Notes from Leankit Troy Maggenis webinar

Notes.md

• Troy Magennis webinar
  • Essential Kanban Condensed Guide by David J Anderson
  • Manage the work, NOT the worker
  • Don't try to improve everything at once
    • Improve responsiveness - measure lead time
    • Improve delivery performance - measure cycle time
  • Tips for setting up a board
    • Define and Use Card Types
    • Card Priority
    • Card Tags
    • Board Design
  • Insights and Actions
    • Analytics - helping see "unusual"
    • Where do we discuss unusual and improve?
    • Charts
  • Metrics
    • Quality (how well)
    • Responsiveness (how fast)
    • Productivity (how much, delivery pace)
    • Predictability (how repeatable)
  • Takeaways
    • Do's
    • Don'ts
  • Terminology
    • Blocked card
    • Cycle time (or time in process)
    • Lead time
    • Count of cards in different states
  • Questions
    • How do we track sub-tasks?

Troy Magennis webinar

Essential Kanban Condensed Guide by David J Anderson

Manage the work, NOT the worker

Don't try to improve everything at once

Improve responsiveness - measure lead time

1. Step 1: Set policies about what work gets started first (and why)

Improve delivery performance - measure cycle time

1. Step 1: Identify and fix where does work sit idle

Tips for setting up a board

Define and Use Card Types

• Use color wisely
• Don't use for priorities

Card Priority

• Shows people what they should finish first (not start first)
• Have clear policy

Card Tags

• Link cards of similar project
• People can have their own tags and organization can have agreed upon ones
• Remember context of what happened to a card (blocked by X)

Board Design

• Not started, started, finished
• Backlog - All we can do, top X we will do (Do Next)
• Watch buffer columns (ready) closely
• Leave space for improvements (horizontal swim-lane, unacceptable for there to be nothing in that column)
• Make sure that the work that isn't flowing is visible

1. Ask

   • Do we have the "right" mix of work?
   • Are we pulling work in order?
   • How many things get created in Doing?
   • How can we avoid failing in Validation stage?

Insights and Actions

Analytics - helping see "unusual"

1. Compare apples to apples

   • Don't expect or want some types of work to take less time than others

2. Goal is to create visual tracking system that helps see the unusual

Where do we discuss unusual and improve?

Create space to improve, not just charts to pass judgment

1. Stand-ups

2. Planning meetings

3. Status review meetings / Demos

4. Team or project retros

5. Operations review

Charts

• Only give you an opportunity to discuss
• Don't want to react too fast or with too much heavy handedness

Metrics

Pick one to improve, make sure you don't impact the others

Quality (how well)

Responsiveness (how fast)

Productivity (how much, delivery pace)

Predictability (how repeatable)

Takeaways

Do's

• Deepend your kanban journey
• Measure the work
• Leave space for improvements
• Look for exceptions
• Balance multiple metrics
• Start improving!

Don'ts

• Stop at visualizing the board
• Measure the worker
• Only do if you have time
• Explain the normal
• Focus on a single metric
• Be scare of analytics

Terminology

Blocked card

Cycle time (or time in process)

when people commit to do work to when it's delivering value

Lead time

when an idea enters a system to when it's delivering value

Count of cards in different states

Questions

How do we track sub-tasks?