The last few years I’ve helped out with the bag stuffing at the Agile200X conference. It started out as a fun experiment in applying our lean and kanban craft in a different context. It has turned into a tradition, and something we have learned huge amounts from. Last year Christopher Avery took some video and he’s recently published an number of posts with some of the content.
I’m not at Agile2012 this week and so missed the exercise on Sunday, but I’m hoping that someone will publish any metrics and learnings that came out of the latest instance of the experiment.
Once again, I helped out with the volunteer bag packing at the Agile2011 conference, and as usual we had great fun and broke records. This year we completed 1600 bags in just under 4 hours packing time, with an hour preparation/breakfast and an hour for lunch. Christopher Avery took some video footage and interviews, which I hope to be able to link to here soon.
For the retrospective, run by Eric Willeke, we asked participants for things that they had learned which were relevant to software development. Here’s the list:
Focus on quality
Communication is essential
Let go
People and process
Experience is useful
Being prepared
Its important to know why
Improve through collaboration
Practice makes perfect
People are responsible
Ask & listen – don’t assume
Redistribute work
Power of whole team
Lots of communication
Simple visual metrics
Integration is hard
Don’t be attached to your process
Knowing good enough
Allowing for variance
Be engaged
Do it – inspect and adapt
Variety is motivating
Understanding impact of change
Change is disruptive
Shut up!
Dress appropriately
Common purpose
Relentless improvement
Communication without words
Reacting to reality
Be lean – JIT happens
Building relationships
Rhythm is fun
Visualising progress
Visualising WIP
Adaptability in context
People – not resources
Cross functional to eliminate bottlenecks
Single point of failure
Self organising team
Focus on the work
Good communication
People self-organising
Update: Eric has written his own post of the experience
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.