Talk given at Lean Kanban Central Europe 2016

1. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 1

2. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 2
Success
average lead &mes have
dropped from 8 to 2 weeks
all the while reducing failure load
by improving quality
Increased delivery rate
by 40%

3. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 3
Local optimization
Success
Customer Business Delivery

4. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 4
Looking at the whole
UPSTREAM
Improve capability to beMer
meet demand 1
AnPcipate, manage and
shape the demand 2
End-to-end flow from request to delivery!
DOWNSTREAM
3 Collaborate

5. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 5
IMPEDANCE MISMATCH
key challenge
DeliveryDemand
STOCKS
SILOS
TENSION
Flow of outgoing work Flow of incoming work

6. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 6
The Case
1 IT maintenance team
2 Change requests (CR) and small projects
3 Across domains of ERP, Business Intelligence (BI),
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), ApplicaPon
development (APP)

7. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 7
Incoming versus Outgoing
Change Requests
Customer lead Pme varies between a few days and 30+ weeks.
New CR Closed CR Backlog

8. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 8
Points of dissatisfaction
The customer
Long
customer lead Pmes
No reliable
indicaPon
when a
request will be
fulfilled
Large
backlog
Lack of
transparency
Too
much
process

9. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 9
Points of dissatisfaction
The team
Interrupt work, mulP-
tasking
Small
projects
become
suddenly
urgent
Unclear
require-
ments
Late changes
Business not
being
available
Business
not
accepPng
in Pme

10. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 10
UATReady to
start
Analysis Development Test Ready for UAT Ready to deployReady to commitIdea/Request Synthesis Analysis
Kanban board visualization
Upstream
Downstream
Large WIP
(Work-In-Progress)
Blocked items (many because
of dependencies)

11. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 11
UATReady to start Analysis Development Test Ready for UAT Ready to deploy
10 14 5 ∞ ∞∞
System lead Pme
WIP limits
Start what you can
finish!

12. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 12
Kanban success

13. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 13
System Kanban
Idea /
Request
Ready to
prepare
Ready to
commit
Ready to
start
Ready to
accept
Ready to
deliver Delivery
System Kanban
Upstream
System lead +me
Downstream
Boundary
Boundary
Commitment
point
WIP Limit WIP Limit WIP Limit
Worker Pull
System Kanban Token
FLOW

14. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 14
Limits to success
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30+
Frequency of occurrence
Customer lead +me
Customer lead &me
Time between request and fulfillment of the request

15. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 15
UATReady to
start
Analysis Development Test Ready for UAT Ready to deploy
10 14 5 ∞ ∞ ∞
System lead Pme
Ready to commitIdea/Request Synthesis Analysis
End-to-end customer lead Pme
Push-pull boundaries
System Kanban boundaries
Upstream
Downstream
… and work piles
up here.
Work piles up
here …

16. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 16
Upstream process
Fragmented,
ambiguous, conflic&ng
ideas and requests are
captured
SYNTHESIS ANALYSIS
Ideas and requests are
turned in a shared,
coherent high level
concept
Concept is split in detailed
work items that can be
allocated to teams

17. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 17
Upstream Kanban
Visualization
Ready to commitIdea/Request Synthesis AnalysisReady to
prepare
Small, simple items skip
the synthesis step.

18. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 18
OPTION Selection
analysis
synthesi
s
capture
downstre
am
Commitment
point
selection
selection
ideas
selection
option
s
commitme
nts
Upstream

19. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 19
observations
1 Small, simple items move quickly into
“Ready to commit”
(ogen too early, flooding the inventory)
2 Large, complex items move slowly into
“Ready to commit”
(ogen too late, leading to starva&on or expedi&ng)

20. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 20
Flooding
Ready to commitIdea/Request Synthesis AnalysisReady to
prepare
Small, simple items are pushed
from “Request” into “Ready to
commit” because of approval
process.

21. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 21
UATReady to
start
Analysis Development Test Ready for UAT Ready to deploy
10 14 5 ∞ ∞ ∞
System lead Pme
Ready to commitIdea/Request Synthesis Analysis
End-to-end customer lead Pme
starvation
System Kanban
Upstream
Downstream
… we may end up with
gaps in our upstream
pipeline that lead to
starvaPon later.
But, when all aMenPon goes
to downstream because of
the pressure to deliver …
Team members that
mainly work downstream
are also needed upstream
(and vice versa).

22. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 22
Expediting
Ready to commitIdea/Request Synthesis AnalysisReady to
prepare
As Pme pressure builds up,
requests are expedited
directly to downstream
without proper preparaPon.

23. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 23
orientation
Ready to commitIdea/Request Synthesis AnalysisReady to
prepare
Some items only require short
upstream lead &me, and move
too early through upstream
Other items require longer
upstream lead &me, and move
too late through upstream

24. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 24
Triage
We can always pull the item when needed, not much effort
is needed in preparaPon
Green
Will pass selecPon if it is given due aMenPon, Pme and effort
in preparaPon; risk of becoming red otherwise
Yellow
Needs immediate aMenPon; criPcal problem or
opportunity; immediate selecPon for downstream needed
Red
Won’t probably survive the selecPon process regardless of
what effort is put in preparaPon
Black

25. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 25
Order points
Ready to commitIdea/Request Synthesis AnalysisReady to
prepare >10
>12
>3
Green Yellow
>=1
Minimum opPons
limits act as order
points!
As long as minimum
limits are not met
appropriate acPon
must be taken.

26. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 26
Wait … there is more
0
50
100
150
200
250
Analysis Dev Test UAT R To D Out
Cumul.
IT Maintenance Team - Cumulative Flow Diagram
… and here.
Work piles up
here also…

27. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 27
UATReady to
start
Analysis Development Test Ready for UAT Ready to deploy
10 14 5 ∞ ∞ ∞
System lead Pme
Ready to commitIdea/Request Synthesis Analysis
End-to-end customer lead Pme
Upstream – Downstream
collaborationSystem Kanban
Upstream
Downstream
Business users need to be
involved upstream.
They are also needed
downstream.

28. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 28
Customer Kanban
Finish request
Start request

29. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 29
Pushing the boundaries
Idea /
Request
Ready to
prepare
Ready to
commit
Ready to
start
Ready to
accept
Ready to
deliver Delivery
System Kanban
Upstream “Kanban”
Customer Kanban
System lead +me
Customer lead +me
Downstream “Kanban”
Boundary
Boundary
Boundary
Boundary
Customer Pull
CONWIP
Commitment
point
Customer Kanban Token
WIP Limit WIP Limit WIP Limit
Worker Pull
System Kanban Token
FLOW

30. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 30
Pushing the boundaries of
Kanban
Flow of demand with customer pull
Flow unit is requests
Customer Lead Time
CONWIP & Minimal opPons limit
CollaboraPon between customer
and team in co-creaPon
System Kanban
Flow of work with worker pull
Flow unit is work items
System Lead Time
WIP limit
CollaboraPon within team to deliver
and improve service
Customer Kanban
(including Upstream Kanban)

31. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 31
Are we there yet?
System
kanBan
Upstrea
m
kanban
custom
er
kanban

32. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 32
Flow is When value is created for the
customer through meaningful WORK
It is the action, or fact, of moving along in a
steady, continuous stream

33. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 33
Picture: http://s117.photobucket.com/
The image of a snowmobile was oLen used by John Boyd to
illustrate the role of analysis and synthesis in innova&on
Ingenuity

34. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 34
Learning and change
Discovery Kanban
Reflective observation
(OODA)
Hypothesis Active experimentation
(PDCA)ObserveOrient
Abandon
Decid
e
Read
y to
Act
Plan Do Chec
k
Adjust
Observa&ons
5 4 6 5 >5 >6 >3 >8
Hypothesis
Viability
Feasibility
Desirability Abandon Experiments

35. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 35
business agility
Looking
at a part
Looking
at the
whole
Respondi
ng to
change
Driving
change
team network
Conformit
y
Ingenuity

36. CUSTOMER KANBAN © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 36
Getting started
Flow needs to be
experienced
Team
flow
Cross team
flow
End-to-
end
flow
And more
hMp://www.okaloa.com/flowlab

37. © Patrick Steyaert, 2016 CUSTOMER KANBAN 37
Thank you
Download article:
@PatrickSteyaert patrick.steyaert@okaloa.com
bit.ly/CustomerKanbanArPcle
Stay in touch
hMp://www.okaloa.com/flowlab
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