Open Kanban WebinarDiscover with us the open source Agile & Lean Ultra Light MethodSeptember, 2013

Joseph HurtadoFounder AgileLion InstituteKanban Ace CoachEmail | LinkedIn | Twitter

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Who Am I - Your Coach!

• Founder of AgileLion Institute• Kanban Ace Coach, with over 10 years of experience with Agile & Lean Methods• Author Open Kanban• Extensive experience with Software Development wearing nearly all the hats including Developer ;-)• Coffee fanatic and photography amateur

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Our Co-Founder Annita

• Co-Founder AgileLion Institute• Kanban Ace Project Manager with over 5 years experience with Software Development, DevOps and Product Management• Contributor of Open Kanban• Drupal enthusiast and UX Expert• World traveler, Japanese cuisine fan and puzzle solver.

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The Road to Agile 2.04

Heavy Methodologies• They demand:

• Considerable planning

• Abundant documentation

• Many processes, roles and artifacts

• High management overhead and bureaucratic involvement

• Formal and frequent reporting

• Because of the burden they put on actual delivery of value, these methods are collectively called: Heavy Methodologies.

• Classic examples are Waterfall and RUP (Rational Unified Process.)

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Facing Failure• When Heavy Methods were

applied to Software Development failure after failure occurred.

• “75 percent of respondents believe that their projects are either always or usually doomed right from the start.” Source Geneca, 2011. IBM Global Survey 2008 had similar findings.

• Projects would run over budget, deadlines would be missed (more people, less done Mythical Man Month)

• No working code would be delivered, just tons of documentation, plans and diagrams“Houston... we have a problem”

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Sw. Dev. Challenges• Estimation Challenges

• Estimating the future is full of risk

• Wicked Design Problem

• Business Led Deadlines

• Always Changing Requirements. Changes come from customers and managers

• External Unpredictable Change

• Flat world and competition

• Technology change (mobile)

• Black box development. Most of the work is invisible.

• It also applies to most knowledge work, including strategy and marketing. Where visible results are much smaller than the effort involved.

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Agile Movement• In 2001, 17 software professionals

introduced the world to the "Agile Way" via the Agile Manifesto and it’s 4 Values:

• Communication.Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

• Value - aka Working Software.Working software over comprehensive documentation

• Collaboration.Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

• Embrace Change.Responding to change over following a plan

• Those values were manifested in Light Weight Methods, among those we have today: Scrum, XP, Crystal & DSDM

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The Path to Ultra Light Methods• In the 12 years

since the Agile Manifesto, the main Agile methods have grown in complexity

• Scrum in particular continues to grow, and add whole new frameworks (e.g. the Continuous Improvement Framework)

• Is this truly Agile?

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• Lean was adapted from TPS for Knowledge work by many bright minds.

• Lean adds to Agile the pursuit of value, zero waste, total quality & system thinking

• Lean Leaders: Taiichi Ohno TPS - Kanban 1.0, Deming SoPK, and Goldratt ToC

Discovering Lean’s Power10

• Embrace the Agile and Lean values

• Aim for simplicity, and value on each practice

• Use the very best principles and techniques from Agile and Lean

• Agile 2.0 is the era of Ultra Light Agile Methods (ULM)

• Open Kanban is a true ULM and part of Agile 2.0

The Power of Agile 2.011

Open Kanban is Fun! =)12

Discover Open Kanban

Get your feet wet!

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What is Kanban Today?

OpenKanban

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Kanban’s Origins• Taiichi Ohno used Kanban cards to

enable a pull system, or a demand driven system at Toyota

• Taiichi Ohno’s work building the Toyota Production System (1945 - 1970s) became the basis of Lean.

• Today Lean extends beyond manufacturing to knowledge work

• Today’s Kanban for knowledge work has four distinct influences:

• Taiichi Ohno’s TPS, Lean Manufacturing, and the whole Lean Movement

• Eliyahu Goldratt’s Theory of Constraints (Dec. 1999.) Especially the Drum Buffer Rope model for optimizing work around a constraint or bottleneck

• Deming’s teachings especially the System of Profound Knowledge

• Agile Movement. In particular the principles and values of the Agile Manifesto

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Open Kanban is Agile & Lean• Agile is not any

individual method like Scrum, XP, Crystal or even Kanban.

• Agile is a mindset, expressed in a set of values and principles

• Open Kanban shares the same values & is compatible with every Agile principle.

