20201111 Agile DevOps East 2020 Conf Now You See It: Observing Flow using Kanban Boards

Now You See It!
Observing Flow Using Kanban Boards
Craeg Strong, CTO, Ariel Partners
@arielpartners cstrong@arielpartners.com
9-12 November 2020
9:45am-6:00pm ET
V5

Agenda
Introduction
Observing Flow
• Software Development Team
• Sales Team
Challenging Situations
• Blocker Column
Creating Flow
• Multi-Level Board
• Multi-Team Board
• Portfolio Board
Connecting The Dots
• Flight Levels
Wrap Up
© Copyright Ariel Partners 2020 *sales@arielpartners.com ((646) 467-7394

Craeg Strong
• Software Development since 1988
• Large Commercial & Government Projects
• Agile Coach / DevOps Engineer
• Kanban Trainer / SpecFlow Trainer / HCD Trainer
• Performance & Scalability Architect
• Certified Ethical Hacker
• New York & Washington DC Area
CTO, Ariel Partners
AKT, KCP, KMP, CSM, CSP, CSPO,
PSMI, PSMII, PSK, SPC, ICP-ATF
ITILv3, PMI-ACP, PMP, LeSS, SAFe SPC
www.arielpartners.com
cstrong@arielpartners.com
@ckstrong1

Kanban in Action
Observing Flow

Options Ready Discover Implement Validate Done
3 5 34
Example 1
Doing Done Doing Done
5
 Support Each Other
 Raise Concerns
Promptly
 Stuck Longer Than
One Hour?
Collaborate!
 Before Starting
Something New, Help
Your Teammate Finish
 No Blame

6
Leads
Sales
Demo
Negotiating
Contract
Contract
Signed
Qualified
Prospect
Done Ready Done
(20:30)
(10:15) (6:9)
Doing
(4:6) (3:4)
Recent Losses
Top Reasons For Losses
$ 🕷
$
⏱
🕷
🕷
⏱
⏱
⏱
🕷
🕷
Example 2

7
Sales
Demo
Contract
Signed
Qualified
Prospect
Recent Losses
🕷 ⏱
🕷
🕷
⏱
⏱
⏱
🕷
🕷
Example 2-alternate
$
$
Leads
Negotiating
Contract

8© Copyright Ariel Partners 2020 *sales@arielpartners.com ((646) 467-7394
Leads
Sales
Demo
Negotiating
Contract
Contract
Signed
Qualified
Prospect
Done Ready Done
(20:30)
(10:15) (6:9)
Doing
(4:6) (3:4)
Recent Losses
$ 🕷
$
⏱
🕷
🕷
⏱
⏱
⏱
🕷
🕷
Example 2 – Improved

Challenging Situations
Seeking Flow

Exhibit A
Ready Analyze (3) Implement (2) Verify (2) Done
Doing Done DoneDoing
On Hold (6)

Analysis
1. Allows team to continue working while they
are waiting on external resources
2. Team wants to appear responsive to
business when they present higher priority
work items
3. I can take a new, small work item and get it
done quickly since my current work item is a
lot bigger than I thought. It all has to get
done anyway, right?
4. So I can use JIRA to measure flow efficiency
1. Can’t tell where blocked items were/are in
the workflow
2. May conflate different kinds of bottlenecks or
non-instant availability items
3. Items may be “forgotten” in blocked column
purgatory; team may miss opportunities to
unblock
Issues Identified
What good intentions
could lead to this?

Refactoring: Named Blocker Area
(common cause)
Waiting on App Store
Approval
Late against SLE

Refactoring: Blocker Flags
(special cause and common cause)
Waiting on
clarifications
from legal
Need server
upgrade
Waiting for
Defect
Resolution

Refactoring: Queue for Non-Instant Availability Resource
Ready Analyze (3) Implement (5) Ready to
Approve (8)
Done
Test (5)
Approval activity
happens
“on the line.”

1. Multi-Level Team Board
16
A software development team receives requirements from the
business in the form of Features.
Historically, Feature lead times (from starting to analyze to deploying
to production) are between 2 weeks and 6 months, with some
outliers of more than one year. The business wants Features to be
completed faster and with more predictability.
The team wants to break down Features into smaller chunks of one
week of work or less (Stories). The team indicates they can develop
and test each Story separately.
How could we visualize Features and Stories in a single board?
How could the board help us with what we are trying to optimize?
What Kanban practices can we leverage?
Feature
Story
Story
Story
The business, wants Features to be tested and
deployed as a whole.
Here is the Feature workflow:
1) Backlog
2) Development
3) Integration Testing
4) Acceptance Testing
5) Cutover
6) Done
You should create a simple workflow for stories
within the higher-level Feature workflow

Maintenance
17
Backlog In
Progress Specify Ready Doing
Multi-Level Team Board Example
Test
Int
Testing UAT Done
Done
Implement
Done
3 23
8

