book

Kanban in Action

by Marcus Hammarberg, Joakim Sunden

February 2014

Beginner

360 pages

10h 29m

English

Manning Publications

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ForewordSee and understandSeeing is half the battleToo much WIP destroys flowPrefaceMarcus’s journeyJoakim’s journeyThe common journeyAbout this BookThe structure of this bookHow to read this bookAuthor OnlineAbout the AuthorsAbout the Cover IllustrationAcknowledgmentsMarcusJoakim
1.1. Introductions1.2. The board1.3. Mapping the workflow1.4. Work items1.5. Pass the Pennies1.6. Work in process1.7. Expedite items1.8. Metrics1.9. The sendoff1.10. Summary
2.1. The principles of kanban2.2. Get started right away2.3. Summary
3.1. Making policies explicit3.1.1. Information radiator3.2. The kanban board3.2.1. The board3.2.2. Mapping your workflow to the board3.3. QueuesEntry and exit criteria3.4. Summary

4.1. Design principles for creating your cards4.1.1. Facilitate decision making4.1.2. Help team members optimize outcomes4.2. Work-item cards4.2.1. Work-item description4.2.2. Avatars4.2.3. Deadlines4.2.4. Tracking IDs4.2.5. Blockers4.3. Types of work4.4. Progress indicatorsGoing goofy: counting down4.5. Work-item size4.6. Gathering workflow data4.6.1. Gathering workflow metrics4.6.2. Gathering emotions4.7. Creating your own work-item cards4.8. Summary
5.1. Understanding work in process5.1.1. What is work in process?5.1.2. What is work in process for software development?5.2. Effects of too much WIP5.2.1. Context switching5.2.2. Delay causes extra work5.2.3. Increased risk5.2.4. More overhead5.2.5. Lower quality5.2.6. Decreased motivation5.3. Summary
6.1. The search for WIP limits6.1.1. Lower is better than higher6.1.2. People idle or work idle6.1.3. No limits is not the answer6.2. Principles for setting limits6.2.1. Stop starting, start finishing6.2.2. One is not the answer6.3. Whole board, whole team approach6.3.1. Take one! Take two!6.3.2. Come together6.3.3. Drop down and give me 206.3.4. Pick a number, and dance6.4. Limiting WIP based on columns6.4.1. Start from the bottleneck6.4.2. Pick a column that will help you improve6.4.3. A limited story, please6.4.4. How to visualize WIP limits6.5. Limiting WIP based on people6.5.1. Common ways to limit WIP per person6.6. Frequently asked questions6.6.1. Work items or tasks—what are you limiting?6.6.2. Should you count queues against the WIP limit?6.7. Exercise: WIP it, WIP it real good6.8. Summary
7.1. Why flow?7.1.1. Eliminating waste7.1.2. The seven wastes of software development7.2. Helping the work to flow7.2.1. Limiting work in process7.2.2. Reducing waiting time7.2.3. Removing blockers7.2.4. Avoiding rework7.2.5. Cross-functional teams7.2.6. SLA or lead-time target7.3. Daily standup7.3.1. Common good practices around standups7.3.2. Kanban practices around daily standups7.3.3. Get the most out of your standup7.3.4. Scaling standups7.4. What should I be doing next?Summing up: what should I be working on next?7.5. Managing bottlenecks7.5.1. Theory of Constraints: a brief introduction7.6. Summary
8.1. The urgent case8.2. What is a class of service?8.2.1. Aspects to consider when creating a class of service8.2.2. Common classes of service8.2.3. Putting classes of services to use8.3. Managing classes of services8.3.1 Divide and reclassify8.3.2 Size matters8.3.3 Some clients are more equal than others8.3.4 Slicing it differently8.3.5 Zoom in, explore, and simplify8.4. Exercise: classify this!8.5. Summary
