Improving Service Delivery with Kanban: The Role of the Project Manager

Improving Service Delivery with
Kanban
The Role of the Project Manager

Presenter
David J. Anderson
CEO, Lean Kanban Inc.
PMI Congress
Warsaw
December 2013
Release 1.0

dja@leankanban.com @lkuceo

PMI Congress Warsaw 2013, Copyright Lean Kanban Inc.

Who are you, really?
Do you spend your time…

Sounds like

Scheduling meetings?
administrative work!
Coordinating participation?
Collecting data?
Reporting status?
You must be the
Sending communications?
‚project secretary‛?
Running down problems?



Perhaps that isn’t a sexy enough title?

No!

Ah!
I’m a Fire Fighter!
So, you are the hero?
My projects would
fail without me
Is it a disaster
movie?



Who do you really want to be?
Leader?

What Director?
is stopping you
from achieving this?
Risk Manager?

What hinders you
Service Delivery
fromManager? that
being all
you can be?
All of the above???



Let Kanban help you!
Kanban enables

Kanban systems help
project managers
organizations improve to
realize their full
predictability of
knowledge worker
potential…
Retire your
activities
firefighter hat and
your project
… to manage
Reliable, predictable,
management water
risk, lead with
trustworthycannon!
services

confidence, delight
customers



What is a kanban system?



A Kanban Systems consists of
“kanban” (かんばん) signal cards in
circulation



Understanding Kanban Systems



Kanban systems are pull systems
Development

Test
Ready

Testing

UAT

Release
Ready

3

5

3

∞

∞

5

Ideas

Dev
Ready

Ongoing

Pull
K
M

F

Done

B

Pull
J

G

N
O

F

I

F

Pull

D

C

*

Pulling work from
Now we have capacity
development will There is capacity here
I
to replenish our ready
create capacity here
buffer –
too
the pull signals move
upstream!


Commitment is deferred
Development

Test
Ready

Testing

UAT

Release
Ready

3

5

3

∞

∞

5

Ideas

Dev
Ready

Ongoing

Done

Ideas remain optional and
(ideally) unprioritized

Pull

F F
F
F F
F
F

D
G

E
Wish to avoid discard after
commitment
We are committing to getting
started. We are certain we want
to take delivery.

Commitment point


I


Focus on blocked work & re-work
Ideas

Dev
Ready

5

Project managers must
Test
Testing
Ready
Development
develop a capability UAT
3
5
3
∞
Ongoing
Done for…
E
issue management
risk identification
D
F
root cause analysis, risk
reduction & mitigation
12

P

L
F
F
F

M

34

G

Blocking
Issue


Defec
t


Release
Ready

∞

Implications of Using a Kanban System
We must choose…
Kanban Systems focus
our attention on
What to work on…
now?
What Scheduling
to leave until
&
later?
Risk Management
What to abandon?



Metrics with Kanban Systems



Defining Kanban System Lead Time
Development

Test
Ready

Testing

UAT

Release
Ready

3

5

3

∞

∞

5

Ideas

Dev
Ready

Ongoing

Pull

F F
F
F F
F
F

D
G

Done

The clock starts ticking when
we accept the customers
order, not when it is placed!Kanban
system lead
time
Until then customer orders are ends
merely E
available options when the
item
reaches the

I

M

System Lead Time



first ∞
queue

Observe Service Delivery Capability*
Service B

Service A

Possible
2nd Mode?

30

14
12
10
8
6
4
2
0

25
20
15

Frequency

10

Frequency

5
0
5

10

Lead Time (Days)

Median
~9 days

15

20

25

30

More

Lead Time in Days

Median ~9 days
98% 70+ days

98% 30 days

Mean 12 days

Mean 17 days

85% 15 days
85% ~40 days

*Data from CME Group Nynex Exchange, New York

Little’s Law
Delivery Rate
(out of kanban system)

=

WIP
Lead Time
(thru kanban system)

Ideas
Avg. Lead Time
WIP


Release
Ready

Avg. Delivery Rate


Flow Efficiency
Dev
Ready
Ideas
Flow efficiencyDevelopment
measures the

Test
Ready

Testing

UAT

5
3
5
3
∞
percentage of total lead time
Ongoing
Done
actually spent adding value (or
knowledge) versus waiting
Flow efficiency = Work Time

DE

Waiting Working

MN
AB

Waiting

Waiting

Working

Lead Time
* Zsolt Fabok, Lean Agile Scotland, Sep 2012, Lean Kanban France, Oct 2012
** Hakan Forss, Lean Kanban France, Oct 2013


x 100%

Multitasking means time spent
E in working columns is often
waiting time

PB
GY

∞

Lead Time

Flow efficiencies of 1-5% are
F commonly reported. *, ** P1
D
> 40% is good!
G

I

Release
Ready


Implications of low Flow Efficiency
Ideas

Dev
Ready

5

F

P1

G
I

Test
Low flow efficiency UAT
Testing
Ready
Development
means that most of
3
5
3
∞
Ongoing
Done
lead time is time
As a result, lead
is influenced by
not very sensitive
environmental
to specific people
Dfactors that are
involved or their
unlikely to E
change
individual capabilities
PB
DE
soon MN

