World of Agile: Kanban

by Yevhen Andrushko

Project Manager @

2014

1

Presentation plan:

1. General Agile overview

2. Why it called Kanban?

3. Why we choose it?

4. Main benefits

5. Practical use in real projects

6. Kanban kick-start

7. Ka a th’s

8. Kanban software, what to choose?

9. Kanban win-win

10. Iterative agile VS Kanban

11. Sources digest

Why Agile is good choice?

General overview

• Agile is…

- Flexible

- Many small projects

- Highly collaborative

- Best for those who want continuous

improvements

- Involves customers

- A process in which requirements are

expected to evolve and change

What’s e t?

Typical iterative agile issues

カンバン

Main benefits:

Shorter cycle times can deliver features faster.

Responsiveness to Change: When priorities change very frequently, Kanban is ideal.

Balancing demand against throughput guarantees that most the customer-centric features are always being worked.

Requires fewer organization / room set-up changes to get started

Redu i g aste a d re o i g a ti ities that do ’t add value to the team/department/organization

Rapid feedback loops improve the chances of more motivated, empowered and higher-performing team members

Basic principles:

Start with what you do now.

Agree to pursue incremental,

evolutionary change

Respect the current process, roles,

responsibilities & titles

Encourage acts of leadership at all levels

Core properties:

Visualize the workflow

Limit WIP

Manage flow

Kanban Boards are Flexible

Kanban Boards Help Teams Collaborate

Kanban Boards Increase Efficiency and Help Reduce Waste

Kanban Boards Lead to Increased Productivity

Simple, isn't it?

Example development board #1

Example development board #2

Example development board #3

Example development board #4

Why use Kanban boards?

• Visually see work in progress

• Instantly understand impediments (things causing you to delay) and take steps to remove them

• Improve communication between yourself and others on your team

• Empower teams to self-manage visual processes and work flows

• Inspire team collaboration

Kanban kick-start #1

Kanban kick-start #2

To start Kanban today you need board and follow

these steps:

Kanban kick-start #3 After that you will get board like this:

Kanban kick-start #4

Kanban kick-start #5 • Track your progress

Kanban boards software #1 • Agile Zen

One of the best User Interfaces in the industry, very easy to use

Powerful enough for most users, and for most Kanban boards

Very Reasonable prices

• Lean Kit Kanban

Powerful feature set, but also complicated to learn and use

Pricing is relatively high, from $15 per user per month

Their free plan is quite limited, it only gives you access to some features

• Jira Agile (it's previous name was GreenHopper)

Good Kanban support, but not focused since it also includes Scrum

Jira integration is now mandatory, and this pushes the prices, and the

complexity of their offering significantly.

In our experience it is not a good idea to couple or join the Jira board which

is usually used by Marketing, with the development board. This opens a

large potential for conflict and missed communication. Given that this

coupling is now mandatory for Jira Agile we can not recommend it. Kanban

Ace method suggests instead that you decouple process flows to optimize

each sub-system, and avoid miscommunication.

Average prices

Kanban boards software #2 • Trello

Popular & customizable,

Pinterest overall style

Low scalable

Perfect for pet projects and startups

Very Reasonable price, $5 per user per month or $45 per

• Kanbanize

High flexible and customizable

Notifications and board messaging in real time.

Managed roles also gives added flexibility to fine tune permissions on

projects and tasks.

Unlimited API calls

Very Reasonable prices

• MS Team Foundation Server 2012

The latest version in 2013 has recently added support for Kanban, this is

welcome news

Ka a th’s

Myth: With Ka a ou do ’t use iteratio s

Fact: With Kanban iterations are optional. Do it only if you have a need

for it in your context.

Myth: With Ka a ou do ’t esti ate

Fact: With Kanban estimation is optional. Do it only if you have a need

for it in your context.

Myth: Kanban is better than Scrum/XP/RUP/whatever

Fact: Kanban is just a process tool, and there is no such thing as a

universally good or bad tool. It all depends on your context

Myth: Kanban is a drop-in replacement to Scrum/XP/RUP/whatever

Fact: Kanban is just about managing workflow. It hardly replaces

anything. What it does do, however, is drive change. In Kanban you start

with whatever process you have, visualize it, introduce WIP limits, and

then evolve from there.

Kanban win-win

Before Agile After Kanban injection

There was no clear understanding of how

much to sell. There were cases when we took

too many projects and them could not

"chew". Or desperately started to search for

orders, when he suddenly realized that the

projects about to run out.

Visualization projects using Kanban boards

and pull principle makes it easy to evaluate

the need to treat a potential customer unsold

non-urgent transfer to the next stage of the

project, etc.

To estimate employment of designers have

tried many tools, including google tab. She

was not very descriptive. It toke a lot of

management time.

To estimate employment of designer for the

next two months is enough to look at the

board, count the number of stickers with the

name of the designer and to understand how

it is loaded and when released.

There were moments when it was not clear at

what stage of the business process we have a

weak link, if I may say so.

Now clearly seen at what stage is the

problem. It remains to find it and decide.

I must admit that before the introduction of

the Kanban board, we were not engaged in

monthly financial planning. It so happened

that we started to drive it in parallel with the

implementation of the Kanban board.

A simple but effective tool for financial

planning. Yes, it allows you to look only for 2-

3 months in advance. But it is very clear. And

on the actual cash flow can be affected by just

making every effort to "right" projects.

So different, so similar

Sources digest

• Integrating Agile Development In The Real World by Peter

Schuh

• Lean from the Trenches: Managing Large-Scale Projects

with Kanban by Henrik Kniberg

• Getting Started with Kanban by Paul Klipp

• Learning Agile: Understanding Scrum, XP, Lean, and Kanban

by Andrew Stellman, Jennifer Greene

• Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn

• agileukraine.org

• leankit.com/kanban/what-is-kanban/

• habahabr.ru

You know, what to do!