Heuristics for Kanban Thinking

Karl Scotland @kjscotland http://KarlScotland.com http://AvailAgility.co.uk http://kanban-thinking.net

Flow

Value

Potential

Study

Share

Stabilise

Sense

Search

Kanban System

Interventions Impacts

?

?

Descriptive not

Prescriptive

Heuristic: involving or serving as an aid to learning, discovery, or problem solving by experimental and especially train-and-error methods. of, or relating to exploratory problem-solving techniques that utilise self-educating techniques (as the evaluation of feedback) to improve performance

Mirriam-Webster Dictionary

Heuristics Replace Rules

Heuristics Support Substitution

Heuristics Guide Towards New Possibilities

What systemic problem, difficulty or frustration are we trying to address, and who is experiencing it?

System

What stories might be told about the work going through a perfect process which has reliability and efficiency?

Flow

Impacts

What stories might be told about the work creating an unbeatable product which has validity and effectiveness?

Value

Impacts

What stories might be told about the work being done by passionate people who have flexibility and euphoria?

Potential

Impacts

Flow Value Potential Process Product People Reliability Validity Flexibility Efficiency Effectiveness Euphoria

What could be done to learn more about customer and stakeholder needs, the resultant demand, and how that demand is processed?

Study

Interventions

What information is important to share, and how can tokens, the inscriptions on them, and their placements, create a common understanding?

Share

Interventions

What policies could help limit work in process, and remove unnecessary or unexpected delays or rework?

Stabilise

Interventions

What measures and meetings might create insights and guide decisions on potential interventions?

Sense

Interventions

What small experiments could be run to safely learn the impact of different interventions?

Search

Interventions

If we can’t generate 5-10 options for a solution it means we are overly constrained and have too little diversity.

Jabe Bloom

http://kanban-thinking.net

Thank You! Karl Scotland @kjscotland http://KarlScotland.com http://AvailAgility.co.uk http://kanban-thinking.net