Focusing On Delivery: Evolving from Scrum with Lean and Kanban

Session Title: Focusing on Delivery: Evolving from Scrum with Lean and Kanban

Submitters: Benjamin Mitchell

Abstract:

This is an experience report on a web-based derivatives trading system which initially started using "Vanilla Scrum" which slowly evolved, through using a Kanban board and concepts from Lean Product Development into a more pragmatic delivery-focused system.  The experience report covers the initial six months development of the system up to the Go Live, followed by the 18 months of continuing development of the system.

Rather than adopt a rigid methodological focus, we have focused on continually delivering valued working software to production (over 45 times in 20 months) and improving the team's ability to "inspect and adapt" using the visual tool of a Kanban Board and a focus on developing the problem-solving ability of all people on the team.

Some of the experiences include:

• Observations on the impact of initially adopting Scrum
• How starting with a Scrum/Agile Task Board provided benefits
• How the Task Board evolved into a Kanban Board by adding Work In Process Limits
• How the Kanban Board highlighted areas where the process could be improved
• Our attempts at keeping the benefits of Scrum in a more continuous-development environment

The talk with contain the following information:

• A discussion on the importance of starting with a problem, or need, rather than a focus on tools or methodologies
• An analysis of how the Kanban Board has evolved over four or five revisions in response to process issues we identified
• A report on how we've used simple tools to analyse and understand our process, such as:
  • Cumulative Flow Diagrams including a discussion on the applicability of Little's Law to software product development
  • Experiences with Capability / Control Charts (see my blog post) to further understand the variation in our system
  • A3 reports to assist in identifying, improving the systems performance under load and reporting / sharing this knowledge with project stakeholders and management
  • How we used the Deming/Shewart Plan Do Check Analyse (PDCA) to solve problems, such as reducing our manual release process time by 75%
  • Development as checklists as part of exit criteria at various stages in our workflow to ensure work arrived "clean" 
  • Focusing on wastes or failure demand by asking "what wasted your time?" as part of the daily standup 
• Some observations of how Kanban has successfully assisted the introduction of many Lean/Agile/XP practices into a Command and Control culture