The SAFe Way to Lean Software Development for AgileNCR - April 5, 2014

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1 © 2008 - 2014 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved. © 2008 - 2014 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. Scaled Agile Framework ® is a trademark of Leffingwell, LLC.

The SAFe Way to Lean Software Development

Better Software Makes the World a Better Place Presented at AgileNCR April 5, 2014

V7.0

Colin O’Neill, President of Asia Pacific Operations [email protected]

2 © 2008 - 2014 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved.

Your Presenter - Colin O’Neill

!  Co-founder, Scaled Agile, Inc.

!  SAFe Principal Contributor and Thought Leader

!  Lean Value Stream Mapping enthusiast

!  Worked with some of the world’s largest companies including John Deere, Walmart, and Honeywell

!  Email: [email protected]

!  Creator of SAFe

!  Founder/CEO Requisite, Inc. Makers of RequisitePro

!  Senior VP Rational Software Responsible for Rational Unified Process (RUP) & Promulgation of UML

!  Founder/CEO RELA, Inc. Colorado MEDtech

!  Co-founder, Scaled Agile, Inc.

!  SAFe Principal Contributor and Thought Leader

!  Worked with companies ranging from Lean startups to $35B global enterprises

!  Agile Center of Excellence and Agile Portfolio Management enthusiast

!  Email: [email protected]

3 © 2008 - 2014 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved. 4 © 2008 - 2014 Scaled Agile, Inc. and Leffingwell, LLC. All rights reserved.

Lean and SAFe


Lean Thinking Provides the Tools We Need

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen


Goal: Speed, Value, Quality

THE GOAL: !  Sustainably shortest lead time !  Best quality and value to

people and society !  Most customer delight, lowest

cost, high morale, safety

All we are doing is looking at the timeline, from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point where we collect the cash. And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value added wastes.

Taiichi Ohno

We need to figure out a way to deliver software so fast that our customers don’t have time to change their minds.

Mary Poppendieck

Most software problems will exhibit themselves as a delay.

Al Shalloway

Sustainably shortest lead time

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen

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Foundation: Leadership

!  Take responsibility for Lean|Agile success

!  Understand and teach Lean|Agile behaviors

!  Are trained in practices and tools of continuous improvement

!  Teach problem solving and corrective action

!  See with their own eyes. “No useful improvement was ever invented at a desk”

!  Develop people. People develop solutions.

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen

LEADERSHIP: ! Management must be

trained in lean thinking ! Bases decisions on this

long term philosophy

Lean Thinking Manager-Teachers


Respect for People

!  Develop individuals and teams; they build products

!  Empower teams to continuously improve

!  Build partnerships based on trust and mutual respect

!  Your customer is whoever consumes your work

!  Don’t trouble them

!  Don't overload them

!  Don't make them wait

!  Don't impose wishful thinking

!  Don't force people to do wasteful work

!  Equip your teams with problem-solving tools

!  Form long-term relationships based on trust

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen

People do all the work

PEOPLE:


Kaizen

!  A constant sense of danger

!  Small, steady improvements

!  Consider all data carefully, then implement change rapidly

!  Reflect at key milestones to identify and improve shortcomings

!  Use tools like retrospectives, root cause analysis, and value stream mapping

!  Protect the knowledge base by developing stable personnel and careful succession systems

“We can do better”

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen

BECOME RELENTLESS IN: !  Reflection !  Continuous improvement as

an enterprise value

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Lean and Product Development Flow

Todays’ development processes typically deliver information asynchronously in large batches. Flow-based processes deliver information in a regular cadence of small batches.

