kanban @ vanguard

Kanban @ VanguardAn Experience Report

The Lean Kanban Global SummitAlexandria, VA USA13 May 2019 1:30pm – 2:30pm EDT

David Hughes, KCP

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Vanguard Fast Facts

One of the world’s largest investment management companies, named for a distinguished 18th century vessel.

About 415 low-cost traditional funds and ETFs.

18 locations worldwide with about 17,600 crew members.

About $5.2 trillion in global assets under management

Character counts.

Vanguard is widely recognized as a leader in low-cost investing and a steadfast advocate for the interests of all investors.

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Vanguard Fast Facts

For more information, please contact the Public Relations Team at

Vanguard_Media_Relations@Vanguard.com

4For internal use only. Not for public distribution.

Vanguard’s Lean Operating Model

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Business Value @ Startup Speed Program

Agile “Transformation” Since 2007

• Scrum Method “Official”

• Federated Structure

DevOps Enabling Practices since 2014

• Solutions Path

• Modern Work Practices

• Modern Technologies

• Modern Infrastructure

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Studying Maturity Levels

Kanban Adoption Increasing• Fast Flow

• Fast Feedback

• Fast Learning

Year-long effort

• Population ~ 240 teams

• 10% sample

Independent sampling dimension

• 700 individual practitioners

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Testing the Lean Operating Model

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Testing the Lean Operating Model - Hypotheses

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Testing the Lean Operating Model - Hypotheses

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Testing the Lean Operating Model - Hypotheses

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Testing the Lean Operating Model - Hypotheses

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Kanban @ Vanguard

Empirical Results Recovering From Scrum Stall

Avoiding Scrum Stall

Never Experiencing Scrum Stall

STATIK Through No-stall Scrum

ESP’s Positive Impact on Kanban Maturity Levels

Vanguard Examples Through the KMM Lens

Conclusions

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Why?

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Why?

1. Problem Hypothesis

2. Scrum “before” Kanban “after”

3. Critical success factors

4. Kanban maturity levels

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How?

Training and workshops

Multi-leveled “flights” of boards

Time-boxed iterations

New ways of thinking and working

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… And How!

Coaching deeply

Old-fashioned system context diagramming

ESP operations review

Upstream filtering

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Kanban @ Vanguard

Empirical Results Recovering From Scrum Stall

Avoiding Scrum Stall

Never Experiencing Scrum Stall

STATIK Through No-stall Scrum

ESP’s Positive Impact on Kanban Maturity Levels

Vanguard Examples Through the KMM Lens

Conclusions

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Scrum Stall Symptoms

Mediocre Lead Time Mediocre Average Delivery Rate

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Scrum Stall Causes

Myopia

PO Bottleneck

Hortator

Drum Beater For These Guys

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Scrum Stall Effects

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Team P

Database platform for Financial systems

• Projects• Recurring maintenance• Break-fix• Enhancements• Service and support

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Team P: Pre-Kanban State, One Year

Average delivery lead time 38 to 57 days.

Low work item volume “elevated” to production.

Who is the customer? For what service?

Quick-fix manual process flow.

Scrum Stall

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Team P: Evolution Through Systems Thinking

Visualization Through Classical Systems Analysis

• System context diagram

• System workflow

• Affinity grouping classes of service

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Team P: Evolution Through Systems Thinking

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Team P: Evolution Through Systems Thinking

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Team P: Evolution Through Systems Thinking

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Team P: The View Upstream (Original Scrum Stall)

Phone Calls/

Meetings

Individual Emails

Enterprise Support Emails

Team P

(JIRA)

Recurring Activities

Team Initiatives

Technical Debt

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Team P: The View Upstream (Kanban)

SharePoint

Phone Calls/

Meetings

Individual Emails

Enterprise Support Emails

Team P

(JIRA)

Recurring Activities

Team Initiatives

Technical Debt

Daily Feed

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Team P: ESP Context

Operations review with mid-level management and all teams (new monthly meeting).

Replenishment meeting including mid-level management (repurposed existing meeting).

Kanban standup meeting with the team, itself, with enhanced collaboration among parallel teams (repurposed, refined existing meeting).

Strategy review with the financial system governance board (repurposed existing meeting).

Delivery planning with production release CI/CD pipeline technical management (repurposed existing meeting).

Risk reviews with PMO.

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Team P: New Perspective on Customers

Workflow Optimization Metrics

Classes of Service

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Team P: Classes of Service

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Team P: Realistic Work Flow

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Team P: Flow Metrics

1yr Scrum 90d Kanban & ESP

Not

hing

H

ere!

