from good-enough to great (lkfr16)

From Good-Enough to Great

Lean Kanban France 2016

Christophe Achouiantz @ChrisAch

http://leanagileprojects.blogspot.comImage: Bill Willingham

About Me• French• Living & working in Sweden• Lean/Agile Coach @ Sandvik IT• Applied Kanban since 2008• Coached 70+ teams using Kanban• Author of ”The Kanban Kick-start Field Guide”• Brickell Key Award 2016!

LKFR16Christophe Achouiantz @ChrisAch

Is your Kanban stuck in Good-Enough?It’s time to tap your team’s Greatness


The 3 Development Paths of a Kanban System

Time

Incr

ease

in C

apab

ilitie

s

”Too much work to update the board” Path (10%)

The Path to Greatness (20%)

The Good-enough Path (70%)

As seen at Sandvik IT.https://infoq.com/articles/kanban-Sandvik-IT-2


Greatness is up there

Motion is the best anti-fragile medicineYou should be on the Path to Greatness!


Kanban’s Quantum Mechanic

Time

Incr

ease

in C

apab

ilitie

s


“Sustainability Agenda” Level

“Value Delivery Agenda” Level

“Survivability Agenda” Level?

Greatness is up there

The Good-enough Path

Energy Drains in the Entreprise

Jumping levels requires high level of energy that is not readily available• Not facing customers directly• ”Just taking orders”• Lack of understanding of Business needs and risks• Lack of skills in negotiation and business agreements• Lack of confidence in planning and scheduling at scale• Lack of mathematical literacy

Getting to “pull” at enterprise scale. Blog post by David Anderson Nov 1st 2016. LKFR16Christophe Achouiantz @ChrisAch

Create an Emotional Attractor!Use ‘Emotional Fuel’ to Jump Levels


Alignment & Unity of Purpose using Story TellingWorld Building & Story Telling to make it Stick

LKFR16Christophe Achouiantz @ChrisAchImage: Wizards of the Coast LLC

Your QuestIn which our Heroes start to truly understand the Quest they are undertaking...

To find and clarify the Purpose in your Kanban

Image: Bill WillinghamLKFR16Christophe Achouiantz @ChrisAch

Your Quest

Your Goal

Your Origin Story

You are Here!

Your Journey


Wood of Despair Peak of

Broken Promises

Mire of Lost Focus

Lake of Sad Customers

SERVICE SHEET SERVICE NAME

HIGH CONCEPT PURPOSE

TROUBLE

SuperbGreatGood

enoughSucksUnacceptable

CURRENT CAPABILITYFITNESS CRITERIA

How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

1

2

3

4

DATE

When do you succeed in the eyes of your customer(s)?


The purpose of your Kanban (your tool to succeed) is to bring your Service to a “fit to Purpose” level

When do you succeed in delivering this Service?

When is your Service “fit to purpose” in the eyes of the Customer?



TROUBLE

SuperbGreatGood



How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

1

2

3

4

DATE



What is the service really about at its core? Has the problem been solved somewhere else or is it truly new?What complicates the delivery of the service? What is expected to cause problems or create risks that will need to be mitigated?

Who needs the service do to what? Who are the customers (pay), who are the users? What is the value delivered here?

According to the customer (the one paying), what 3-4 aspects make the service “fit to its purpose” (aspects of quality, performance, cost, speed, stability, etc.) How to concretely measure or quantify (using

facts/data) how well the fitness criteria are fulfilled.

Map the current quantification of the fitness criteria to the customer’s expectations or valuation. Help to discuss “pain” thresholds with the customer and discover what aspects of the service must be improved first. Also, help discuss how much effort is a ”great” or “superb” level worth.



TROUBLE

SuperbGreatGood



How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

1

2

3

4

DATE



Dialog to discover PurposeAlignmentEnsure the whole team understands what matters the most.Shared understanding of current condition and expectations.

