Stop Starting. Start Finishing. APLN Houston

STOP STARTING.
START FINISHING.

David Hawks
CEO of Agile Velocity Transforming Technology Organizations
Austin, TX
Agile Trainer and Coach
Website – AgileVelocity.com
Blog – AustinAgile.com
Agile Austin Education Chair
CSM, CSP, PSM, PMI-ACP

Twitter - @austinagile

Agile Velocity enables companies to achieve a greater value in their technology
investment through Agile Training, Coaching & Product Development
Services
Copyright © 2013 Agile Velocity, LLC. All Rights Reserved. AGILE VELOCITY PROPRIETARY

Most Companies are Drowning in a
Sea of Opportunity


Is our target goal 100% utilization?

Another example of sub-optimizing measurements is the focus in some companies on making sure that
everyone is busy all of the time; and generally this is done by assigning people to work on several things at
the same time. However, this strategy causes enormous waste because trying to drive utilization high creates
the equivalent of traffic jams and slows everything down, while time spent thrashing between assignments
mounts.
http://www.scrum-breakfast.com/2011/04/interview-mary-poppendieck-on-lean.html

Working on many items in parallel Working on items in value order

Highest Value

What is the Impact of Change?

Let’s Play a Game


Multi-tasking
7

Form groups of 4-6

In each group 1 person will do the work and the rest are customers

The customers need to have a stopwatch (i.e. phone, watch) – it is possible share

The worker is going to write each person’s last name 1 letter at a time

The worker will write each name in parallel – 1 letter at a time

The worker will start with the customer on their left, ask for a letter, write it down, then
move to the next customer
The customer’s will time from the beginning (all at the same time) to the point in which
their name is fully written
Record your time

Average across all customers on your team


Focus!
8

The worker will write each name in serial

The worker will start with the customer on their left, ask for a letter,
write it down, and keep writing until their name is fully written before
moving on to the next customer
The customers will time from the beginning (all at the same time) to
the point in which their name is fully written

Record the second time

Average across all customers


Debrief
9

How did the times compare?

As a worker, which method did you
prefer? Why?

As a customer, which method did
you prefer? Why?


Examplesthis Costs Resulting from Long Cycle Time
I need to know if of
estimate you gave me
last month is still
accurate.

But I workedtime to
I don’t have on that Can you take a
I’ll check with Jim OK. don’t think you by
Yes,I’ll get defect, and
I it’s a it to this
fix it allweeks ago! I’ll
three properly now. look at this? I
when he get’s back. Monday, I’mthison the
I’ve built all in valid
requirement is other
I’ll do a quick fix and
have to read through think it’s a defect.
He’s away for a few weekendtopis it?
stuff more, of it!
any on anyway.
tidy it up later.
the code again.
days.
Project
Manager

Analyst Developer Tester

Knowledge decay
+ increase in the cost of fixing defects
+ reduced quality
+ information becomes stale and needs rework
+ delays accumulate
= reduced customer value
getKanban.com

Little’s Law

WIP
= Avg. Cycle Time
Throughput


So What Do We Do?

Focus on improving both the ability to
deliver and the predictability of
delivery.
Feature

?
Feature

Feature

Feature

Feature
Why waste effort trying to order the
Feature
input when there is no dependability
in the order of delivery?
Kanban, David J. Anderson, 2010

Balance Demand Against Throughput

By throttling the input
(demand) into the system

This will limit the Work In
Progress and Level Flow

Which will expose the
bottlenecks

And enable improvement


Slack capacity gives the team time to try
improvements


Frequent Delivery Builds Trust

Agile Principle
Which Team dois the have more confidence in?
you
Team 1
Working Software Team 2
Primary Measure of
80
Which data
Progress
is more defendable?
Scope Delivered

60

40

20

Time

Once we have Factual Data we
can have Factual Conversations
Feature Points Cumulative Total
Team Historical Velocity = 10 Points/ Sprint (2 weeks)
Story A 2 2
Story B 5 7
The business wants to know what will be
Story C 3 10
Story D 1
delivered in 12 weeks?
11
Story E 3 14
Story F 2 16
Story G 5 21
Story H 2 23
Story I 2 25
Story J 3 28
Story K 5 33 90% Confidence
Story L 2 35
Story M 8 43 50% Confidence
Story N 2 45
Story O 5 50
Allows for Change
Story P 2 52
Story Q 8 60 10% Confidence

Get Competing Stakeholders to Prioritize Together

It can be counterproductive to improve
individual steps in our process

We need to
Optimize
the Whole!


How long will it take to process 10 items?

Starting
State
5 5 A B
10 items/ min 5 items/ min

1 Minute A B
5 5

2 Minutes A B 5

5

3 Minutes A B 5 5


How long will it take to process the 10th
batch of 10 items?
Batch 10 5 5 A B
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5
5 5


How can we address the bottleneck?

5 5 A B


If you have level
Flow
Prioritization is
no longer about
ordering all the
Work
But picking the
next one as work
finishes
Kanban, David J. Anderson, 2010

看板 – Kanban


Agile
Lean Empirical

Kanban

Scrum
• Focus on Value Self-Organizing
• PDCA
Servant Leader
• Kaizen Culture
• Deming Quick Feedback
• Limit Waste Incremental
Iterative


Start With
What You
Do Now

Image: http://amyjolauber.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/the-beginning.jpg

Agree to pursue incremental,
evolutionary change
Image: http://blog.doat.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Evolution-13.jpg

Image: http://agileconsulting.blogspot.com/2012/02/kanban-101.html


Kanban Board
32

www.kanban101.com

Make work Visible
33

Making work visible means showing everyone
what is going on:
revealing activities,
limits, and
blockages.
It will allow you to see the cause and effect of
changes to your process.
The board will reveal when flow is happening
and when it is not.

www.kanban101.com

Cycle Time
34

http://www.agileproductdesign.com/downloads/patton_kanban.ppt

Kanban Mechanics in a Nutshell
Ready (4) Analysis (2) Development (4) Test (3) Ready to Deployed
Deploy
In Progress Done In Progress Done

10 9 8 5 4 1
11 6 2
12 7 3
13
14

The is testing of Kanban board. downstream ticket 5 process, ticket from as columns. Done the
A ticketan queue may be replenished
WIP we our WIP limit in 1 pushedNoticelimit of when thenew workrepresented it to receive the work. Test,
Because have 2 items in Developmentto its WIP limit we may and indicate thatweis ready deploy. WIP leaving
Now saycompletes Testing, a with a WIPfree, stages ofthere is insufficient the customer. to development limits
Let’sReady stop work being is slot comesWe move3, In Progress now be pulled into Test.
Herelimits exampleticketTest,complete. coversand it so withmay pull aDone, when DevelopmentNotice intoIf on a
the both downstream to from capacity complete
development work on to column names.
ticket, we may beside ticket WIP limit of it cannot be to a ticket into Development from Analysis its WIP limit.
3 parentheses move itthethe Development Done columnpullindicate that it is completed, is already atDone, WIP
inin Development, which has5ais completed,4, so we may “pushed” into Test, because Testwithout breaking aand so
limit.
forth.

Where to apply right now?

 A process that needs tuning
 A team that needs to focus and limit
WIP in order to reduce cycle time
 Gain visibility into flow of work before
and after Sprints
 Use to organize personal backlog of

work


Stop Starting.

Start Finishing.

Upcoming Workshops in Houston
4/1 – Advanced Agile Leadership

4/2 – Advanced Product Planning

4/3 – Kanban Foundations $595 Base Price (ea)

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20% off code - HoustonAgile

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Stop Starting. Start Finishing. APLN Houston

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