• Open Kanban goes beyond traditional Agile by incorporating key ideas from Lean

• Open Kanban is Agile and Lean.

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Open Kanban Goals• Open Kanban was inspired by the Open

Source, and Free Software movements

• Open Kanban’s goal is to bring the 4 essential freedoms to every Kanban professional

1. Freedom to Use Open Kanban for any purpose

2. Freedom to study, question, and change Open Kanban as you wish so that it works for you and your organization

3. Freedom to fork or modify copies of Open Kanban to create your own customized version, and give it to anyone

4. Freedom to benefit the entire Open Kanban community with a better solution for all, by sharing your contributions with the main Open Kanban repository on GitHub.

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Open Kanban Definition• Open Kanban is an Agile and Lean

Ultra Light Method to improve any area of your organization.

• Open Kanban is not a full or complete Agile and Lean method, instead it is the heart, kernel or core of such a method. We can compare it with a Linux kernel.

• Open Kanban is the core of Kanban Ace, the first Open Kanban Method

• Open Kanban is free and open source

• Anyone, anywhere can contribute to Open Kanban

• Open Kanban has now been translated to Russian, Ukrainian, Italian. And soon we expect Spanish and Portuguese to follow.

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Open Kanban & Kanban Ace• Open Kanban has a set

of Values and Practices

• Open Kanban is the foundation or core of other larger Open Kanban Methods

• Kanban Ace is the first Open Kanban Method

• Kanban Ace main focus is in IT and Software Development, but it can be used in any business or non-profit to achieve agility and continuous improvement

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Open Kanban Components• A set of values that align it with

the Agile and Lean Movements for IT and Software Development

• A set of practices that translate those values into action

• An open source license that allow anyone to build upon it or modify it

• Open access to contributors everywhere via the main Open Kanban repository on GitHub:

• https://github.com/agilelion/Open-Kanban

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Five Open Kanban Values1. Respect for People2. Courage3. Focus on Value4. Communication and

Collaboration5. Holistic or Systemic

Approach to Change

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Four Open Kanban Practices1. Visualize the Workflow2. Lead Using a Team

Approach3. Reduce the Batch Size of

your Efforts4. Learn and Improve

Continuously

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Visualize the workflow • When we are doing knowledge work

most of the work is invisible.

• It is easy to see the final product of knowledge work: a website, a book, a report; but it is hard to see progress of the work.

• Open Kanban deals with this challenge by using Kanban boards.

• Kanban boards are visual representations of workflow. Kanban boards advantages:

• You can look at the system, not just the flow

• Ability to map the value chain

• Easy live collaboration

• Near real-time status of where the project is now.

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Visualize the workflow • Visualizing can also be accomplished

by any good information radiator such as:

• Flow diagrams, like the one we showed from Deming on Systems

• Dashboards that summarize team metrics

• Good information radiators are:

• Useful

• Large and easily visible

• Simple to understand at a glance

• Easy to keep up-to-date

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Kanban Boards - Tools to Visualize25

Lead using a Team Approach• Unlike Scrum, Open Kanban does not

require you to create new roles or change your organization to start doing Open Kanban.

• However Open Kanban does require that you have:

• A team in place to deliver value

• Team Leadership. Through Team Leadership you manage flow and benefit the whole team, and the organization behind it

• Learn and improve the way you manage teams continuously.

• Remember productivity evolution (automatic improvement) does not exist, only through team leadership and effort can continuos improvement happen.

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Lead using a Team Approach• Elements of Team Leadership:

• Hard Elements

• Team Organization. Meaning team size and organization.

• Meeting Organization. Meaning how they are managed and their frequency

• Soft Elements

• Team Leadership Spirit. This represents the way you lead the team, and the unwritten rules of the cooperative game

• We recommend the Servant Leadership style where “The servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible” Robert Greenleaf

• Alternatively, you can get inspiration from the best sport coaches. How they motivate and inspire their team to win.

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Our Cooperative Game - Alistair Cockburn

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Reduce the Batch Size of your Efforts• What is batch size in the context of

Open Kanban?

• Batch Size is the amount of work you attempt to do at any given time. It can apply to:

• The amount of To Dos you have on your day

• The number of stories (distinct software features) you are developing right now

• The size of those stories, the larger they are the harder it will be to deliver them

• The amount of multitasking you are doing at any time.