9.1. Planning scheduling: when should you plan?9.1.1. Just-in-time planning9.1.2. Order point9.1.3. Priority filter: visualizing what’s important9.1.4. Disneyland wait times9.2. Estimating work—relatively speaking9.2.1. Story points9.2.2. T-shirt sizes9.3. Estimation techniques9.3.1. A line of cards9.3.2. Planning Poker9.3.3. Goldilocks9.4. Cadence9.4.1 Iterations and kanban9.4.2 Transition from iteration-based processes9.4.3 The kanban approach to cadences9.4.4 Don’t go lazy on me9.5. Planning the kanban way: less pain, more gain9.5.1. The need diminishes9.5.2. Reasoning logically: the customer’s plea9.5.3. #NoEstimates—could you do without this altogether?9.6. Summary
10.1. Retrospectives10.1.1. What is a retrospective?10.1.2. How does it work?10.2. Root-cause analysis10.2.1. How it works10.3. Kanban Kata10.3.1. What is Kanban Kata?10.3.2. What happened10.3.3. Why does this work?10.4. Summary
11.1. Common metrics11.1.1. Cycle and lead times11.1.2. Throughput11.1.3. Issues and blocked work items11.1.4. Due-date performance11.1.5. Quality11.1.6. Value demand and failure demand11.1.7. Abandoned and discarded ideas11.2. Two powerful visualizations11.2.1. Statistical process control (SPC)11.2.2. Cumulative flow diagram (CFD)11.3. Metrics as improvement guides11.3.1 Make it visual11.3.2 Are you making a business impact or not?11.3.3 You get what you measure11.3.4 Balance your metrics11.3.5 Make them easy to capture11.3.6 Prefer real data over estimated data11.3.7 Use metrics to improve, not to punish11.4. Exercise: measure up!11.5. Summary
12.1. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy12.1.1. Creating cadences for celebration12.2. Timeboxing is good for you12.3. The necessary revolution12.4. Don’t allow kanban to become an excuse to be lazy12.5. Summary
13.1. Pass the Pennies13.1.1. What you need to play the game13.1.2. How to play13.1.3. Questions for discussion13.1.4. Main take-aways13.1.5. Tips and variants13.2. The Number Multitasking Game13.2.1. What you need to play the game13.2.2. How to play13.2.3. Questions for discussion13.2.4. Main take-aways13.3. The Dot Game13.3.1. What you need to play the game13.3.2. How to play13.3.3. First iteration13.3.4. Second iteration13.3.5. Third (and final) iteration13.3.6. Main take-aways13.3.7. Tips and variants13.4. The Bottleneck Game13.4.1. What you need to play the game13.4.2. How to play13.4.3. Questions for discussion13.4.4. Main take-aways13.5. getKanban13.5.1. What you need to play the game13.5.2. How the game is played13.5.3. Questions for discussion13.5.4. Tips and variants13.5.5. Main take-aways13.6. The Kanban Pizza Game13.6.1. What you need to play the game13.6.2. How to play13.6.3. Questions for discussion13.6.4. Main take-aways13.7. Summary
A.1. Books on Lean and kanbanA.2. Books on agileA.3. Books on software developmentA.4. Books on business and change managementA.5. Other resourcesA.5.1. Noteworthy blogsA.5.2. Noteworthy Twitter accounts
B.1. Standalone toolsB.1.1. LeanKit KanbanB.1.2. AgileZenB.1.3. TrelloB.1.4. KanbanFlowB.1.5. KanbanizeB.1.6. KanbaneryB.2. Tools on toolsB.2.1. JIRA AgileB.2.2. Kanban in Team Foundation ServiceB.2.3. HuBoard

Content preview from Kanban in Action

4 Work items

This chapter covers:

Work-item cards
Design principles for work-item cards
What to keep on work-item cards and how to use this information to gain better knowledge about how your work works

Work in the software business is often not visible. Most of the work takes place in our heads or inside the computer. In order to get a better overview of who’s working on what and the status of the work, you visualize the work—thereby making information visible that previously wasn’t.

By far the most common way to track work items is to create a small card that represents the work that is being done. It can be an index card or a sticky note^[1]: anything that is easy to work with and move around on a board, such as a white board. Cards on a ...