Kanban Case Study

Business Value…Achieved

Kanban Case Study By Steinn Arnar Jónsson Presented at agileLUNCHBOX September 26, 2012


whoami

• Senior Consultant at Quick SoluGons


The Case Study

• Hugsmiðjan – Maker of Eplica CMS

– 500+ CMS installaGons – 27 employees – Located in Reykjavík, Iceland


Hugsmiðjan cont.

• VerGcals – ProducGon:

• Graphic Design • Front-‐end development (HTML/JavaScript/CSS) • Back-‐end development (Java) • Setup • QA

– Support: • Sales, Customer Support, PM, Management

• My role – Development Manager / Team Lead


How is Hugsmiðjan Unusual?

• Projects are small – Ranging from a couple of days to 2-‐3 months

• Typical for 50+ projects to be going on (open) at the same Gme – Something we were hoping to reduce with Kanban

• Employees are highly specialized


What is Kanban?

• Limited pull system – Limit work in progress

– Tasks are pulled along the producGon line (work flow)


Why limit WIP?

• The more tasks we start, the longer it takes for each task to be completed

• We want to avoid boele necks – 10 features that have been coded but not tested => inventory => costs us $

– 5 features that have been coded, tested and deployed => potenGal $ in the bank

VS.


Kanban Core Practices

Visualize Workflow

Limit Work in Progress

Manage Flow Make Policies Explicit

Improve CollaboraGvely,

Evolve Experimentally (using models

and the scienGfic method)

David Anderson, www.agilemanagement.net


Vizualize & Manage Flow

Limit WIP

Make Policies Explicit

Henrik Kniberg, www.crisp.se/henrik.kniberg

Business Value…Achieved Henrik Kniberg, www.crisp.se/henrik.kniberg

Day in Kanbanland


Day in Kanbanland


Day in Kanbanland


Day in Kanbanland


Why Kanban?

• Too many projects going on • Management lacked oversight of projects • Hard to answer quesGons about when things will get done

• Projects were running over budget • Not working together as a team

Challenges we were hoping to address:


Hugsmiðjan cont.

• VerGcals – ProducGon:

• Graphic Design • Front-‐end development (HTML/JavaScript/CSS) • Back-‐end development (Java) • QA

– Support: • Sales, Customer Support, PM, Management

• My role – Development Manager / Team Lead

December 2009 – Five People Cross-functional Team

Next Analysis Grapic Design

Web Dev

Back-‐end Dev Setup QA Done


September 2010 – One Board, Entire Company

Other Tasks

New Standard Web Sites

Project A

Project B

Project C

Project D

Analysis Design Web Dev Back-‐end Dev

Setup QA/Demo Done

Ticket Templates

Improvement to an exisGng web

New web site

Internal improvement

Bug fix


Daily Mantra

• Is the board up-‐to-‐date and in sync with JIRA? • Are you respecGng WIP limits?

• Are you showing blockers and working to remove them?

• Do you know which Gcket you should be working on and what is next?


October 2010 – Minor Enhancements

Added queue at the boeom

March 2011 – Major Change Separate Analysis Table & Two Implementation Tables

Analysis ImplementaGon

Service Tickets

Tickets w. Flow

Web Dev Back Dev Sys Adm

Setup

Leads Analysis Contr. Wirefr. Ready to Impl Next In Progress QA Done

Kickoff Web Dev Back. Dev Setup/QA Delivered


Retrospectives

• Concrete goals

• Assign owners

Improvements

Not Started

In pro-‐gress

Goal achieved Key to success:

Back-end Dev Team Doing Scrum Not Started In Progress QA Ready to Demo

Not Started In Progress QA Ready to Demo

Kanban & Scrum Integration

Sprint User Stories

Kickoff Web Dev Back. Dev QA Next

In Sprint

June 2012 – Implementation Tables Combined Again Sales Moved to Another Table

Ready for Design

In Design

Ready for Impl.

Svc Desk Web Dev Back. Dev QA Next

In Sprint

Done

Sys Admin

Running in prod

WaiGng on cust.

Graphic Design ImplementaGon


Metrics

Size Days (average)

Small 7.4

Medium 17.0

Large 25.2

Lead Time

Size Days (average)

Small 6.4

Medium 12.5

Large 15.0

Cicle Time

Start Small Medium Large TOTAL

3/22/2011 7 7 0 14

3/15/2011 9 4 5 18

3/8/2011 3 2 1 6

3/1/2011 6 5 1 12

Throughput last 4 weeks


Statistical Process Control Chart

David P. Joyce, leanandkanban.wordpress.com. Want to track for...

Lead Time Cicle Time Throughput

Bugs Feature Requests New Web Site Internal Improvements


Service Desk, 115 Dckets, April 2011 Errors vs. Value

47% Value 53% Errors


Benefits Experienced

• VisualizaGon of workflow – General employee awareness of ongoing projects – A platorm for us to iteraGvely improve our workflow

• Beeer understanding of project statuses • Beeer handling of roadblocks and escalaGon of issues

• Experienced to some extent: – ReducGon of WIP – CooperaGon on individual Gckets


Challenges

• Geung people to follow the process • Geung people to respect WIP limits

• Geung people to team up on Gckets

• Handling excepGons to flow • ExtracGng and using metrics


Questions?


Summary

• Covered basics of Kanban • Showed that it is an ever evolving process, with focus on conGnuous improvement

• Useful tool for management – But not a magic bullet


Further Reading & Contact Info

@sjonsson www.sjonsson.com

[email protected]