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INTRODUCING KANBAN IN OPERATIONS

Kanban Geeknight Trifork

2009-12-18

Mattias Skarin

Who am I

Help organisations succeed with software

mattias.skarin@crisp.se

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Mattias Skarin 2ISBN: 978-0-557-13832-6

Book: ”Kanban and Scrum –how to make the best of both”

Operations Development

DevelopmentOperations

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Operations

Flow

What matters?

Our bottleneck

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The work we try to do....or the work we can complete?

What is Kanban?

Analysis Develop. Func. test.

Systemtest

Backlog

Intern

Ops Running@client

..once last item iscomplete

Only start new ..

1. Limit Work In Progress2. Only start new when last item was complete3. Balance demand against throughput

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Outsourc.

”Work in progress” limit

A view on Scrum?

Standardized package

Lean principles

Cooperation modelContinuous improvement

PrioritizationLean principles

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The case

DBA Sysadmin Support

Dev Operations

10+ Teams

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S

E

C

U

R

I

T

Y

A

P

P

S

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R

V

O

S

D

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V

E

N

V

Asking the right questions

Operations

DBA Sysadmin Support

”How can we improve?”

”What can we learnfrom Agile?”

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from Agile?”

Questions & challenges

Can technical operations be viewed as a flow problem?

Is it possible to get team work benefits in a field with high specialization?

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with high specialization?

How well can continous improvement be deployed in operations?

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Nature of technical operations

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Nature of demand

Interupt driven

Operations Software

Specialized issues

Uneven

Focus time

Shared work

Continuous flow

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No! We have a different problem

Run Scrum?

Highly interdependant Answers to themselves

”Us”

(tech ops)

”Them”

(development)

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“Why aren’t you using the

existing platform advantages?”

“Let’s make release work easier”

“We are hurt by your bad

quality!”

“will but no way.. getting help Is heavy”

“ very competent when it comes to

infrastructure”

“projects takes too long”

”They” ought to change

How we got going1. Why do we want to do this?

Work closer with product development

Tell end customer when wecan deliver

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Management can shiftfocus from the immidiate

stuff

Better opportunities of growth and teamwork

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3. Meet stakeholders

• Upstream

• Downstream

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4. Sketch/review some potential kanban designs

Use the nature ofthe demand as input

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The first board

Release Support Project A

Done

In Work

Project B Project C

WIP area

Flow

DNSPerf.tstCart

Prios

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Backlog SPDb CI

4. Get going!

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Keep managers involved :)

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• Keeping priorities updated

How did the work work?

Kanban boardPrioritisationNew projects

Progress,Problems indicators

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updated•Tell why• Problem solving

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How & when to do the workAdd own stories (up to 2d)

• Breakdown of new projects• Continuous improvement

Team

Weekly

Daily• Standup• Blockers in flow?

Learning

Signup ClusterClient

SpikeFix

1. Fewer projects

Surfacedcontraint

2. Flow redesigns 3. Surfacing of constraints

Done

In Work

Release Support Project A Project B Project C

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Signup

Perf.tst

Perf.tst

Cluster

Cart

Meeting

Spike

SPCI

FixIn Work

Backlog

Ready

for work

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Evolving teamwork

We value:

• Respect the board• Respect work someone else started

We will hold each other accountable

Team charter

Nothing beats just doing it, sharing tasks

in everyday work

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We will hold each other accountable for:

• Avoiding being straight• When ideas are rejected without consideration

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REFINED CONCEPTS

Beyond stable

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One sysadmin per team

Development TeamDedicated contactwithin sysadmin

Development Team

?

AfterBefore

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Two approaches to planning

Project A

Before planning At planning• Recheck solution• Breakdown to tasks

Do we understand what is needed well enough to draft a solution?

Senior dev Manager

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Project A

Switch and review

Breakdown to tasks

On senior and one juniorProject

B

Doing continuous improvement

Solve 1 painper week

.. nothing fancy just..

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Managers door

• Manager have two slots at any single point of time.

Addressing causes outside team

• If both are full, you can add a new one as long as you remove the less

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as you remove the less important one.

• Team decides when issue is solved.

.. and his managers door..

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DID WE GET SOMEWERE?

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3 months laterSysadmins awarded ”best performing team”

”Miracles have happened to the sysadmin team. The incident we had on yesterday was earlier something that required several phone calls and took usually hours or even a day to resolve. Typically I had to call the manager to get things moving forward.

Now I feel that it’ unnecessary to raise this kind of small things as impediments”

-- Test Lead

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-- Test Lead

4 months later..Development openssupport for productiondisturbances

What didn’t work?

Burndown charts for projects smaller than 1 month

Estimations – rarely needed

Incremental improvements on higer level

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Incremental improvements on higer level

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60

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DBA Team Velocity

Total Velocity

Small support tasks

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0

10

20

30

40Small support tasks

(not includedin total velocity)

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OBSERVATIONS & LEARNINGS

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Many projects..

Market proj.

Legislation pr.

Performance proj.

Pet project

CEO ProjectDev. project

.. leads to long delivery time

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Pet project delivery time

Problems know no organisational boundaries

System administrationDev

Problem 1

Problem 2

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Problem 2

The problem is not always where you think..

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WIP overflow can be handled

But quality is the long term cure..

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term cure..

Why is each board different?

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Lookback

Can technical operations be viewed as a flow problem?

Is it possible to get team work benefits in a field with high specialization?

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Can continuous improvement work in this environment?

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Today

Operations

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Thanks for listening!

Kanban in Software Development – April 16:th

� What is kanban?� Difference and similarities to Scrum� Creating a kanban board that fits my organization� Setting planning, release and improvement cadence� Recognizing improvement opportunities� Techniques for improving flow

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Blog:

http://blog.crisp.se/mattiasskarin

� Techniques for improving flow � Metrics for continuous improvement� Case studies