Karl Scotland – Using Agile to Deliver Value
Archive for September, 2010
Exploring the Kanban Multiverse at Agile2010
Sep 30th
I ran a workshop on “Exploring the Kanban Universe” at Agile2010 with Xavier Quesada Allue. The premise was to setup an example case study and lead participants through visualising different aspects of a project – the different multiverses – over a number of iterations. Below are pictures of the final boards from the different teams. We encouraged people to think ‘outside the box’ and try and move away from traditional rows and columns approaches.
The highlight for me was the circular design that one of the teams came up with. I thought it was a great solution to the challenge of avoiding kanban boards appearing to show a linear process. With a circular design, a work item can loop round the circle multiple times, with the distance from the centre indicating closeness to completion, and different quadrants indicating the primary focus of work such as analysis, dev, test etc. This was the nicest example of a board as a ‘map’ as opposed to a ‘relational’ representation.
One thing that was reinforced for me was that a Kanban Board should not try to visualise absolutely everything. Its should have just enough information to signal where the issues are, and where the team should look to find out more. In other words it should be able to “point to the gemba”. Thanks to Harada Kiro to reminding me of this after the session. In future runs of the workshop we’d like to try starting with a blank canvas each iteration to avoid teams feeling constrained by trying to show too much and having to build upon previous designs.
I also gave a talk on the subject at the Lean & Kanban Conference in Belgium last week after which Mary Poppendieck pointed out that I’d slipped into referring to some visual management designs as kanban boards when they strictly weren’t because they didn’t limit WIP. Visual Management is a large part of a Kanban System, but not every Visual Management board is a Kanban board.
LESS2010 – Don’t Miss Out
Sep 23rd
I’ve spent the last few days busy on final preparations for the LESS2010 – the International Conference on Lean Software and Systems, which is being held in partnership with the LeanSSC.
Tickets for LESS2010 are selling well, but we’d really like it to be a sell out. If you’re not already coming, please take a look, sign up and bring your friends and colleagues!
The website is http://less2010.leanssc.org/ and the full program and details are now available at http://less2010.leanssc.org/program/. There is also an executive day if you know anyone who you think would be interested in that. http://less2010.leanssc.org/program/executives/. If you book a group of 5 or more, we can also offer a discounted rate – let me know if you’re interested in that option.
We have a couple of flyers for helping with promotion:
- http://less2010.leanssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/lessflyer.pdf
- http://less2010.leanssc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/LESS2010-for-Executives.pdf
If I were to pick 3 main reasons for attending the conference, they would be:
- The Beyond Budgeting track and links with that community
- The Academic content and links with that community
- The great line-up of speakers
I hope I see you there!
Agile2010 Bag Packing with Kanban
Sep 7th
At Agile2010, as at Agile2009, I went along to help the volunteer bag packing, and use it as an exercise in experimenting with Lean and Kanban ideas. Once again it was a huge success. We completed packing all the bags in (anecdotally) record time, and had great fun in the process.
The video above was put together by Luiz Parzianello and really gives a sense of the energy and enjoyment everyone had. You can also see the “Y” shaped line we put in place and how people moved around and self-organised to keep the materials flowing.
Below are the outputs of the team retrospective, but first, here are my highlights and overall impressions.
- Even though bag packing is not software development, there was still creativity on the way we solved the problem.
- Being able to design a successful process in context, whatever the nature of the work, is an important skill.
- Even with relatively repetitive work, people are motivated when they are involved in designing the work.
- Clear visibility of bottlenecks (by limiting work in progress) enabled people to move around to keep the flow of material.
- Measuring throughput in bags per minute (but not setting targets) was a motivator and a predictor of when we would finish.
- Given the right space, it would be perfectly feasible to pack bags on-demand during registration without needing to pack them up front.
Here are the retrospective notes:
What Worked – Do Again
- Music
- 1 person floating around all stations (extra capacity)
- Y Config
- Everyone really trying to help
- Continuity of event planning – better every year – Elastic
- WIP limits – 4 stacks backlog meant stop & wait
- 18 people in am / 15 people in pm
- People taking metrics – live, visible metrics – without warning
- Paper picking – each one goes under prev
- Largest on bottom
- Table splits
- Breaks
- Everything organised & stacked with one example on table of each item
- Handing a stack directly to a person instead of putting on table
- Continuity & ownership between am/pm – (better)
- People got to be creative & solve problems
- Stacking by size
- Arrange table so no one had to walk
- Video taping!!!
What Did Not Work – Do Better
- Tables too short, materials too low
- Bad sizing on poster
- Folders came flat, needed to fold
- Sticker falling out of flyer
- Bags less than ideal – keeping open – cut hands
- Started later, slow beginning
- Still found missing items
- List still was not accurate, items hard to match
- Process for matching items to list not efficient
- Did not have all the bags
- Table with small things moved too fast
- Slowing down to obey WIP made it hard to speed up
What To Do Differently – Try
- Packing on the vendor room – closer to end point
- Planning on process over email before hand
- Someone owns planning process early
- Something to hold bags by handle and open like a rod
- Big visible labels on boxes – even big colour stickies
- Do prework on Saturday
- Insert kanban tokens into inventory so when a signal is found in stack, then supplies can be identified.
