source: http://blog.crisp.se/2011/11/18/tomasbjorkholm/2nd-version-of-kanban-kick-start just summarize the content of this PDF file

1. KANBAN KICK--‐START
(V2)
ByTomas Bjorkholm

2. Five Main Rules
 Visualize your workflow
 Limit the things you work on
 Measure and manage flow and optimize on
cycle time
 Make process policies explicit
 Use models to recognize improvement
opportunities.
http://www.crisp.se/articles/kanban-kick-start-v2.pdf

3. Visualize your workflow
 When you visualize,
 it’s
easier to see your bottlenecks and
 what you see is what you can fix.

4. Limit the things you work on
 Make sure you focus on a few things at a time.
 Focus on finishing things instead of starting.
 Stop queues from forming within your system.

5. Measure and manage flow and
optimize on cycle time
 that is the time it takes from when you start
working on something until it’s done, released
and you start earning money from it

6. Make process policies explicit
 Find out, write down and make sure everyone
follows good behavior that make your process
flow with optimal speed.

7. Use models to recognize
improvement opportunities
 Use your knowledge from areas like
Lean, queuing theory and “Theory of
constraints” to improve your flow.

8. What is Lean for Software
Development?
“Deliver continually increasing customer value -
In the shortest possible timeframe -
Expending continually decreasing effort - With
the highest possible quality”
- By Mary Poppendieck

9. An approach to get started with
Kanban
 Step 1 – Get to know your system
 Step 2 – Identify your sources and prioritize
 Step 3 – Find your process
 Step 4 – Design your workflow board
 Step 5 – Set the limits
 Step 6 – Decide the roles
 Step 7 – Decide your meetings
 Step 8 - Set up your principles and policies

10. Step 1 – Get to know your
system
 System
 everything that happens from the point where you
get a request from a customer until you have
fulfilled the request
 Make sure your Kanban system fulfill it

11. Step 2 – Identify your sources and
prioritize

12. Step 3 – Find your process
 Before you design your workflow board you
need to figure out your process.
 Maybe you have separate flows for different
kinds of tasks.

13. Step 4 – Design your workflow
board
 Visualize your process to include all the
necessary steps
 Find more examples here
 http://blog.crisp.se/wp-
content/uploads/2010/12/10-different-kanban-
boards-and-their-context.pdf

14. Step 5 – Set the limits
 No good rule of thumb to suggest here.
 A large part of Lean is the art of finding
balance

15. Step 6 – Decide the roles
 Kanban does not prescribe any roles.
 It's up to every company and team to decide.
 Adding a role could help minimize the cycle
time

16. Step 7 – Decide your
meetings
 Kanban does not prescribe any meetings
 But you can follow what Scrum suggests
 Plan – Do – Check – Act

17. Step 8 - Set up your principles
and policies
 Your principles should help you become more
aligned with what your customers’ need
 Some examples
 Findand fix failures early.
 Keep it small and simple
 Cost grows exponentially over growth of complexity
 Everyone is responsible for the flow
 Upstream: make sure you get what you need to do
your work.
 Downstream: make sure to help the next step to get a
good start.