is it
Critical?
• Customer must trust you understand
business.
• Communicate with them!
• Get their feedback and act on it!
• Provide a solid quality product
Tips 9: Gain
the
Business
Trust

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Core Values – Quality Matters
• Meeting Schedule and Budget
• High Quality Product
What’s
More
Important?
• Misleading: Lines-of-Code vs.
Defects
• Better: Defect Rate
• Better: Survey Business Satisfaction
Tips 10:
How can
you observe
Quality?

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Quality vs Throughput
Product 3
Release
Product 1 Release
– 6/12
Product 2 –
Mon. Arch.
Product 4
Release
Quality does not remain flat as throughput increases
Tip 11: Maintaining consistent quality requires additional effort

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What Can We Learn From This
Picture? Quality Matters Part 2
No visiblity into bug
counts on the burn
down until this point.
Visibility into Unit Tests
- Better Unit Test Success!
“If you can not measure it, you can not improve it” – Lord Kelvin
Tip 12: “If you do not see it, you will not improve it” – Wade and Mike

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Program / Scale Diagram
Initial 3x throughput increase
Tip 13: Productivity doesn’t scale linearly with team growth

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Retrospective
• Capable of Self Management
• Process Respected and Practiced by Team
• Incremental Development Practiced
Extremely
Productive
Team
• Upward Communication
• Minimal Product IterationChallenges
• Weekly Steering Committees
• Plan for Iteration
• Continuous User Community Feedback
Mitigations

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Thirteen Helpful Tips
• Tip 1: Take Advantage of Every Kanban Aspect Available
• Tip 2: Be Aware of the All the Kanban Aspects
• Tip 3: Visualization is essential to communicating performance
• Tip 4: Explicit Process Provides Team an Anchor to refer to
• Tip 5: Make Your Process VISIBLE!!! Apply Kanban Where
Needed
• Tip 6: Need a Lean Advocate to Focus on Fewer Tasks
• Tip 7: Story Maps Provide Context and a Visual Planning Tool
• Tip 8: Work with the Data You Do Have
• Tips 9: Gain the Business Trust
• Customer Trust! Communicate! Feedback! Quality!
• Tips 10: How can you observe Quality?
• Valid Metrics! Survey Business Satisfaction!
• Tip 11: Maintaining consistent quality requires additional effort
• Tip 12: “If you do not see it, you will not improve it”
• Tip 13: Productivity doesn’t scale linearly with team growth