2. Multi-Team Board
*With Thanks to Patrick Steyaert and Arlette Vercammen
18
An IT Department has three teams:
1. the modern mainframers,
2. the backend beatniks, and
3. the mobile mod squad.
The three teams have their own independent work, however,
sometimes they have dependencies on each other, especially
for larger projects.
Each team already has their own Team-Level board, and they
are happy with their boards. If any item on a Team-level board
can’t move forward due to a dependency on another team, it
gets blocked
They are seeing lots of these!
How could we visualize all three teams’ work in progress in a high-level board?
How can we manage flow, especially if the teams work at different rates?
How can we know when capacity is becoming available soon, so we can plan better?
Feature
Story
Story
Story
The teams would like to figure out a way to coordinate their
dependencies, so they don’t get blocked so often.
As their coach, you have recommended that they design a
“coordination board:” a higher-level board that shows what
each team is doing and helps manage capacity across
teams.
At this higher level, we only need this simplified workflow:
1. Next Up
2. In Progress
3. Integration Test  requires all pieces to be done
4. Done

19
Multi-Team Board Example
Integration Test DoneIn ProgressNext Up
8
7 6
6
1
5
23
4
Analyzed
Features with
Stories for
each team
Modern
Mainframers
Backend
Beatniks
Mobile
Mod Squad
Use Cap
Token
Here
Recoup
Cap Token
Here
Capacity
Tokens:
2 per team

8
7
20
Integration Test DoneIn Progress
Multi-Team Board Example
6
6 25
Backlog Analysis Dev Test Done
Backlog
Modern
Mainframers
Backend
Beatniks
Mobile
Mod Squad
4
Analysis
4
Dev Test Done
Backlog
4
Analysis
4
Dev Test Deploy
5 4 4
Done
45 5 5
134
Next Up

3. Portfolio Board
*With Thanks to Pawel Brodzinski, Guillaume Marceau and Klaus Leopold!
21
You are working with a CIO of an organization
who needs to manage a portfolio of 6 projects
across 4 teams.
• The Teams are “Team A” through “Team D.”
• The Projects are “Alpha” through “Theta”
Projects are either Strategic or Tactical.
A Team can work on:
• three small projects,
• one large project, or
• one medium + one small project at a time.
How might we go about helping the CIO visualize his portfolio over the next 4 quarters?
Project
Alpha
Project
Beta
Project
Gamma
Project
Delta
Project
Epsilon
Project
Zeta
Project
Eta
Project
Theta
Tactical or
Strategic
Strategic Tactical Tactical Tactical Strategic Strategic Tactical Tactical
S / M / L Small Medium Small Medium Large Medium Small Small
Team Team A Team A Team B Team B Team C Team D Team D Team D
Start Q1 Q1 Q2 Q1 Q1 ½ way thru Q1 Q1 Q1
Projected
Finish
Q4+ ½ way thru Q2 Q4+ Q3 Q4 Q4 Q1 Q2

Q1
Team
A Beta
Eta
Strategic
Tactical
Q2 Q3 Q4
Team
B
Team
C
Team
D
Alpha
Beta
GammaGammaGamma
Epsilon
ZetaZetaZeta
Zeta
Theta Theta
DeltaDeltaDelta
AlphaAlphaAlpha
EpsilonEpsilonEpsilon
22
Portfolio Board Example One
Variant One:
Stable Teams

Tactical
Q1
Alpha
Q2 Q3 Q4
Beta
Delta
Eta
23
Portfolio Board Example Two
Gamma
Epsilon
Theta
Zeta
Variant Two:
Allocate Capacity
Across Many Efforts

24
Strategy Board Example One
MISSION INVESTMENTS PRODUCTS > 12 MONTH 9-12 MONTH 6-9 MONTH 3-6 MONTH UP NEXT
ACTIVE
SAGASTEAM PO
NAME PATIENTS
SAGA

25
Strategy Board Example Two

Connecting the Dots
Connecting Flow

Flight Levels
What Is It?
• Three Levels of Visualization
• Distinct System Designs
Reflect Unique Concerns at
Each Level
• Team Levels Often Use Scrum
Why Does It Work So Well?
• Limit WIP At Each Level
• Track Cycle Times At Each Level
• Simple and Low Overhead
• Addresses Enterprise Scale
• Addresses Non-IT

Parting Thoughts
28
• Don’t just copy another board, analyze
o Lessons learned, current pain points
o Sources and pattern of demand
o Delivery capability
o Workflow
o Classes of service
• Make sure your board speaks to you
• If you encounter a bad situation and the board didn’t telegraph it, time to
review the board design!
• Use swim lanes, colors, and card design
• Use higher-level boards for coordination, alignment, communication
• Flight Levels framework connects strategy to execution

Kanban Resources
JIRA Plugins for Kanban
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1219454/color-cards-for-jira
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1215334/agile-tools-filters-for-jira-software
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1216661/actionableagile-for-jira-agile-metrics
Kanban Tools
Swift Kanban
https://www.digite.com/swiftkanban/
LeanKit
https://www.planview.com/products-solutions/products/leankit/
Nave
https://getnave.com
Kanbanize
https://kanbanize.com
Kaiten
https://www.kaiten.io
Thank You!
Observing Flow Using Kanban Boards
Kanban Training
https://www.arielpartners.com/training
https://www.linkedin.com/in/cstrong
Kanban Frameworks
Okaloa Simulations
https://www.okaloa.com
Flight Levels
https://www.flightlevels.io
Kanban Maturity Model
https://www.kanbanmaturitymodel.com

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