Scrum and Kanban Compare and Contrast

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Leslie Chandler
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1 Scrum and Kanban Compare and Contrast CollabNet Webinar Series Presentation Victor Szalvay Sr. Director, ScrumWorks Engineering Wednesday - June 27, ENTERPRISE CLOUD DEVELOPMENT Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

2 Who is Victor? Co-founder of Danube (2000), acquired by CollabNet (2010) Certified Scrum Trainer - early Agile adopter (2003) and evangelist Product Owner of ScrumWorks Pro Scrum (and now Kanban) project management software Insight into hundreds of organizations doing Scrum/Agile/Kanban 2 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

4 Kanban origins are Japanese manufacturing kan means signal ban means board or card Used by lean Japanese manufacturers like Toyota to build high quality products Taiichi Ohno inventor of Toyota Production System Kanban is everywhere, even at Starbucks. The coffee cup with the order written on the side is a Kanban! 4 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

5 It needs to be rooted in principles and culture Jeffrey Liker s Toyota Way book Distinguishes TPS (practices) from Toyota Way (principles) Conclusion: practices without principles are only mildly effective Liker writes: The problem, I believe, is that U.S. companies have embraced lean tools but do not understand what makes them work together in a system. Typically management adopts a few of the technical tools But they do not understand the power behind true TPS: the continuous improvement culture needed to sustain the principles of the Toyota Way. 5 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

6 Caution: Software is not manufacturing! Software industry is attempting to apply lean But software is not a Taylor-style, assembly line endeavor Rather there s high uncertainty and complexity with software development We cannot simply apply traditional kanban/lean practices straight from the TPS or other manufacturers We can, however, understand the principles and derive appropriate practices in our industry and individual companies It s a set of principles, not a strictly repeatable process 6 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

7 Kanban/Lean principles in software development Limit Work in Process (WIP) Pull system (via WIP limits) Make it visible (Visual Control) Theory of Constraints (optimize on overall throughput) Quality is built in from the beginning (small batches, stop the line) 7 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

One Kanban example WIP limit 8 Copyright

9 How is this different from Scrum? Kanban is a continuous system with no iterations, and ideally no major releases (since value is streamed), no estimation Scrum is more prescriptive than Kanban Kanban has no prescribed roles, like Product Owner Kanban and Scrum both require teams to work together in a cross-functional manner 9 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

10 When Kanban? Kanban is more appropriate than Scrum for certain types of software dev where iterations have little value: A reactive group (e.g., Customer Emergency Response) Maintenance projects reacting to defect reports SaaS companies may benefit from Kanban because they can deploy to production frequently (value streaming) Teams willing to collaborate across roles in real time 10 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

11 Scrum is hard so we re trying kanban next True, kanban will probably result in fewer meetings Kanban still requires deep imprinting of principles/values on culture it s still a disruptive change I still recommend XP style engineering practices, Scrum or not Continuous Integration, Refactoring, test-oriented dev, pairing, etc. My preference: if Scrum is appropriate, I prefer it. Feedback loops are important for good product design 11 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

12 WIP Limits Cross-functional teams working together on small batches (e.g., user stories) from analysis to done. Kanban systems involve series of gated steps in the development process Example steps: analysis, code & dev testing, exploratory testing, performance testing, deployment Put limits on how many work items can exist in any one step Termed Work-In-Progress (WIP) Limits At any given step, you may not start on new work until the current WIP is finished If any one step is clogged, you are immediately aware of a bottleneck Short-term: the team is expected to take on other roles to get through the bottleneck Long-term bottlenecks: solve by staffing appropriately 12 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Kanban is a pull system Step A WIP 2 Step B WIP 3 Doing Done Doing Done WIP WIP The downstream steps pull work from the upstream steps For instance, coders (step b) pull from

13 Kanban is a pull system Step A WIP 2 Step B WIP 3 Doing Done Doing Done WIP WIP The downstream steps pull work from the upstream steps For instance, coders (step b) pull from work that s been analyzed (step a). Note, people can work on multiple steps. If work starts piling up you have a problem 13 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

14 Theory of Constraints Coding Step Testing Step Doing Done Doing Done WIP WIP Illustrated scenario: Testers cannot keep up with the Coders This creates a Queue of untested code The overall throughput of this system is limited by testing step Testing is under pressure and will likely cut corners 14 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

15 Quality is built in Do not send defective products to the next step/process Stop the line - Limiting WIP forces teams to deal with impediments and tackle root causes Testing is not an after-thought but a necessary, and limited, part of the value stream Smooth flow and throughput of value become the focus 15 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

16 One Piece Flow Individual work requests are pulled through a sequence of value adding activities as opposed to: Moving large batches of work between stages in a workflow Team is consciously working on fewer items simultaneously to make sure they get them done (completely) as opposed to: multi-threading to optimize role-level efficiency which piles up inventory downstream 16 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

17 A Stream of Value is the goal Includes all the steps to make and deploy a desired feature/product Stream implies there is a smooth, unbroken flow between steps Ideal goal: a continuous smooth flow of valuable new features into deployment (rather than chunked releases) The value stream involves everyone including the customers, ops, support, etc. not just development 17 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

19 Kanban features in ScrumWorks Pro 6.0 (available now) Custom artifact statuses These are your work states or steps Multi-lane view, one lane per status Addresses visibility Customizable WIP limits per status Addresses WIP per step Iteration-free team Addresses basic Kanban structure 19 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

20 Kanban metrics Cycle and Lead time Lead time: from requirement discovery to start of work Cycle time: from start of work to completion Goal: make lead and cycle times as low and predictable as possible 20 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

21 Feature enhancements in 6.0 My Tasks view (web) enhanced to allow full editing of tasks. Planning view (web) enhanced look and feel for better contrast and usability. Standalone backlog item editor (web) enhanced to display all tasks. Tasks may be edited and added from the standalone editor directly. Timesheets (desktop) enhanced to filter by date (rather than sprint) for both Sprint and Kanban style teams allowing greater flexibility in report generation. Timesheets (desktop) moved to the Product window s Team pane for greater accessibility. 21 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

22 Further reading Henrik Kniberg - Scrum and Kanban (free ebook) David Anderson Google books Jeffrey Liker Toyota Way Mary Poppendieck Google books, TOC page Blog on Cycle Time 22 Copyright 2012 CollabNet, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Kanban, Flow and Cadence

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