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Team P: Flow Metrics Repeated Month-by-Month

System Lead Time

September

Mean 10.0 days

Stdev 8.2 days

System Lead Time

October

Mean 7.5 days

Stdev 9.3 days

System Lead Time

November

Mean 8.6 days

Stdev 9.1 days

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Team P: Flow Metrics @ 3 Months

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Team P: Flow Metrics @ 5 Months

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Team P: Bottleneck Root Cause Analysis

yymmddCT 32 28.1% It appears that 15% of the workers (four people) are responsible for delivering nearly 60% of the work.SD 15 13.2%KV 12 10.5%RS 9 7.9% 59.6%DW 6 5.3%LA 5 4.4%SL 5 4.4%BV 4 3.5%SD 4 3.5%KM 3 2.6%PM 3 2.6%VS 3 2.6%AS 2 1.8%BS 2 1.8%HD 2 1.8%JN 2 1.8%TG 2 1.8%DK 1 0.9%JD 1 0.9%MJ 1 0.9%BC 0 0.0%DT 0.0%KJ 0.0%PM 0.0%VT 0.0%

114 100.0%0

5

10

15

20

25

30

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CT SD KV RS DW LA SL BV SD KM PM VS AS BS HD JN TG DK JD MJ BC DT KJ PM VT

PSP Labor-WorkItem Allocation YYMMDD

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Team P: Kanban Method

PRINCIPLES• Start with what you do now.• Agree to pursue evolutionary

change.• Encourage acts of leadership at

every level.• Focus on the customer.• Manage the work and let people

self-organize.• Evolve policies to improve

outcomes.

PRACTICES

• Visualize

• Limit WiP

• Manage flow

• Make policies explicit

• Feedback loops

• Improve and evolve

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Kanban @ Vanguard

Empirical Results Recovering From Scrum Stall

Avoiding Scrum Stall

Never Experiencing Scrum Stall

STATIK Through No-stall Scrum

ESP’s Positive Impact on Kanban Maturity Levels

Vanguard Examples Through the KMM Lens

Conclusions

4040

Team Q

Revenue and rebate systems and services within Finance

• External vendors• Projects• Recurring maintenance• Break-fix• Enhancements• Service and support

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Team Q: Visualizing the Alternative Path to Agility

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Team Q: The Power of a Physical Board

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Team Q: The Power of the Physical Board

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Team Q: The Power of a Physical Board

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Team Q: The Retrospective Habit

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Team Q: Upstream Filter Board

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Team Q: Flow Metrics – Success with STATIK!

1yr Scrum 90d Kanban & ESP

Littl

e H

ere!

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Team Q: Flow Metrics – Spectacular Acceleration!

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Team Q: Critical Success Factors

Big, visible physical Kanban board

• Correlated with JIRA virtual Kanban board and automated metrics

Upstream filtering

• Simplest “board” that could possibly work with the simplest policy

Focus on bottlenecks

• Systems thinking + Theory of Constraints

• External vendors included with internal team

Kanban Maturity Model

• Implicit through deep coaching

• Reflecting good behavior, not explicitly driving it

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Team Q: Critical Success Factors

Big, visible physical Kanban board

• Correlated with JIRA virtual Kanban board and automated metrics

Upstream filtering

• Simplest “board” that could possibly work with the simplest policy

Focus on bottlenecks

• Systems thinking + Theory of Constraints

• External vendors included with internal team

Kanban Maturity Model

• Implicit through deep coaching

• Reflecting good behavior, not explicitly driving it

51

Team Q: Critical Success Factors

Big, visible physical Kanban board

• Correlated with JIRA virtual Kanban board and automated metrics

Upstream filtering

• Simplest “board” that could possibly work with the simplest policy

Focus on bottlenecks

• Systems thinking + Theory of Constraints

• External vendors included with internal team

Kanban Maturity Model

• Implicit through deep coaching

• Reflecting good behavior, not explicitly driving it

52

Team Q: Critical Success Factors

Big, visible physical Kanban board

• Correlated with JIRA virtual Kanban board and automated metrics

Upstream filtering

• Simplest “board” that could possibly work with the simplest policy

Focus on bottlenecks

• Systems thinking + Theory of Constraints

• External vendors included with internal team

Kanban Maturity Model

• Implicit through deep coaching

• Reflecting good behavior, not explicitly driving it

53

Team Q: Critical Success Factors

Big, visible physical Kanban board

• Correlated with JIRA virtual Kanban board and automated metrics

Upstream filtering

• Simplest “board” that could possibly work with the simplest policy

Focus on bottlenecks

• Systems thinking + Theory of Constraints

• External vendors included with internal team

Kanban Maturity Model

• Implicit through deep coaching

• Reflecting good behavior, not explicitly driving it

54

Kanban @ Vanguard

Empirical Results Recovering From Scrum Stall

Avoiding Scrum Stall

Never Experiencing Scrum Stall

STATIK Through No-stall Scrum

ESP’s Positive Impact on Kanban Maturity Levels

Vanguard Examples Through the KMM Lens

Conclusions

5555

Team C

Compliance operations in the Legal unit.

