Session Title: Kanban Creation Workshop
Submitters: Karl Scotland & Xavier Quesada Allue
Abstract: A Kanban focussed variation of Visual Management for Agile Teams given at Agile2009.
In this exploratory workshop, teams will be challenged to come up with creative ideas for visualizing an Agile work flow, focusing on Kanban Board design. Participants will play the role of the project team of a fictitious company that has just hired a new CEO. The goal of the workshop is to build a Kanban Board that will keep the CEO informed while helping the team organize and visualize their work.
Once participants have been given a general introduction, they are divided into colored teams (red, green and blue). Each team receives 4 stories divided into 5 tasks each which will be their backlog. Each team also gets a colored box full of office supplies and of course each team gets a blank board. Ideally these will be whiteboards, but if this is not feasible we can use two flipchart paper sheets taped together. In the boxes there will be a broad range of materials available (different sized post-its, tape, papers, magnets, colored markers, etc) that teams can use to exercise their creativity and come up with innovative ways of solving the problems they will face.
We will do two iterations. In the first, teams are given basic guidelines such as "the board must show who is working on what". Teams present their boards, and the CEO will criticize and review them. (One of the facilitators will play the CEO).
For the second iteration, teams are given much more specific issues that they have to visualize. Teams will then present their improved kanban boards, and this time it's the other teams that get to review and criticize them.
As teams come up with ideas, we will also discuss (and show) visual management anti-patterns that participants have experienced in similar situations.
Timeline:
- 10' Introduction
- 30' First iteration
- 10' CEO review
- 30' Second iteration
- 10' Team review and wrapup
The main goal of the session is for participants to experience how easy it is to come up with innovative approaches for visualizing information relevant to their projects, while at the same time sending a clear message about the value and importance of applying good Visual Management techniques, and introducing some basic Kanban concepts.