- Don Reinertsen


Product Development Flow

1.  Take an economic view

2.  Actively manage queues

3.  Understand and exploit variability

4.  Reduce batch sizes

5.  Apply WIP constraints

6.  Control flow under uncertainty: cadence and synchronization

7.  Get feedback as fast as possible

8.  Decentralize control Reinertsen, Don. Principles of Product Development Flow

Respect for People

Product Development

Flow Kaizen

Principles


#1 – Take an Economic View

Base your decisions on economics

! Develop an economic framework for decision making

! Empower local decision making

! Do not consider money already spent

! Understand the full value chain

! Sequence jobs for maximum benefit

!  If you only quantify one thing, quantify the cost of delay

Lead Time Cost

Value Development Expense

Risk

Reinertsen, Don. Principles of Product Development Flow

Understanding economics requires understanding of the interaction amongst

multiple variables


#2 – Actively Manage Queues

!  Understand Little’s Law

(Avg wait time = avg queue length / avg processing rate) !  Faster processing time

decreases wait !  Control wait times by controlling

queue lengths


Email from a client service organization: “Thank you for contacting us. We are experiencing increased volumes and apologize in advance for

the delay. Our goal is to contact you within...”

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#3 – Understand and Exploit Variability

Risk-taking is central to value creation

!  You cannot add value without adding variability

!  Development variability can increase economic value

!  Buffers trade money and time for variability reduction

!  Schedule buffers convert uncertain earliness to certain lateness

!  Planning and requirements forecasting are exponentially easier in short-term horizons.

By investing relatively more in beneficial areas and abandoning wasteful ones, the enterprise maximizes economic benefit


E P I C

E P I C

ü

VA

LU

E


#4 – Reduce Batch Size

Small batches go through the system faster, with lower variability

! Large batch sizes increase variability

! High utilization increases variability ! Severe project slippage is the most

likely result

! Reduces cycle time; faster feedback

! Decreases variability and risk ! Most important batch is the

transport (handoff) batch ! Proximity (co-location) enables

small batch size ! Good infrastructure enables

small batches

Fig. Source: Poppendieck. Implementing Lean Software Development Reinertsen, Don. Principles of Product Development Flow


#5 – Apply WIP Constraints

WIP constraints force capacity matching, increases flow

When WIP and utilization become too high, you will see a sudden and catastrophic reduction in throughput!

Apply WIP constraints Force capacity matching Accelerate delivery

Timebox Prevent uncontrolled expansion of work Make waiting times predictable

Purge lower value projects when WIP is too high

Increase efficiency and throughput of remaining work

Constrain local WIP pools Constrain global WIP pools Make WIP continuously visible

1) Understand 2) take action


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#6 – Control Flow Under Uncertainty

! Transforms unpredictable events into predictable events

! Delivering on cadence requires scope or capacity margin

! Makes waiting times predictable –  If you can’t predict delivery,

existing programs become “feature magnets”

! Helps manage load by limiting available time

! Synchronization causes multiple events to happen at the same time

! Synch events facilitate cross functional tradeoffs of people, resources and scope

! Periodic resynchronization limits variance to a single time interval

! Regular, system wide integration provides higher fidelity tests and objective solution assessment


Cadence and Synchronization are useful Lean tools


#7 – Get Feedback As Fast As Possible

!  Truncates unsuccessful paths quickly, reducing the cost of failure in risk taking

!  Improves the efficiency of learning by reducing the time between cause and effect

!  Facilitated by small batch sizes

! Requires increased investment in development environment to extract smaller signals

!  Local feedback loops are inherently faster than global feedback loops; assists decision making

Fast feedback manages risk and facilitates innovation



#8 – Decentralize Control

!  Centralize control for decisions that:

–  Are infrequent –  Can be applied globally; have significant economies of

scale

!  Decentralize control for all others:

–  Time critical –  Local decisions have better local information Inefficiency of decentralization costs less than the value of faster response time

!  Control the economic logic behind a decision

–  Set the framework, empower others to make the decisions


Use centralized and decentralized control where appropriate

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Suggested Readings

! Reinertsen, Don. 2009. The Principles of Product Development Flow: Second Generation Lean Product Development.

!  The SAFe Way to Lean Software Development http://scaledagileframework.com/the-safe-way-to-lean-software-development/

!  Leffingwell, Dean. 2011. Agile Software Requirements: Lean Requirements Practices for Teams, Programs, and the Enterprise.

! Kim, Gene, Behr, Kevin, Spafford, George. 2013. The Phoenix Project. A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win.


Questions?

The SAFe Way to Lean Software Development for AgileNCR - April 5, 2014

Technology

agile framework

trademark of leffingwell

agile center of excellence

work people

dont force people

control flow

better respect

flowbased processes