5.2 Kanban Development – Just-In-Time logistics
- Kanban often considered as an Agile and as a Lean technique also
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Kanban = „Signboard” in Japanese
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Created by Taiichi Onho in the 1950s to control production with Just-In-Time manufacturing in Toyota Factories
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David J. Anderson formulated Kanban to an incremental development process in 2003
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One of the most flexible techniques, no constraints
Principles
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Start with what you already know
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No description on roles and processes
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Agree on incremental, evolutionary change
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Continuous small changes instead of huge ones to overcome fear in the organization
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Respect current processes, roles, responsibilities
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Support roles to reduce resistance and make experience on the benefits of team work
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=> Kanban is to revolutionize big enterprises with „burnt-in” mature roles, responsibilities and processes
Five core properties
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Visualize work-flow
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Use „Signboard” = Kanban board
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Non-interactive animation 4. - Kanban table (←Click here)
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Limit Work In Progress tasks (WIP)
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Pull tasks
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Establish and respect the team capacity
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Manage flow
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Monitor, measure and report
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Make process policies
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Describe processes first then improve it
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Improve together
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Use models, empirical methods to implement changes incrementally, involving the whole team
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Figure 5.2: Kanban process
Kanban development boards of a Phone book software development – resembling evolution states
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Headers include state of a requirement (can be a user story) and the capacity for the team. When the team members are ready with one story of one state, they automatically pull in another one for the next phase.
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There are no Sprints, still each story should be monitored => what is the exact time spent per a state; how are individuals performing compared to the estimates.
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E.g. „Implement search by name” functionality needs 3 hours of BA work, 15 hours of development, 10 hours of internal testing, 2 hours of Client testing and 10 hours of Beta testing.
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Figure 5.3.1: Kanban board; start of Kanban development
Figure 5.3.2: Kanban board; more mature Kanban development
Figure 5.3.3: Kanban board; mature Kanban development
Kanban originally developed for JIT assembly lines for Toyota –
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Reduces logistic costs
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Continuous flow, each members pulls in work rather then wait for managerial push
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Visual board provides an overview on the work state on a task basis