-From LKNA15 The Kanban Iceberg: How to Go Below the Surface of a Shallow Implementation For many teams, kanban is an iceberg: They see only the single practice of visualization, but the mass of the system is below the surface in the form of the other practices, principles and values. This experience report details the journey that one company took to break the barrier of a wide but shallow kanban implementation to realize benefits like improved delivery outcomes and greater awareness of values such as transparency and flow. Beginning with depth-of-kanban assessments and through a series of experiments, like the emergence of a new role — the flow manager — and standard work, teams deepened their understanding of the kanban method and improved control over delivery. The deepened kanban also had knock-on effects on organization-level management and feedback loops, such as the ops review.

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THE KANBAN ICEBERG

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Structure
Kanban Iceberg
1. Understanding
2. Flow
3. Collaboration and
Balance

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# of
People
Proto-kanban
Ubiquitous
kanban
Proto-
agile
Agile/XP
1999 2005 2008 2014

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Kanban
Depth
1999 2008 2014
Proto-kanban
Ubiquitous
kanban

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We do card walls really well.

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But they’re only the tip of the iceberg.
The mass of the system is below
the surface, unseen.

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Principles
Values
Practices
Card Wall
Agendas

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MAKE POLICIES
EXPLICIT
IMPLEMENT
FEEDBACK
LOOPS
IMPROVE
COLLABORATIVELY
AND
EXPERIMENTALLY
MANAGE FLOW
VISUALIZELIMIT WIP
Practices

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Principles
INITIALLY, RESPECT
CURRENT
PROCESSES,
ROLES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES
AGREE TO
PURSUE
INCREMENTAL,
EVOLUTIONARY
CHANGE
START WITH WHAT
YOU DO NOW
ENCOURAGE
LEADERSHIP
AT ALL LEVELS

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Values
COLLABORATION
TRANSPARENCY
CUSTOMER
FOCUS
UNDERSTANDING
BALANCE
AGREEMENT
FLOW
LEADERSHIP
RESPECT

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Principles
Values
Practices

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Kanban isn’t about card walls.
It’s about safe, evolutionary
change.

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How do you help teams for whom
Kanban is simply card walls?
?

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1. Understanding

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“Kanban”

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Kanban Connotations
Card wall
Continuous
flow delivery
model
Evolutionary
improvement
framework

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Great idea. But how do you launch it?

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“We have a great metaphor for you!”

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0 1 2 3 4
Our system exhibits this aspect
barely, if at all
Our system is somewhat capable of
exhibiting this aspect
Our system exhibits this aspect
convincingly, for the most part
Our system departs from this only
very exceptionally, understanding
and managing the consequence
Measurement Scale

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Anticipate
emotional
resistance.
Be like water. Avoid the rocks.

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Expect some experiments to fail.

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It is such a positive indication about how
much Asynchrony cares about people and
how to help them be a part of successful
and continually improving teams.
-­‐Team
member

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0
1
2
3
4
Transparency
Balance
Collaboration
Customer Focus
Flow
Leadership and
the Leadership
Disciplines
Target Current

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0
1
2
3
4
Transparency
Balance
Collaboration
Customer
Focus
Flow
Leadership
and the
Leadership
Disciplines
Target Current

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Assessments are done. Now what?
?

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© Copyright 2015 Asynchrony
Flow

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?

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Flow
Manager?
Help wanted.

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Definitions
Backlog/
uncommitted
Commitment
point
Delivery
pointWork in Progress (WIP)
Delivery time

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Metrics
Flow efficiency
% complete and accurateDelivery time
Return on Investment

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Redesigned work ticket

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Redesigned work board (old)

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Redesigned work board (new)

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Metrics
Delivery time
Avg Delivery Time to Demo: 10 days
Avg Delivery Time to Prod: ?

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Metrics
% complete and accurate
?

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Metrics
Flow efficiency
9%

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Metrics
Return on Investment
?
________
$100k/mo

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Visibility leads to conversation, which
leads to understanding, which leads to
change. But someone needs to start the
conversation.

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The New Three Questions
Scrum Kanban
• What have you
completed since the last
meeting?
• What do you plan to
complete by the next
meeting?
• What is getting in your
way?
• How can we improve
flow today?
• What is blocked and why?
• Where are bottlenecks
forming?
David Anderson’s cartoon FTW!

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Not as easy as it looked.
?

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What do you do with
blockers?

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Getting Started
• Talk with your teammates about the experiment
• Define “block” for your team
• Minimally instrument your kanban system to gather
data, including the block reason and duration

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Getting started

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Blocker Analysis

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Blocker Analysis

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Observations
• Internal blockers caused 20 days worth of delay
• External blockers caused 147 days worth of delay
• The biggest blocker cluster accounted for 86 days of
delay

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You have a 75% chance each week of creating
a blocker that costs you an average of 29
days. Is this acceptable to you?

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Another Example

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Another Example

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Other Learning
• It’s important to understand your commitment point.
• Depending on how you want to address blockers,
you might choose to sort them differently (e.g.,
contact person rather than source).
• Be diligent about collecting data

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Collaboration and Balance

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Standup
Meetings
Retrospectives
Operations
Reviews
Our three main feedback loops.

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… most valuable about this meeting is the
fact that it's a venue for sharing
experimental practices and judging how
well they worked or didn't
-­‐Team
lead

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Operations reviews without division or unit
context are a bit like asking “How are things on
your mountain?”

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Sometimes, we need help beyond
retrospectives to reach the peak.

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So we’re still trying to
understand the best
way to use operations
reviews in our context.

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Start at the Start: Interns!

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Sharing Experiences

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Results

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When an Iceberg Flips
Photo: Alex Cornell, Wall Street Journal

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Thank you.
@mattphilip
matt.philip@asynchrony.com
References:
• InfoQ: How
a
Flow
Manager
Helps
Teams
Deliver,
Fast
and
Smoothly
• Kanban from the Inside, by Mike Burrows
Image credits:
• Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre
• Edward Boatman
• Netanel Koso
• Irene Hoffman
• Alex Cornell, Wall Street Journal