the kanban iceberg: how do you help teams for whom kanban is simply card walls?

© 2012, Asynchrony Solu2ons, Inc. All rights reserved.

THE KANBAN ICEBERG


About me Matt Philip @mattphilip Director of Coaching, Asynchrony (St. Louis, USA) Organizer, Lean Kanban St. Louis Meetup


St. Louis

French lesson

DeBaliviere

Gravois

Chouteau

Gratiot

Creve Coeur

Soulard


Structure

1. Context

2. Depth of Kanban

assessments

3. Flow manager

4. Feedback loops


# of Employees

Proto-kanban

Ubiquitous kanban

Proto-agile

Agile/XP

1999 2005 2008 2014


Kanban Depth

1999 2008 2014

Proto-kanban

Ubiquitous kanban


We do card walls really well.


But they’re only the tip of the iceberg.

The mass of the system is below

the surface, unseen.


Principles

Values

Practices

Card Wall

Agendas


MAKE POLICIES EXPLICIT

IMPLEMENT FEEDBACK

LOOPS

IMPROVE COLLABORATIVELY

AND EXPERIMENTALLY

MANAGE FLOW

VISUALIZE LIMIT WIP

Practices


Principles

INITIALLY, RESPECT CURRENT

PROCESSES, ROLES AND

RESPONSIBILITIES AGREE TO PURSUE

INCREMENTAL, EVOLUTIONARY

CHANGE

START WITH WHAT YOU DO NOW

ENCOURAGE LEADERSHIP

AT ALL LEVELS


Values

COLLABORATION

TRANSPARENCY

CUSTOMER FOCUS

UNDERSTANDING

BALANCE AGREEMENT

FLOW

LEADERSHIP

RESPECT


Principles

Values

Practices


Kanban isn’t about card walls.

It’s about positive change.


How do you help teams for whom

Kanban is simply card walls?

?


Great idea. But how do you launch it?


“We have a great metaphor for you!”


0 1 2 3 4

Our system exhibits this aspect barely, if at all

Our system is somewhat capable of exhibiting this aspect

Our system exhibits this aspect convincingly, for the most part

Our system departs from this only very exceptionally, understanding and managing the consequence

Measurement Scale


Anticipate

emotional

resistance.

Be like water. Avoid the rocks.


Expect some experiments to fail.


It is such a positive indication about how much Asynchrony cares about people and how to help them be a part of successful and continually improving teams.

-‐Team member


0

1

2

3

4 Transparency

Balance

Collaboration

Customer Focus

Flow

Leadership and the Leadership

Disciplines

Target Current


0

1

2

3

4 Transparency

Balance

Collaboration

Customer Focus

Flow

Leadership and the

Leadership Disciplines

Target Current


Assessments are done. Now what?

?


It’s a DNA thing.


?


Flow Manager?

Help wanted.


David Anderson’s cartoon FTW!


Flow efficiency

% complete and accurate Cycle time

Return on Investment


Visibility leads to conversation, which leads to understanding, which leads to change. But someone needs to start the conversation.


Not as easy as it looked.

?


Standup Meetings

Retrospectives

Operations Reviews

Our three main feedback loops.


… most valuable about this meeting is the fact that it's a venue for sharing experimental practices and judging how well they worked or didn't

-‐Team lead


Operations reviews without division or unit

context are a bit like asking “How are things on

your mountain?”


Sometimes, we need help beyond

retrospectives to reach the peak.


So we’re still trying to

understand the best

way to use operations

reviews in our context.


Time for another experiment.

?


Results


1.  Operate kanban systems.

(don’t confuse means with ends)

2.  Increase understanding.

(team-owned assessments)

3.  Pull change through the system.

(flow manager role)

© 2012, Asynchrony Solu2ons, Inc. All rights reserved. © Copyright 2014 Asynchrony

Merci!

Matt Philip @mattphilip

[email protected]

Image credits:

•  Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre

•  Edward Boatman

•  Netanel Koso

•  irene hoffman

the kanban iceberg: how do you help teams for whom kanban is simply card walls?

Leadership & Management