Kanban Deployment with the X-Matrix

This is a continuation of my musings on Strategy Deployment, the X-Matrix and Kanban Thinking (including Strategy Deployment as Organisational Improv and How Do I Know If Agile Is Working). I’ve been thinking more about the overlap between Strategy Deployment and Kanban and come to the conclusion that the intersection of the two is what could be called “Kanban Deployment” [1].

Let me explain…

To begin with, the name Strategy Deployment describes how a centralised decision is made about strategy, which is deployed such that decentralised decisions can be made on defining and executing plans. The people who are engaged at the coal face are the people who are most likely to know what might (or might not) work. In other words its the strategy that is deployed, not a plan.

Similarly, Kanban Deployment can be used to describe how a centralised decision is made about kanban as an approach to change, which is deployed such that decentralised decisions can be made on defining and executing processes. Again, the people who are engaged at the coal face are again the people who are most likely to know what might (or might not) work. Its kanban that is deployed, not a process.

With this perspective, we can look at how the X-Matrix could be used to describe a Kanban Deployment in terms of Kanban Thinking. (For a brief explanation of the X-Matrix see a post on how we used the approach at Rally).

The Results describe the impact we want the kanban system to have, and the positive outcomes we are looking to achieve with regard to Flow, Value and Potential. Just like with ‘regular’ Strategy Deployment, an economic model as recommended by Don Reinertsen is likely to provide clues as to what good results would be, as will a good understanding of fitness for purpose.

For Strategies we can look to the Kanban Thinking interventions of Study, Share, Stabilise. Studying the system is a strategy for learning more about the current context. Sharing knowledge is a strategy for creating a common understanding of the work and the way the work is done. Stabilising the work is a strategy for introducing policies which will enable and catalyse evolutionary change.

The Indicators are equivalent to the Kanban Thinking intervention Sense. These measures of improvement, while proxies, should give quick and regular feedback about whether the kanban system is likely to lead to the results.

Lastly the Tactics are equivalent to the Kanban Thinking intervention Search. These are the specific practices, techniques and policies used as part of the experiment that are run. The Kanban Method core practices can also provide guidance as to what tactics can be used to design the kanban system.

While I’m not sure I would want to be overly rigid about defining the strategies, I find the X-Matrix a useful model for exploring, visualising and communicating the elements of a kanban system and how they correlate to each other. As with all tools like this (i.e. A3s) its not the template or the document that is important, its the conversations and thinking that happen that have the value.

[1] I did consider the name “Kanban Kanri” for the alliteration, but apart from preferring to minimise Japanese terminology, it’s probably meaningless nonsense in Japanese!

Strategy Deployment as Organisational Improv

IMG_0159At Agile Cymru this week Neil Mullarkey gave a superb keynote, introducing his rules of improv (left). He suggested that businesses can apply these rules to be more creative and collaborative, and that there is a lot of synergy with Agile. Like all the best keynotes, it got me thinking and making connections, in particular about how Strategy Deployment could be thought of as form of Organisational Improv.

I’ve blogged about Strategy Deployment a couple of times, in relation to the X-Matrix and Kanban Thinking, and Is Agile Working. Essentially it is a way for leaders to communicate their intent, so that employees are able decide how to execute. This seems just like an improv scene having a title (the intent), allowing the performers to decide how to play out the scene (the execution).

The title, and rules of the improve game, provide enabling constraints (as opposed to governing constraints) that allow many different possible outcomes to emerge. For example, we tried a game where in small groups of 4-5 people, we told a story, each adding one word at a time. The title was “The Day We Went To The Airport”. That gave us a “True North”, and the rules allowed a very creative story to emerge. Certainly something that no one person could have come up with individually!

B_SEWU8XIAIXsC5However, given our inexperience with improv, the story was extremely incoherent. I’m not sure we actually made to the airport by the time we had been sidetracked by the stewardesses, penguins and surfing giraffes (don’t ask). It was definitely skimming the edge of chaos, and I can’t help thinking some slightly tighter constraints could have helped. As an aside, I saw these Coyote/Roadrunner Rules recently (right). Adam Yuret pointed out that they were enabling constraints and I wonder if something like this would have helped with coherence?

What’s this got to do with Strategy Deployment? It occurred to me that good strategies provide the enabling constraints with which organisations improvise in collaborating and co-creating tactics to meet their True North. Clarity of strategy leads to improvisation of tactics, and if we take Neil’s Rules of Improv we can tweak them such that an offer is an idea for a tactic, giving:

  • Listen actively for ideas for tactics
  • Accept ideas for tactics
  • Give ideas for tactics in return
  • Explore assumptions (your own and others’)
  • Re-incorporate previous ideas for tactics