10 kanban boards and their context

Hi! Ive visualized a set of kanban boards from operations, development and sales to trigger ideas. But dont forget, a kanban board is a tool to help you think for yourself, in your context. So remember to apply the work in progress limits, policies and cadencies that is right for you. Never copy, only improve - Mattias Skarin

Dude, whats kanban? www.limitedwipsociety.org www.crisp.se/kanban

v. 1.2 - 5 Dec 2011

Single & Multiple teams

DEVELOPMENT
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Scrum team applying WIP limits

Context Work in progress limit

To do
Scrum team
Sun
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In Work

Done

[3]
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Rob

Why? To trigger a shift from a burndown like this..

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Jane

To something more like:

Mattias Skarin, 2011

Development team using defined process

Context WIP limit Ready buffer

New

Development team combined with specialists Stakeholders: - Product owner / Project manager

Test design [1]

In progr. Done

In Dev [3]
In progr. Done

User Test [3]

In progr. Done

Deploy [5]
Queue In progr

Done

Pro:

Polices are clear WIP in each step Ready buffers from which next step can pull work

Risks identified 1 Happy path test case

Has a testcase Tag! In CI

In stage

Buildfile updated

User happy!

Visible policies
Cons: New column can get messy if no person maintains it

A buffer is a trade-off between cycle time and variance absorbtion Mattias Skarin, 2011

Development team with multiple clients

Context
New Estimate
In progr. Done

Prod issue
New Active projects In Work

Done

Stakeholders: - Customer A - Customer B - Other teams - Platform architects

Pro:

Custom solutions dev team with project manager

Test design

Code

Test

Package

[2]

[3]

[3]

[6]

Projects and features visible WIP in each step Estimations can be regular /or on need triggered event

Classes of services in use:

Cons: Tempting to default features to time constrained (even though there really isnt any costly delay consequence) Time constrained feature Ordinary feature

Bug Fixing tech debt

To risk balance your portfolio, limit the amount of each category allowed on the board at any time

Mattias Skarin, 2011

Full value chain, from marketing to production

Context
Product ideas Prio
Solution design In Development Ready to test
Team C

System test
Test Ready to deploy

Customer usage

Split

3 teams specialized by architecture Stakeholders: - 3 Business units - Release managers - Development teams

Ready for dev

Team A

Team B

Anyone Popular! With some training Oh crap!

Pro:

As a Specialist

Full value chain collaboration from marketing to deploy Business priorities clear from start to end Marketing feedback at the end

Cons: Tempting to start on your stories

To prevent stories from idling because of skill mismatch, teams pull stories in if they are doable by anyone or with some training

Color scheme
Business unit A Business unit B

Business unit C Fixing tech debt

Making it easy for business units to track their demand

Mattias Skarin, 2011

Development team with completion prediction

Context
In Work
Feature

New

Selected

Dev complete

Development team

Selected

Dev ready

Stakeholders: - Product owner / Project manager

Tasks

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri

Pro:

Completion date visible Learning of prediction towards cycle time @ Chris Matts

Cons:

If estimated size > 5d task is broken down further

When developer starts a task it is placed on the day they think it will finish. Each day, this prediction is updated.

Mattias Skarin, 2011

Multi tier kanban with swimlanes

Requests in progress [9]

Context

Features in progress [5] Dev in progress [3]

x Development teams Analysts, Testers

New requests

Decompose

Active

Analyze

Dev

Verify

Acc test

Done

Stakeholders: - Business units - CTO - Architects

Pro:

Add limits all stages of the design cycle Synchronises flow of cooperative work by specialists and generalists

Cons: You may need a big enough area in front of the board to gather around

Mattias Skarin, 2011

OPERATIONS
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System administration
Context
Flow Prio Prod Release Dev Support Project A Project B

System administrator team supporting development and production Stakeholders: - Production site - Development teams - Internal projects - Testers
Pro:

Done

In work [8]

Break down

Course grained prio visible WIP balanced across work types Visible learnings opportunities for team members in maintainance and project work

New

Cons: Newly arrived reguests can get messy if no person maintains it

Mattias Skarin, 2011

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Operations online platform maintenance

Context
Incidents

Flow
In work Done!