FocusWhat we need to do, and not do, as a team to succeed. Lift team members from ‘just delivering stuff that is requested’ (day to day)

AccelerationSo that your Kanban system reaches its potential.Justify Kanban techniques needed to reach your goals.



TROUBLE

SuperbGreatGood



How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

1

2

3

4

DATE



What is the service really about at its core? Has the problem been solved somewhere else or is it truly new?What complicates the delivery of the service? What is expected to cause problems or create risks that will need to be mitigated?

Who needs the service do to what? Who are the customers (pay), who are the users? What is the value delivered here?

According to the customer (the one paying), what 3-4 aspects make the service “fit to its purpose” (aspects of quality, performance, cost, speed, stability, etc.) How to concretely measure or quantify (using

facts/data) how well the fitness criteria are fulfilled.

Map the current quantification of the fitness criteria to the customer’s expectations or valuation. Help to discuss “pain” thresholds with the customer and discover what aspects of the service must be improved first. Also, help discuss how much effort is a ”great” or “superb” level worth.

Objectives & Key Results (OKRs)

Applied to Services a

nd not Organizations

https://www.oreilly.com/learning/introduction-to-okrs

Objective

Key Results



TROUBLE

SuperbGreatGood



How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

How to measure

1

2

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4

DATE


Development of E-commerce platform

4 different brands share the same platform

YYY Business Platform

To develop new features for the YYY E-commerce platform in order to make information on products for Brands A, B, C & D available worldwide & provide shopping services for those products

Constant flow of cool & new features not seen on competirors’ platforms

# ”cool & new” features (according to POs) / release

< 1 per release

High delivery precision for new features

Platform is ”stable” (according to the Brands)

Monitor availability of shopping service

Too many incidents

% of features with deadlines delivered on time

~80%


Accelerate your Kanban Implementation: Inject exactly the right policies

to make your Kanban fit for the Service

Change policy: tougher Definition of Done during Validation (introduce performance & stability tests)

Introduce a “cool feature” work type with capacity allocation of 20% to allow for x number per release

Introduce (new) Class of Service for deadline work items

How to Create the Service Sheet?Workshop with the Kanban team and the Customer(s)1. Brainstorm & Select Fitness Criteria

• Brainstorm: discuss, debate, fight, stack, rank• Pick 3 to 4 Fitness Criteria

2. Select Metrics & Targets• Quantify the fitness criteria using facts/data.• At first, set “good-enough” as a target (how is this

quantified?). Then, “Shoot for the Moon” (higher risk for failure)

3. Communicate & visualize it!


How to Use the Service Sheet?You only get value from it if you use it regularly!

Use it during Service Delivery Reviews as a dashboard• FOCUS: What are the customers expectations?• ALIGNMENT: What is the current condition?• ACCELERATION: What should we improve next?


Your Quest

Your Goal

Your Origin Story

You are Here!

Your Journey



Broken Promises

Mire of Lost Focus


Image: Jim RoslofImage: Jeff Easley

Your Origin StoryIn which our Heroes are reminded of their humble origins and the promises they’ve made...

Why you’ve started with Kanban


IN THE PAST... BUT THEN ONE DAY...AND WE LIKED IT BECAUSE...

AND THAT CAUSED... SO WE WANT TO... The story about why you chose to create a Kanban System.

In which way did this change bring you closer to your goals/vision?

Have the promises of the change been fulfilled? What still needs to be delivered?

Story template by Jason Little (http://leanchange.org/)

YOUR ORIGIN STORY Why Kanban? Why Change?


Why you’ve chosen Kanban as your tool

to succeed in your Service delivery?

What have you Promised your stakeholders?





Story template by Jason Little (http://leanchange.org/2016/01/using-storytelling-in-change-management/)



What was ‘the way things worked around here’ like?

Effect of the way of working on Culture, Morale and Customer

satisfaction.

Event(s) happened (perhaps not at once but over a period of time) that changed the “way

things worked”.

What impact did that have? Loss of customers, lower

morale, ‘bad’ culture?

Make this change to make things better


AND THAT CAUSED... SO WE WANT TO...