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Reduce BASE• Learning is facilitated by the ability

to easily remember. Nmenonic devices help us here.

• Open Kanban calls this practice:

• Reduce BASE

• Feel free to pronounce it, don’t read it letter by letter

• BA = Batch

• S = Size

• E = reminds you of “of your Efforts”

• Limiting Work in Progress is just one way to reduce BASE.

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Reduce BASE• Reducing the batch size means

you focus more, and you multitask less.

• Research by Dr. Edward Hallowell, and Dr. Russell Poldrack show us that multitasking, and working on too many things does not work.

• “The greatest damage from being too busy is that it prevents people from setting their own temperature, controlling their own lives... making people sick, causing accidents and errors, turning otherwise polite people rude, and reducing the general level of happiness in the population.” Dr. Edward Hallowel

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Reduce BASE• Donald Reinertsen book “The

Principles of Product Development Flow” lists 22 reasons why it is best to reduce batch sizes.

• Key among his findings are:

• By reducing batch size you accelerate delivery, this allows for faster feedback faster and therefore less risk.

• Risk is diminished by our actions on feedback, aka applied learning.

• Reducing batch size also reduces the economic cost of effort

• It is proven in manufacturing that reducing batch size leads to faster cycle times. That means faster time to market.

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Reduce BASE• Open Kanban considers WIP Limits

optional, but desirable. They do help to improve flow, and productivity.

• However Reducing BASE is far more important, because it has a wider impact and more benefits.

• It allows for faster feedback

• It accelerates learning

• It reduces Risk, and the economic cost of effort

• It focuses the people and the team allowing them to deliver more value

• Limiting WIP is valuable, and is part of Reducing BASE. But Reduce BASE first, then Limiting WIP can start.

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Learn & Improve Continuously• The four previous practices

ensure you are doing things better than before.

• However to make a significant jump in innovation, morale, and value we must stop, learn and apply our knowledge to improve!

• Learning is the key concept before continuous improvement can ever happen. Adopt it in your team, and in your company culture

• Eric Ries considers Validated Learning a key output of a Startup, and a business. We agree!

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Learn & Improve Continuously• Which actions help us learn?

• Having Holistic Kanban Meetings (Kanban Ace)

• Holding Retrospectives

• Creating Kaizen Groups (TPS and Lean)

• Creating Business Guilds in your company (Jurgen Appelo)

• Financing the education of your team (Deming)

• Encouraging a culture that welcomes risk and innovation (Agile & Lean Startup)

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Open Kanban’s Minimal Flow

FLOW

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A Typical Sw. Dev. Board37

Quick Kanban Live Exercise!• We will use Agile Zen latest

Beta version

• It has some cool features

• It is free for now! :-)

• For a live Open Kanban practice, we will create a Kanban board to build a mobile app similar to Palette Pro, but with a backend component.

• The app is pictured on the left, we do recommend it too, it is from Rob Bazinet, a great developer at Still River Software.

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AgileLion Public Board• Using Agile Zen you can also

create your own boards, and use the one on this webinar as an inspiration

• Agile Zen Beta is completely free until the beta is over

• AgileLion Open Kanban Board URL for our Mobile app:

• http://bit.ly/AgileLionPublicBoard

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Kanban Ace Advantages40

Our Edge• Over 10 years experience

working with Kanban, Scrum, Crystal and XP

• We understand IT people! We have worn all the IT hats: Developer, Business Analyst, QA Engineer, Product Manager, Project Manager, Startup Founder, IT Manager...

• A practical, innovative, IT and software development focused approach

• A global vision via our Internet classes, our international focus and open source support

Why you should become aKanban Ace?

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Our Edge• Kanban Ace exclusives including:

• Kanban Ace is the first Open Kanban method, with a commitment to open source, a global community, and continuos improvement

• Kanban Gears. A framework to accelerate efficiency and productivity in your Kanban Ace implementation

• Agile Kanban Body of Knowledge. We take the very best practices and techniques of Agile & Lean and put them to work for you

• Lion Pass. Our members-only area where we provide one year support, and share the latest Kanban content

Why you should become aKanban Ace?

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Q & A SessionLet us know your questions about Open Kanban & Kanban Ace

Questions are always welcome at: askus@agilelion.com

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THANKS for attending, watchingor reading our Open Kanban PresentationLearn more by registering in one of our Kanban Ace Classes. Kanban Ace is the First Open Kanban Method!

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