Scrumban produces 2x productivity gain over Scrum

Today we have an article describing a Scrum-Kanban hybrid & transition (Scrumban) from Charles Suscheck in Dr. Dobbs Journal, Experiences with Kanban. We've now had Kanban articles in both Dr. Dobb's and Better Software so I guess it must be official now ;-)

The most significant thing about Charles' case study is that it appears introducing Kanban produced a greater than 2x productivity improvement over the throughput rate (velocity) being achieved with Scrum on its own. It seems they did notice a significant reduction in waste with Kanban. Charles concludes that, "Kanban seems like a logical next evolutionary step to Scrum." However, his article is thoughtful and balanced and he talks a lot about context.

This team had, "After 18 months, [...] reached a high level of agile maturity, even incorporating numerous lean principles." And they had refined their analysis technique so that they produced small stories (1 to 3 days of work) and there was a small variability in the size of stories. Their environment still had a lot of uncertainty over priority and the delayed commitment on developing stories with Kanban was a huge win for them. Read the article carefully. Take time to understand the context and you may discover between the lines how Kanban was a really good choice and where that >2x productivity gain (probably) came from.

Kanban boards

Xavier Quesada Allue posted pictures of some kanban boards he designed for a friends' business unit. It's worth noting there are no WIP limits in these examples and hence at best only a loose pull system in operation. But the board design and the use of sticky notes and different colors is worth studying.

Nothingness

Derick Bailey posts a slightly discenting view that kanban systems don't need to be pull systems. They can simply be signalling systems. Look for next personal blog post on Kanban to read my thoughts on this. Then he goes on to provide us with a very nice tutorial complete with pictures explaining how to make a pull system work and emphasizes (as I have been for 18 months) that a task card is not a kanban card. In his example they use sticky clips and an empty one was a signal to pull something. It is essentially formalizing the "slot" concept that I first talked about with the XIT case study in 2005. I love this idea. Sticky clips rock! What a great way to communicate the WIP limit! An empty sticky clip is the "nothing" that I referred to in the section heading.

Kanban and kanban

Derick sums up with a discussion of how Kanban (capital "K") has emerged as the name for a methodology that evolved from the use of (virtual) kanban (small "k"). While some folks are getting all hung up about this, Derek seems to have a similar philosophy to mine - it is what it is! The market decided. KSSE (Kanban System for Software Engineering) or a Virtual Kanban System for Software Development (as I first called it 4 years ago) were just too long. The market wanted an easy handle and hence Kanban became a brand. Vive le Kanban!

Is Kanban only for SDLCs?

Joshua Milane posted his thoughts on Kanban SDLC vs PLC at his MITechnology blog. Josh likes the idea of Kanban as a wrapper for a software development lifecycle. He isn't a big fan of the push for Agile Maturity Models. Neither am I but that's a discussion for another day. He loves the simplicity of Kanban and how it encourages better learining by doing.

Kanban Demonstrated

YouTube video of kanban in action at the Sailboat Company of Naples, Florida. [Not a software example]

How to Pronounce Kanban

YouTube Video with David Laribee of VersionOne

Personal Kanban System

Jon Miller of Gemba Panta Rei has decided to adopt the Agile style Kanban technique for his own personal work. He's been trying it out and shared photos and experience. Technorati tag: David+Anderson, Agile+Management, Agile, Lean, Kanban, Software+Engineering, Project+Management