Kanban Condensed & KSD Course

Question 1

What is Kanban?

Answer 1

Kanban is a method for defining, managing, and improving services that deliver knowledge work

Question 2

Which are Kanban values?

Answer 2

1. Transparency
2. Balance
3. Customer Focus
4. Commitment
5. Flow
6. Leadership
7. Understanding
8. Agreement
9. Respect

Question 3

Which are Kanban agendas?

Answer 3

1. Sustainability
2. Service Orientation
3. Survivability

Question 4

Which are Kanban principles?

Answer 4

Change Management:

1. Start with what you do now
2. Agree to pursue improvement through evolutionary change
3. Encourage acts of leadership at every levels

Service Delivery:

1. Understand and focus on customer needs and expectations
2. Manage the work, let people self-organise around it
3. Evolve policies to improve outcomes

Question 5

Which are Kanban practices?

Answer 5

1. Visualize
2. Limit WiP
3. Manage the flow
4. Make policies explicit
5. Feedback loops
6. Improve and evolve

Question 6

What is Little’s Law? What is it used for?

Answer 6

Little’s Law says that in a flow system that is not trending, there is a simple relationship between the averages of selected and delivered items over a selected period.
Little’s Law formula: Delivery Rate (mean) = WiP (mean) / Lead Time (mean)
Little’s Law is used to calculate the average Delivery Rate of working items in a kanban system, but it can be used to calculate the average of other metrics within the kanban system, for instance the average Throughput.

Question 7

What does STATIK stand for? What is it used for?

Answer 7

STATIK stands for Systems Thinking Approach to Introducing Kanban.
It is a process that defines a number of steps in order to introduce Kanban in an organisation. The process considers the full system rather than isolated component parts.

Question 8

Which are STATIK steps?

Answer 8

Step 0: Identify services

For each service:
Step 1: Understand what makes the service fit for purpose for the customer
Step 2: Understand sources of dissatisfaction with the current system
Step 3: Analyze demand (random, seasonal, chaotic, planned)
Step 4: Analyze capacity
Step 5: Model the workflow
Step 6: Discover classes of services (expedite, fixed date, standard, intangible)
Step 7: Design the kanban board (columns, swimlanes, WiP limits, other policies, commitment and delivery points, customer delivery point, structure of the work items)
Step 8: Socialize the system and board design and negotiate implementation

Question 9

What is Litmus test? What is it used for?

Answer 9

Litmus test consists of a series of four questions and follow up questions that is used in order to assess the progress with Kanban in an organisation, and suggest areas of improvement.

Question 10

Which are Litmus test questions?

Answer 10

1. Has management behaviour changed to enable Kanban?
2. Has the customer interface changed, in line with Kanban?
3. Has the customer contract changed, informed by Kanban?
4. Has your service delivery business model changed to exploit Kanban?

Question 11

What is Litmus question and follow-up questions about management behaviour?

Answer 11

1. Has management behaviour changed to enable Kanban?
2. 1. Is management behaviour consistent with Kanban’s deferred commitment, pull system approach?
3. 2. Are WiP limits respected by management at the system level, not just at a personal level?
4. 3. Is customer focus always an understood reason for change?

Question 12

What is Litmus question and follow-up questions about customer interface?

Answer 12

2. Has the customer interface changed, in line with Kanban?
3. 1. Is the approach to scheduling and selecting customer requests based on a pull system with limited WiP?
4. 2. Are the commitment and delivery points clearly defined and are records of Lead Times and Delivery Rates available?
5. 3. Is there a regular Replenishment Meeting?

Question 13

What is Litmus question and follow-up questions about customer contract?

Answer 13

3. Has the customer contract changed, informed by Kanban?
4. 1. Are commitments made to the customer based on the agreed or understood service levels (explicit service level agreements or service level expectations)?
5. 2. Are these levels based on probabilistic forecasting using the kanban system’s observed Lead Times and Delivery Rates?

Question 14

What is Litmus question and follow-up questions about service business model?

