Introduction to Kanban

Introduction to The Kanban Method

Discover how the Kanban Method can Kick Start a Culture of Continuous Improvement

forYour Organization

Your Speaker

Dave WhiteTechnical Program DirectorImaginet Resources Corp. - Microsoft Partner• Management Board - Lean-Kanban University• Advisory Board - LKU’s Accredited Kanban

Training program– Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT)– Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP)

• numerous Microsoft certifications – Microsoft Certified Trainer

• 15 years of experience• specializes in helping organizations mature their

software development and information technology practices

• passionate about Application Lifecycle Management tooling, techniques, and mindsets and regularly talks and teaches on a wide range of ALM topics

http://www.agileramblings.com

Why Are You Here?

X

Symptom

Release Date: in 9-12 months

“We don’t have staff for that project/work”

Lead time for Feature: 12 months

ETA of Bug Fix: ???

“That isn’t what we wanted.”

“We have to get this out right away!”

“The business unit built that?”

“That feature doesn’t matter anymore.”

“We’re really late.”

“We’re waiting on other teams.”

“We’ve got 100s of bugs waiting.”

Problem

Lots of work, not enough capacity• Quality suffers• Features delayed• Technical debt• How much…

• Work??• Capacity??

Disengaged people!

Another Problem

Why is this still a problem?

X

What Have You Tried?

X

XX

X

X

What We’ve Tried So Far

We’ve tried…• Chaos is … chaotic

• Waterfall not well suited• Large batch, single pass,

long duration workflow

“If we just do it better…”

• Scrum is well suited• prescriptive without

understanding context

And…

Adoption is hard!(People are weird!)

Something different…

KanbanMethod

WAIT!!

kanban?

kanban system?

Kanban Method?

The Kanban Method is…

…an approach to incremental, evolutionary process change for organizations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development)

Kanban Method allows us to…

Our motivation for building kanban systems is to

prevent overburdening,

control variability in flow

and encourage an evolutionary approach to change

murimura

What causes overburdening and variation?

1. Invisible work2. Non-instant availability of specialist skills or

collaborators3. Information fails to arrive before it is needed4. Hidden/Implicit classes of service that cause

work to be interrupted to process other work5. Variety in work (complexity & size)6. Changing priorities related to variety in risks

associated with work (e.g. cost of delay)7. Capacity constrained specialist skilled

workers or other resources

Are any of these present in your work environment?

Organizational Evolution

So Why The Kanban Method• Designed to…

• Be context sensitive• Foster organizational learning• Be evolutionary

• Simple rules to govern complex systems• Teams of people are systems

• Agile methods can emerge• Fully embraces Agile Manifesto

• Lean methods can emerge• Fully embraces Lean Software

Development Principles

• Tactic-agnostic

• Catalyst for organizational improvement

kaizen

To make better

Kanban Method

… and it’s easy to get started

Kanban Method

agile

lean

• 4 principles• 6 practices

Kanban Method Principles

start with what you do now

agree to pursue incremental, evolutionary change

initially, respect current roles, responsibilities & job titles

encourage acts of leadership

6 CORE PRACTICES

visualize

limit WIP

manage flow

make process policies

explicit

develop feedback mechanisms

improve collaboratively

Visualize

Visualize

Limit WIP

Limit WIP

Manage Flow

Make Process Policies Explicit

Explicit Policies

Explicit Policies

Develop Feedback Mechanisms

Improve Collaboratively with Science!

WHY ARE WE DOING ALL THIS?

To create a LEARNING capability in our organization that enables CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT!

We must…• Have time to discover and implement kaizen

opportunities• Create theories and experiment • Give ourselves opportunities to fail • Learn from your mistakes

The Benefits You’ll Experience

• Deeper understanding of demand and capacity

• Constantly improving teams• Exposed constraints• Increased predictability• Reduced overburdening

Happy People

Better Teams = Better Business

• Predictability• Agility• Risk Management• Governance• Change Management

Kaizen Opportunities

For development teams, three areas often need improvements:

ProcessThe Kanban Method will expose process challenges

TechnicalVisualization of work will allow for the capture of metrics that point to technical limitations

Development PlatformVisualization of workflow will lead to platform improvement opportunities

Inter-dependant

ProcessBottle necks & constraints, hand-offs, overburdening, multi-

tasking, wait times

TechnicalUnit Testing, SOLID, DI, MVC,

Technical debt

Development Platform

Automation (build, quality, collaboration)

Institutional memory, risk mitigation

Solutions Are Just Waiting to be Discovered

• Work is understood!• Designed to understand demand• Discover capacity• People improve the

system

• People are engaged!• Empowered• Own the improvements• Pull work

• Solving Our Problem• Our processes are

important• Learning-focused

approach

X

My Tools

X

XX

X

X

Team Foundation Server 2012

Team Foundation Server 2012

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 (TFS) is the collaboration platform at the core of Microsoft's application lifecycle management (ALM) solution.

Kanban on TFS 2012

Kanban on TFS starts with…

http://vsarkanbanguide.codeplex.com/

https://tfs.visualstudio.com/

Ability to track work

Ability to visualize work and flow

Tools Are Enablers

Work Items – The data that is important to you

Tools Are Enablers

Visualize

Tools Are Enablers

Visualize

CFD here

Holistic System

X

How You Can Get Here

X

XX

X

X

Where to Start

1. Find a Leader2. Get Foundational

Knowledge3. Visualize Your Work4. Limit your WIP5. Focus on HIGH Quality

Call to Action

• Engage• Attend our Accredited Core Kanban class with our

Visual Studio day• Reach out to Dave

• @agileramblings or [email protected]

• Join the Community!• Lean-Kanban University• Visit Lean Kanban North America 2014 in San Francisco!• kanbandev group (Yahoo)• Limited WIP Society or your local Kanban User Group

What to do next?

Imaginet’s New Kanban Website!

Visit Imaginet’s Kanban website for all your Kanban needs!

http://bit.ly/10WztoE

Attend a Public Imaginet Kanban Course

Visit our training page for info!

Accredited Core Kanban (2-days)Sept. 11-12, 2013Dallas (Irving, TX)

$1375/student

Accredited Core Kanban /w TFS 2012 (3-days)Sept. 11-13, 2013Dallas (Irving, TX)

$1875/student

Private class? Email us at [email protected]

http://bit.ly/10WzvNn

Upcoming Kanban Webinars

Introduction to KanbanAugust 15 (12:00-1:00pm CT)

Thank you

http://www.imaginet.comhttp://www.imaginet.com/kanban

http://www.leankanbanuniversity.com

twitter: @justimaginet

http://tfs.visualstudio.com