Do you

sometimes
feel that
there is
just too
much
going on?
Could you fall asleep anywhere, you’re that tired?
Are you occasionally working so many hours that you
forget what your family looks like?
 Does your world
sometimes feel
chaotic and crazy?
We need a new idea ...
Forget trying to implement SCRUM, and admit you implemented SCRUM-BUT
instead (like the majority of the world!)

Honestly if YES – ignore

evaluate if it is this presentation
working 100% 
for your team.

if NO – continue!

Do you think something better can emerge or is now perhaps a good

time to shake things up?

Have you heard of KanBan? Its the latest buzz word 

The word Kan means "visual" in Japanese and the word "ban"
means "card". So Kanban refers to "visual cards".

•Kanban is Pull (Demand)

•Kanban - Responsive To Customers
•JIT - Just In Time / Continual Improvement

Core concepts of kanban

•Make work visible

•Limit work in progress
•Help work to flow
 Kanban teams try to minimize lead time.
On the same board we might have one item that takes 1
month to complete and another item that takes 1 day.

In Kanban, estimation is not prescribed.

So if you need to make commitments you need to
decide how to provide predictability.

StandUps follow a board-oriented format, with the

focus on bottlenecks and other visible problems
 Dev
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

A basic example kanban board

 3 Dev 9 3
Backlog Todo In Dev CC Test RTS

Backlog is a big bag where Todo is a short Dev, which comes from Test is what it RTS comes
the product owner/analyst list of current development, is a group of two sounds it is. from ready to
throw in anything anyone top priority columns: one is ambiguously Testing. Checking ship.
wants our project to have. tasks which named In Dev, which comes from whether we Whenever
Features, improvements, aren’t yet “in development” and another could deploy something
change requests (from started. It one states CC from “code version if we reaches RTS
clients and/or developers!)  usually changes complete.” The former groups wanted to. column the
every time tasks which are under active Finding bugs and work is
there's a development. They make their way fixing them. On considered to
meeting with to the latter after the developers and on. This be done. Ready
one of the have tested. This couple is needs to be for QA with the
clients. This is grouped since code complete is performed by client.
ordered top just a technical stage to tell us non developers.
down from most specific functionality is ready.
important.

Limits: We need to limit how many items can be in a column at a

time. Backlog and RTS have no limits. The rest of the limits are
determined by your team size. Dev should be 1.5x your team size.
I would make Todo around half your team size, and Test 3. These
can change at any time depending on your teams circumstances.
Eg: Lets work with a team of 6 developers and 2 analysts
who also test.
 The post it

Brief description of feature/task/story ...

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx When in the Backlog – this
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx might be at feature level,
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx and then when moved into
Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Todo – it should be broken
down to tasks only if
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
needed.

Name of Developer

Rough estimate Actual estimate You might want to add a

tracking number if you
monitor these tickets in
an application eg: Trac /
Jira.
 Tips
• Use different colour post-its to indicate different projects
or have swim lanes

• Too low kanban limit => idle people => bad productivity
• Too high kanban limit => idle tasks => bad lead time
A day with a kanban development team

We have 1 project, with an analyst, so 1 analyst.

There are 2 developers who can work on this project.
The analyst perform the test functionality, so 1 tester.
Based on the above situation I’ve put a limit of 2 in Todo.
There is a limit of 2 in dev, and a limit of 1 in test (as there is 1
tester).

The following is all adapted from Henrik Kniberg article on Kanban vs

Scrum.
 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

A, B are the 2 most

important things right
now!
 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

A I’ll do A

I’ll do B
C

Great! Next is C & D!

 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

B
A is done!

Ah, something to test!

 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

B Testing A

Working on
C!
 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

A
A has a
C bug!

B is done!
 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

A
A has a
C B bug!

D I’ll do D! No
wait ... The
limit is 2!
 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

K is very urgent.
I’ll schedule it A
next.

D
C B How can I
help?
 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

K B A

D
C

C is done!

Great, start
with K!

The limit is 2, I need

to assist with sorting
out A.
 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

K B A

C
D
How can I
help?

I want F & G as We don’t need

well, but the more hands. But
limit stops this keeps
me ... Mmm. happening, write a
test to prevent us
missing this again!
 2 Dev 2 1
Backlog Todo Dev CC Test RTS

K C A

I’ll do K!
A passed all
tests, Ready to
Ship!

D
B

I’ll test B!

The limit is 2, testing is a

bottleneck. I’ll see if I
can assist with testing.
 Mmm, is that it?
Nope, you will soon realise through retrospectives that you need to make
changes for this to work optimally for YOU, YOUR project, and YOUR team
makeup.

On the next slide is a 2-tier kanban board example.

 Sites I used to put this together
• http://www.crisp.se/henrik.kniberg/Kanban-vs-Scrum.pdf
• http://blog.brodzinski.com/2009/10/kanban-story.html
• http://www.flickr.com/
• http://www.kanban101.com/

Photos from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/84265607@N00/1898331455/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dallaportfolio/375969264/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/floridapfe/2140013039/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonivc/2283676770/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pseudopff/51890707/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonivc/2283676770/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/alandd/3180887085/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dinomite/3129244915/
 Who am I ? I’m Sam Laing...

I am passionate about enabling development teams to reach their

full potential. I strive to make the entire process from business
vision to development less frustrating and more rewarding for all
parties concerned.
I strongly believe that everybody should enjoy and love what they
do, and that people are what make projects and companies
successful.

Follow me on twitter: @samlaing

Read my blog: www.inevitable.co.za