Answer 14

4. Has your service delivery business model changed to exploit Kanban?
5. 1. Does the service delivery business model use classes of service appropriately, based on an understanding of business risks (for example, the cost of delay) to facilitate selection decisions and inspire queuing discipline policies for work items? Are you understanding customer expectations and how they cluster into similar groups? Are you probing for posible new classes of service to improve the flow of value to the customer?
6. 2. Is there capacity in the system to hedge risks from different sources of demand and different types of work? For example, can resources be diverted to priority tasks during high-demand periods?
7. 3. Are interdependent services aggregated and coordinated to increase system liquidity and enable system levelling in light of risks and variability?

Question 15

What is the commitment point? Where do you place it in the flow?

Answer 15

The commitment point is the point in a kanban system at which the commitment is made to delivery a work item. The customer wants the item and will take delivery of it, and the service will deliver it.

The commitment point can be when items are selected to be worked on during the Replenishment Meeting.

Question 16

What is the delivery point? Where do you place it in the flow?

Answer 16

The delivery point is the point at which an item is considered to be delivered or complete.

The delivery point can be when the working item has been delivered to the customer for UAT or transits to a state with infinite WiP.

Question 17

What is the Lead Time? How is the Lead Time mean calculated?

Answer 17

The Lead Time is the elapsed time it takes for a work item to move from the commitment point to the delivery point.

The Lead Time mean is calculated adding up the Lead Times of all working items delivered, divided between the number of items.

Question 18

What is the Delivery Rate? How is the Delivery Rate mean calculated?

Answer 18

The Delivery Rate is the number of working items emerging complete from the system per unit of time.

The daily Delivery Rate mean is calculated adding up all working items delivered during a period of time, divided between the number of days.

Question 19

What is the Customer Lead Time?

Answer 19

The Customer Lead Time is time a customer waits for a work item. Typically, this is measured from the request for a service to the receipt of the service.

Question 20

What is a class of service? What types of classes of service are explained in the book?

Answer 20

A class of service identifies how the working item cost of delay gets impacted with the time.

There are 4 classes of service explained in the book:

1. Expedite - the cost of delay is exponential, so item needs to be addressed urgently
2. Fixed date - the cost of delay increases the date the item should be completed
3. Standard - the cost of delay increases linearly
4. Intangible - there is no cost of delay, but there is potential benefit after it has been completed

Question 21

What is a Cumulative Flow Diagram? How is it built and what information can be inferred from it?

Answer 21

A Cumulative Flow Diagram is a chart showing the cumulative number of arrivals and departures from a process, or parts of a process, over a time period.

The x-axis shows the time, the y-axis shows the amount of working items, and with a different color represent the accumulated number of working units in each state of the flow.

The CFD can show bottlenecks, the amount of WiP at any specific unit of time, the Lead Time, and the Delivery Rate averages.

Question 22

What is to sub-optimise?

Answer 22

To sub-optimise is to optimise a part of the system, with eh conscience of worsening the system performance as a whole. This can happen when a team leader optimises the work of their own team without considering the rest of the system.

Question 23

What is a Distribution histogram? How is it built and what information can be inferred from it?

Answer 23

A Distribution histogram is a graph that shows the number of occurrences of a given value. For instance the Lead Time, the WiP, or the Delivery Rate.

The x-axis shows the values available, the y-axis shows the number occurrences of a given value. For instance to show the Throughput, the x-axis would show the number of working items delivered, and the y-axis the number of days the given number of working items has been delivered.

The Distribution histogram shows the occurrence of each given value.

Question 24

What is a Run chart? How is it built and what information can be inferred from it?

Answer 24

A Run chart shows an observed metric in a time sequence. It is commonly used to visualise the running average of Lead Times or Delivery Rates.

The x-axis shows the time. The y-axis shows the metric value.

The Run chart shows how the system did with respect with that observed metric during a period of time.

Question 25

What is WiP? How do WiP limits affect your kanban system?

Answer 25

WiP (Work in Progress) is the amount of working units that have entered the system or state under consideration, but that have not yet been either completed or discarded.

WiP limited systems are pull systems. Maximum limits prevent starting new work when there is insufficient downstream capacity to complete the work. Minimum limits trigger replenishment when there is downstream capacity.