Kanban Flashcards
What is Kanban?
An Agile methodology focusing on visual management to limit the number of work items in circulation. Kanban focuses on the customers needs and expectations, manages the work in hand, and encourages continual improvement.
How can Kanban be integrated into PRINCE2 Agile?
In PRINCE2 Agile, Kanban is likely to be found in MDP stages when are are set work items that can be handled.
Kanban can facilitate build into BAU.
Kanban concepts, behaviours, and techniques can be thought of as Agile concepts, behaviours, and techniques that can be chosen to slot into PRINCE2 Agile. Kanban is not sufficient to deliver the project in isolation.
Work items can be pre-organised into sprints and working with Scrum (this is a push system). Alternatively, work items can be pulled in as needed with Kanban (this is a pull system).
How to chose between Kanban and Scrum?
This depends on the needs on a project, Agile maturity of the team, and preferred way of working for the team.
If there is a great deal of uncertainty, either in the project environment or in terms of the work item estimates, the Kanban system may be best. It might also be possible to not run sprints and run a long sprint instead.
What are the benefits of using Kanban?
- Increases agility
- makes team feel more organised, productive, and able to focus on WIP
- Gives improved day-to-day decision making
- Reduces development time
- Allows for continual improvement
What are the six core practises of Kanban?
Six core practises of Kanban:
- Visualising the workflow
a. The team has a visual representation of work to do, in progress, and complete. Once work is started, user story is moved from the todo pile to the in progress pile. Once complete and tested, it is put int he ready to live pile.
b. Board is used in the daily sprint meeting and board is updated
c. Number of items in each column is shown. Shows bottlenecks. - WIP limited
a. There are WIP limits shown at the top of each column
b. Blocked items are marked as such and do not contribute to the WIP limit. It is good to have a rule around blocked items (i.e. blocked items stay in the In Progress board for 24 hours, after which the item is removed), Rules can change depending on the team
c. Reduces impact of task switching and multi-tasking as Develops focus on one item at a time - Manage flow, not people
a. Flow efficiency and progress and maximised and disruptions minimised by focusing the Engineer on the problem they are working on and reducing distractions
b. Flow is the movement of work items thought the process and it needs to occur at a predictable and sustainable rate
c. Micro-managing people is not encouraged - Make process policies explicitly
a. Clearly define the process and common goal to guide decision making - Feedback loops
a. Shorten the time between adding an item to the to do column and getting feedback (internally or externally)
b. In Kanban, feedback loops are called cadences - Improve collaboratively
a. Encourage all team members to collaborate and take ownership of issues impacting their area of the business and take incremental action to improve their way of working
b. The team is free to experiment (within limits) and are safe to fail (failures will have limited impact on the project / sprint)
c. Experiments should be designed to have minimal impact on the project or product
d. This is up to everyone in the team
What is safe to fail?
A person can experiment changing a process or another aspect of the project if the consequences for it going wrong are low cost and reversible. Experiments should be conducted in a safe and controlled way.
What are the three management principles of Kanban?
Kanban management principles
- Start with what you do now - recognise and stick to existing process, roles, and responsibilities
- Agree to pursue incremental change to achieve minimal resistance
- Encourage leadership at all levels
What is Little’s Law?
Little’s Law - Average number of items in the system = Average arrival rate x average time an item spends in the system
What are the differences between Scrum and Kanban?
In Scrum, there are set roles and work is added to a timebox. Kanban has no defined roles and work is pulled in a flow state
What is Scrumban?
Scrumban is the application of Kanban in a Scrum environment.
What are the degrees of Scrumban integration?
From using a flow-state or WIP pile to manage work in the current sprint or increment, to using Kanban techniques and principles to guide the entire project.
How can one make Kanban more predictable and easier to manage?
Separate work items into categories based on the size, risk, or complexity. This can be done by colour-coding or swimlanes.
What is a Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD)?
Kanban board columns often show the number of items or total estimate of items in a column.
A CFD shows the amount of work in each column per day, therefore the amount of flow / velocity through the system.
What is a lead time / cycle time?
Two terms are used interchangeably. This is the amount of time it takes for a work item ot move through the entire process. The space between the WIP line and the Completed line is the amount of WIP items at any one point. It is the distance on the x-axis (time) between the WIP line and the completed line.
What is the relationship between Kanban and a Kanban board?
Kanban is a methodology which at a minimum involves proactive problem solving by team members and the use of WIP limits. A team can use a Kanban board without WIP limits - they are not using Kanban.
