kanban - extreme improvements in five quarters
TRANSCRIPT
Extrem improvements in
five quartersKanban - Chapter 4
Introduction• Dragos Dumitru became Programm-Manager
in Oktober 2004
• contractor in india responsible for software maintenance of the XIT business unit
• team consisted of 3 developers, 3 testers and local managers
The problem• team with the worth reputation regarding
customer service
• long lead times
• political environment of his work
• but many requirements in a very high quality
The visualization of the workflow
Factors with impact on productivity
• cost estimation for every requirement
• monthly meeting for prioritization
• 70 or more requirements newly planned and prioritized
Factors with impact on productivity
• wasted time and supplies - not used data
• 11 days for one average requirement
• cost estimations (ROM) consume a lot of effort
• additional tasks in form of PTCs
Workflow with ROM and PTC
Make process rules explicit
• team follows the process
• a process is a set of rules which determine their behavior
• process contains unfavorable rules
Estimations represent waste
• team should no longer estimate
• free capacities for developing und testing
• improvements of predictability
Restrict Work In Progress
• WIP: 1 requirement per developer and tester
• additional queue for PTCs
Establish a rhythms for the input
• weekly meeting with product manager
• guaranteed delivery time of 25 days after placing an order
Workflow with WIP limits and queues
Proposal for a new arrangement
• weekly prioritization meeting
• restricted WIP
• no more team estimations
• delivery after 25 days
Introduce changes• many were doubtful
• but it worked
• satisfied delivery time
• meetings proceeded with problems
Adapt the rules• every entry older than 6 months will be
deleted from backlog
• developer alert manager, if requirement is too big
• weekly meetings were omitted
Lookout for further improvements
• developer as bottleneck, therefore 2 testers and 4 developers
• increase the quality of performance
• enhancement of the budget for 2 additional team members
Compensation of ressources
The result• increased performance
• reduced lead time
• satisfy delivery dates
• no changes to software developing process
Conclusion• KANBAN enables
• incremental changes
• changes with little political risk
• improvements without major changes of the developing methods