• Monitoring tools• Communications content and channels• Small work items• Enhancements• Technical changes• Deadline and dependency management

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Team C

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Team C: Flow Metrics

5858

Team V

Web-based user experience.

• New product development

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Team V

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Team V

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Kanban @ Vanguard

Empirical Results Recovering From Scrum Stall

Avoiding Scrum Stall

Never Experiencing Scrum Stall

STATIK Through No-stall Scrum

ESP’s Positive Impact on Kanban Maturity Levels

Vanguard Examples Through the KMM Lens

Conclusions

6262

Team J

Data Analytics

• New product development

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Team J: Scrum Team with Kanban Practices

To Do board – separate class of service not related to vision

Scrum board – as simple as possible, no workflow, per se

No story pointing

Ferocious commitment to constant product backlog refinement

Ruthless about not wasting time

Massively committed to customer engagement

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Team J: Flow Metrics

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Team J: Flow Metrics

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Kanban @ Vanguard

Empirical Results Recovering From Scrum Stall

Avoiding Scrum Stall

Never Experiencing Scrum Stall

STATIK Through No-stall Scrum

ESP’s Positive Impact on Kanban Maturity Levels

Vanguard Examples Through the KMM Lens

Conclusions

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Enterprise Services Planning : Vanguard CSFs

Operations Review

Backlog Refinement and Replenishment

Repurpose Existing Meetings

• Strategy, risk review

• Delivery planning

Stand up meetings

Service Delivery Review

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Kanban @ Vanguard

Empirical Results Recovering From Scrum Stall

Avoiding Scrum Stall

Never Experiencing Scrum Stall

STATIK Through No-stall Scrum

ESP’s Positive Impact on Kanban Maturity Levels

Vanguard Examples Through the KMM Lens

Conclusions

69

Manage Flow

Automated fast feedback metrics through JIRA

Upstream filtering – the secret success sauce!

Backlog replenishment / refinement.

Focus immediately on service class modeling and workflow visualization, together

Commit to an operations review meeting immediately

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Make Policies Explicit

Establish initial request acceptance policies

• Upstream filtering – the secret success sauce!

Establish pull criteria

Establish a delivery commitment point

Classes of service

• Define them immediately and together with workflow visualization

• Establish customer acceptance criteria

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Kanban @ Vanguard

Empirical Results Recovering From Scrum Stall

Avoiding Scrum Stall

Never Experiencing Scrum Stall

STATIK Through No-stall Scrum

ESP’s Positive Impact on Kanban Maturity Levels

Vanguard Examples Through the KMM Lens

Conclusions

72

Why?

1. Problem Hypothesis

2. Scrum “before” Kanban “after”

3. Critical success factors

4. Kanban maturity levels

73

… And How!

Coaching deeply

Old-fashioned system context diagramming

ESP operations review

Upstream focus

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Testing the Lean Operating Model

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Testing the Lean Operating Model

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Validated Results – Method Selection Trends

• 240 team population• 10% sample• All started with Scrum• 40% switched/switching to Kanban

Switched-to Kanban teams outperform all but one of the very best Scrum teams.

• JIRA control chart and cumulative flow diagram• 4% awareness• 1.5% using to drive inspect & adapt behavior

Kanban teams at or above KMM level 2 embrace these JIRA reports.

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Validated Results – Empirical Measures for Value

Team level success with JIRA reports:• System lead time (scatter plot)• Cumulative flow diagram

Enterprise level success with four DevOps measures:• Deployment frequency• Change failure rate• Build cycle time• Mean time to recovery

Automated code pipelines are CSFs for “elevating” quality code to production early & often.

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Validated Results – Scientific Method

• Yes, team month-over-month• Yes, across teams and business areas

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Scientific Method Applied – Repeatable Results

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Validated Results – Critical Success Factors

1. System context diagramming2. Upstream filtering3. Backlog refinement4. Affinity grouping – service classes5. Explicit policy definition6. Preserving options to pivot

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Final Thoughts – Promoting Leadership At All Levels

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Kanban @ Vanguard

Kanban @ VanguardDavid Hughes, KCP

Website: https://dhughes-avc.com/LinkedIn Profile: linkedin.com/in/david19341