GY

AB

Waiting Working

Waiting

Waiting

Working

Lead Time


Release
Ready

∞

Role of the Project Manager



Roles & Responsibilities
Kanban is usuallyan
Kanban provides
implemented by the
opportunity for all
function managers, so
management roles to
what is the role for
think
the project manager?
differently, focusing
on real business risks



impact

When should we start something?
If we start too early, we forgo
the option and opportunity to do
something else that may provide
value.
time

If we start too late we risk
Ideal Start
incurring the cost of delay

When we
need it

Here

With a 6 in 7 chance of on-time
delivery, we can always expedite
to insure on-time delivery
85th
percentile
Commitment point



Risk Management trims the tail
Risks often
cause long
lead times

Identify risks, their
likelihood & impact (delay
that extends lead time).
Eliminating risks or
reducing their impact trims
the tail on the distribution.
Trimming the tail moves
the mean to the
left, increasing delivery
rate!



85th
percentile
mean

Blocker Clustering
• Identify Risks
• Identify Likelihood &
Impact
• Root Cause Analysis
• Reduction & Mitigation
actions

http://www.klausleopold.com/2013/09/blocker-clusters-problems-are-not.html



Seeing Services in your
Organization



The Kanban lens
Learn to view what you do now as a set of services
(that can be improved):
• Creative work is service-oriented
• Service delivery involves workflow
• Workflow involves a series of knowledge discovery
activities
• Map the knowledge discovery workflow
• Track work flowing through the service
• Identify service requests for new work


What Service Do You Provide?
1. Who are your customers? (or other stakeholders
you must serve such as a regulatory authority)
2. What do they ask you for?
3. What do you do in response to those requests?
4. How is one request treated in comparison to
others?
5. Where does finished work go?



Column WIP Limit
=5
Testing is a
shared service
across 5 dev
teams

In this
example, testing
was off-shore in
Chennai, India



(some of the)
orange tickets
are avatars for
people from
shared services
such as
enterprise
architecture and
user experience
design



5 lanes each with
a dev team
providing a
software
development
service to the
project



Column WIP
Limits
Clinical
Validation
Testing,
Deployment,
P.O. Acceptance
All are shared
services across 3
dev teams



Scaling up for large projects



Projects are just big batches of work
Project
Scope

Dev
Ready

Development

Test
Ready

Testing

UAT

Release
Ready

3

5

3

∞

∞

5
Ongoing

F
N
O
P

Q

Done

D
G
M

E
I

R
S



Calculate duration to complete the batch
Project
Scope

Development

Test
Ready

Testing

UAT

Release
Ready

3

Dev
Ready

5

3

∞

∞

5
Ongoing

Done

Only a little!
Let me This isyou
show overly
simplistic is it
more!
not?

D
G
E
F
O

M

N
P

Q

R

I
S



Major project with two-tiered kanban board



Single Project Daily Meeting

In this example more than 40 people attend a
standup for a large project with 5 concurrent
development teams. The meeting is usually
completed in under 15 minutes


Little’s Law
WIP

=

Delivery Rate

Lead Time

Backlog
Avg. Lead Time
WIP


Ready
To
Deploy

Avg. Delivery Rate


Cumulative Flow and
Predictive Modeling with S-Curve

240
220
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0

Time
Inventory

Started

Designed

Coded

Complete


30
-M
ar

23
-M
ar

16
-M
ar

9M
ar

2M
ar

eb
24
-F

eb

Typical S-curve

17
-F

10
-F

eb

Features

Device Management Ike II Cumulative Flow

Understanding Unplanned Work
Scope Creep

Dark Matter
(emergent features)

Original Scope

Dark matter planned as a 19% expansion over original scope
Actual Dark Matter over final original scope is 26%
Total scope compared to original commitment is 13% greater


TV/Movie Company in USA 2008

Initial Scope is 125 story points
Within days this total scope reaches 190 due to dark matter expansion
Management intervened on 4/21 to stop dark matter (deferring future scope
to product backlog)
Observed dark matter expansion is 52% but real number was much greater


Rules of Thumb for Dark Matter
Typical Agile teams
Mature teams
produce 50% dark
working in well
matter
understood domains
produce less dark
Immature teams may
matter
find 100-200% more
work than they
Maybe 20%
planned



Determining the schedule
Instead ask, ‚when do
Refuse to answer the
you need it for?‛
question,
And facilitate a
‚How long aboutit
discussion will the
take?‛
cost of delay*