Next

Work in progress [10]

Park

Tell

Sysadmins with specializations Stakeholders: - Production website - Real time data providers - 8 devteams

Support Incidents fix root cause Projects

Split In work Done

Pro:

Defined process Root cause investigation own lane We split projects into smaller parts Cons: WIP limits can be difficult to review

Improvements (ours)

Specialization 1 Specialization 2

If third party action is required to finish

Show & tell or document

Mattias Skarin, 2011

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Operations - business process maintenance

Context
Production problem Planned business need
(High impact) (Low impact)

Flow
New Done!

Course grained Prio

Find cause Due 1 month Due 1 week Fix cause In work [3]

Due 2 months

System maintenance team Stakeholders: - Production site - Business functions - Business planning dept. - Development team
Pro:

Routine Unplanned
New Committed [1] Committed [1] In work [2] In work [1] Test [2] Test [2]

Time and scope visibility Cons: WIP limits can be difficult to review

Platform improvements

New

Mattias Skarin, 2011

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Release managers
Context
Incidents Release In queue Prio
1.3.1

In work Prepare Test To Prod Follow up

Done

Release management and system maintenance Stakeholders: - Development teams - 3rd party software providers - Business functions

Content

1.3.2

1.3.3

Improvement

Pro:

Release overview, this and future Cons:

Patch Problem Request

Mattias Skarin, 2011

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First line support

Context
Flow
Questions Prio Need feedback from client Done!

Stakeholders: - Customer developers - Customer users - Sales - Architects

Customer bugs

Solving

Own platform bugs

Awaiting confirmation Need help from specialist Improvements

On hold get contract!

Call up client

Pro:

Time and scope visibility Cons: WIP limits can be difficult to review

Signal to get or confirm client support contract (sales)

Signal to pull specialist skill in (architects)

Signal to call client up for confirmation (manager)

Mattias Skarin, 2011

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Second line support

Context
Backlog New {0}

No of new incidents not addressed (yesterday)

Address root cause, (one at a time)

Investigate [3]

Follow up [6]

Painkiller [1]
Done

Overflow

Done

Stakeholders: - First line support - Development teams - Operations managers

In work [1] High prio The rest Backlog

Pro:

Wip limits on follow up work Focus on one root cause at a time, stay with it until fixed

Cons: Not all incidents can go on the board - requires size limitation or similar for tasks on the board to avoid overadministration

Wip Overflow section Policy: Notify source We havent dropped it, But wont be doing anything about this for a while. You are best off giving it a go yourself.

Mattias Skarin, 2011

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Operations with support

Context
New In work [15] Temp fix Investigate cause
Cold case

Incidents

Fix cause

Done!

Stakeholders: - Production site - Customers - Business functions - Development teams

Support

New

In Work

Incident project

New

Prio

Split

Park

Confirm

Pro:

Defined incident process Cons: Too detalied board?

Projects

New

Improvements

New

Mattias Skarin, 2011

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MARKETING & SALES

17

Sales team - respond to RFP

Context
New Establish team [1] Create RFP [3]
In Progr. Done

QA

Done

Stakeholders: - Sales - Tech leads - CEO

#1

Pro:

Visibility to sales people, often multitasking Cons: WIP limits can be difficult to review

#2

#3

Also works as ready buffer for Create RFP

Mattias Skarin, 2011

18

Sales team - from lead to purchase

Context
Lead Proposal Writen Under Negotiation Won (verbal ok) Purchase order received

Sales team Stakeholders: - Sales - Tech leads - CEO

John

Hot Cold

Alice

Hot Cold

Pro:

Can help focusing sales effort while opportunity window permits Cons: Many opportunities to manage Physical board requires co-location

Tintin

Hot Cold

Key stuff is to make sure won tranforms fast into purchase order received - CEO

Mattias Skarin, 2011

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Marketing team
Context

Ice (popcicles)

Hot (dogs)

Idea board / todo Classes of services Web Events Releases

Small marketing team PR, web, graphics, blog Stakeholders: - CEO - Sales

Communication

Marketing kanban
In progress @ Third party Under Validation (well) Done

Pro:

Ideas repriotitization and aging visible Visual progress of combined work Cons: Over administration?

Mattias Skarin, 2011

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Now, go practice!

http://blog.crisp.se/mattiasskarin

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