We were a small development team using Scrum to deliver a SharePoint solution to one Brand

We were very closed to the Brand (PO) and could deliver value each sprint. The Brand trusted us and we trusted them.

The company decided to use the platform for all Brands, and the Brands were on pressure to go ’all digital’.As a result, 4 Brands started to share the same platform, the development team more than doubled in size and the brands wanted more features, faster.

Slow thoughput of new features, lowered quality, high Technical debt. As a result, the Brands are thinking to move development & operation ”somewhere else”; the ”story points” system is being used to demonstrate an increasing cost/point

Introduce a Knaban system to:• Simplify the development process (flow of features & release-train instead of sprints, sprint ceremonies and story points).• Increase trust towards Brands by increased transparency (showing status of features being developped, discuss blocked features a.s.a.p).

OUR PROMISES

• Simpler dev process• Trust by more transparency

LKFR16Christophe Achouiantz @ChrisAchStory template by Jason Little (http://leanchange.org/2016/01/using-storytelling-in-change-management/)







Dialog for ChangeAlignmentCreate alignment for change through Story.

Story TellingMake cause and purpose of change clear.More compelling than any “urgency of change”.

Build TrustBe clear about your promises and keep them!

Story template by Jason Little (http://leanchange.org/2016/01/using-storytelling-in-change-management/)

Your Quest

Your Goal

Your Origin Story

You are Here!

Your Journey



Broken Promises

Mire of Lost Focus


Your Journey

In which our Heroes devise an elaborate plan to take on the challenges ahead...

LKFR16Christophe Achouiantz @ChrisAch Image: Dyson Logos

“One does not simply walk into Mordor…”

One step at a time!Focus on solving one challengeImproving too much at the same time makes it harder to learn what worked and what didn’t (was that change an improvement or not?).


Use the Improvement Kata


ObstacleNext Target Condition

Current Condition Challenge Vision

12 34

Toyota Kata – Mike RotherExperiment, Discover and Learn:

Push back your ”Knowledge Horizon”

PROMISE TO FULFILLChallenge

When are you done (measure)?

Experiments (Policies)

Development process is ”Transparent”

All demand managers from all Brands can access our digital Kanban tool and participate in our dailies

Try holding our daily meeting at 12:45 instead of 08:45

Get their managers to attend our daily at least once

Next Target ConditionAll demand managers from all Brands participate in our dailies

1 GOAL FOR YOUR SERVICEChallenge



Platform is Stable

Agreed stability KPIs reach ”good enough” targets

New policy: run performance tests on nightly builds, every night

New policy: All ’Urgent’ features follow exactly the same QA tests as ’standard’ features. No more pushing for half-baked features right before release.

Next Target ConditionNew releases do not deteriorate stability

2PROMISE TO FULFILLChallenge








1 GOAL FOR YOUR SERVICEChallenge



Platform is Stable





2YOUR JOURNEY Your Plan to Become Great!


#1 PROMISE TO FULFILLChallenge








1 #1 GOAL FOR YOUR SERVICEChallenge



Platform is Stable





2

You’ve Made It!


Image: David A. Trampier

From Good-Enough to Great• Create alignment & unity of purpose for the whole team (including

customers and stakeholders) using Story Telling• Your Service’s Fitness to Purpose (Service Sheet)• Creates clear motivation for the team Pull Kanban practices needed to be fit

• Clarify the promises you’ve made when starting Kanban• Your Kanban’s origin story (Why?)

• Select one challenge to pursue• Use Improvement Kata to reach the goal• Switch to the next

• Done? Re-align towards new Fitness criteria

Go Slain your Dragons!Now, take these tools and go on your Quest!

LKFR16Christophe Achouiantz @ChrisAch Image: ?

From Good-Enough to Great

Are your using this stuff? I would love to get some feedback!

Contact me!

Christophe Achouiantz @ChrisAch

http://leanagileprojects.blogspot.comImage: Bill Willingham

from good-enough to great (lkfr16)

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