* Cost of delay is out-of-scope for this presentation due to time constraints


Determining the scope
We need to
understand the height
ofTo do this quickly &
the y-axis in a unit
of measure that is
cheaply some
typical of work items
statistical methods
normally handled by
can be used together
withthis
randomly
service/workflow
sampled analysis



Estimating using statistical methods …
Randomly
sample, 5, 7 or 11
requirements and
analyze them. The
more samples the
less risk in
extrapolating the
result


Requirement #
34
53
61
103
151
187
209


# of User Stories
17
24
14
15
20
18
18

… build a model …
Requirement #
34
53
61
103
151
187
209

# of User Stories
17
24
14
15
20
18
18

There is a 90% chance
that the median lies
between the lowest &
highest numbers in the
sample.*
Make some educated
guesses & build a
model

24

17

mean
22

User stories
/
requirement

* “How to measure anything”, Douglas Hubbard


… complete the forecast
=> 85 x 1.3
Let’s factor 30% = 110 requirements
for dark matter
based on ~22 stories per
requirement
historical
performance, tea
m maturity & Target scope is
2200 stories
nature of domain



Make a long term plan to build platform
replacement
Device Management Ike II Cumulative Flow

Hyper-productive Phase

2008

30
-M
ar

16
-M
ar

5x

9M
ar

2M
ar

eb

Initial Phase

24
-F

eb

2006

17
-F

10
-F

Slope in middle
3.5x - 5x slope
at ends

23
-M
ar

240
220
200
180
160
140
120
100
80
60
40
20
0

eb

Features

Required delivery rate

Closing Phase

During the middle 60% of the project schedule we
Time
need a delivery rate of 220 features per month
Inventory


Started

Designed

Coded

Complete


Little’s Law

Determines
staffing level

Calculated based on
known lead time
capability & required
PlandeliveryChanging the WIP limit without
based onrate
currently observed
maintaining the staffing level
capability and current working
ratio assume process
practices. Do not represents a change to the
way of working. It is a change to
improvements.
the process and will produce a
Delivery Rateto reduce undesirable‘common
change in the observed
If changing WIP
cause’ capability new
effects (e.g. multitasking), get of the system
Lead Time
sample data (perform a spike) to
observe the new capability
From observed
capability
Target
Treat as a fixed
to
variable
achieve plan

=



WIP

Using Little’s Law

Determines
staffing level

Calculated based on
known lead time
capability & required
At this point perhaps just a little
delivery rate
black magic and experience may
be required.
If our current working

WIP = 22

practices/process exhibited an
Rounding 22 up to 25 would
average WIP of 1 item per person then
55/week 25 people organized infor 5 teams
we require conveniently provide 5
with to complete 5 items each
teams of 5 peoplea WIP limit of the
0.4 weeks
project on-time

=

From observed
capability
Target
to
achieve plan


Treat as a fixed
variable


1 lane per team



WIP in this area
should be 25
items*
*photo taken
early in the
project before it
was fully
staffed/loaded
Lead time

Median lead time
target is 2 days
Alert managers if
beyond 5 days



Conclusions



Conclusions
Project managers elevate
Kanban provides
their role to risk
transparency
manager!
Determine when to start
Status of WIP is
work based on business
obvious
risks

Most secretarial
Trim tail on lead time
work is eliminated!
distribution to maintain
delivery rate



Thank you!


Upcoming Training in Europe
5-day Kanban Coaching Professional Masterclass
London 3-7 February
http://djaa.com/kcpm-feb2014
2-day Advanced Practitioner
Oslo 10-11 February, 2014
http://djaa.com/dja-ap0220141
Copenhagen 12-13 February, 2014
http://djaa.com/dja-ap0220142


About

David Anderson is a thought
leader in managing effective
software teams. He leads a
training, consulting, publishing
and event planning business
dedicated to developing,
promoting and implementing
sustainable evolutionary…
He has 30 years experience in the high technology industry
starting with computer games in the early 1980’s. He has led
software teams delivering superior productivity and
quality using innovative agile methods at large companies
such as Sprint and Motorola.
David is the pioneer of the Kanban Method an agile and
evolutionary approach to change. His latest book,
published in June 2012, is, Lessons in Agile Management – On

the Road to Kanban.

David leads Lean Kanban Inc., a global management training,
events & publishing business dedicated to offering high
quality, innovative, modern management training for the
creative knowledge worker industries of the 21st Century.


Acknowledgements
The data on slide 15 was provided by Raymond Keating of CME Group.
Troy Magennis has pioneered the use of Douglas Hubbard’s statistical
techniques in conjunction with Kanban and introduced Monte Carlo simulation
to replace the 3-phase Z-model presented here
Klaus Leopold has been pioneering the use of blocker clustering to encourage
project managers to focus on the greater added value of risk management
and managing average lead time by curbing opportunity for long tail
distributions



Improving Service Delivery with Kanban: The Role of the Project Manager

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