By Dominica DeGrandis
Everyone (myself included) seems to be having a crazy busy week. 2012 appears to be evolving rapidly. Let’s remember to find the solitude necessary for creativity and balance. Speaking of balance…
News
Balancing near term and long term efforts can sometimes turn into heated debates when prioritizing tasks. In this post, Jabe Bloom discusses “big scary company killing problems that are obvious to some, but unseen by others”. http://www.calmbetawave.com/2012/01/death-rests-within.html
Seattle Lean Coffee was a hit this week with 15 people in attendance. The favorite topics converged on handling “Command and Control” leaders and consultants “Inflicting help“. I’m hoping we’ll see a recap of the session soon. http://seattle.leancoffee.org/
A Bill Fox interview with David Anderson relays that Kanban is not a method. Instead, it is a way to propel an organization toward change - change which is contextual and unique for each organization. http://www.foxhighperspective.com/blog/?page_id=367
The number of #kanban tweets continues to grow with the expansion of kanban use in areas outside of software development. From the classroom to Portfolio Mgmt, we look at some examples this week.
News
According to HashTracking.com, Twitter hashtag “#kanban” generated 70,130 impressions, reaching an audience of 52,009 followers from 97 tweets within the past 24 hours (Jan.25, 2012). Also displayed are the top ten peeps by number of tweets, followers and impressions. Makes for interesting data points.
Jim Collins new book, Great by Choice, is a study on winning behavior when confronted by uncertainty. Collins compares companies that win with companies that languish. It’s a terrific read from a Kanban practitioner’s perspective due to the uncanny parallels between the behavior of winners and key Kanban concepts for coping with risk. I was so intrigued; I wrote a blog post on it. http://agilemanagement.net/index.php/Blog/how_do_teams_continue_to_win_during_times_of_turmoil_and_uncertainty/
There’s been a lot of talk lately on Kanban for Portfolio Mgmt. Here’s a post on Kanban for Customer Portfolio Mgmt showing the board layout with Swift Kanban. Intangible tasks are on a separate board which in some ways sounds appealing, but I’m wondering how they visualize priority between business tasks and intangible tasks. http://www.valueinnova.com/?q=content/kanban-customer-portfolio-management
By Dominica DeGrandis
It is fun to discover articles sprinkled with Kanban properties, even though they don’t specifically mention Kanban. I stumbled across several good ones this week.
Having worked for their competitor for many years, I find this list of principles from Getty Images very interesting. They flow, they pull, they stop the line, they optimize the whole, etc… It sounds too good to be true. http://blog.gettyimages.com/2012/01/17/from-our-lean-and-agile-dev-team/
Disclosure - this article isn’t really about Kanban, but “What’s in Store for 2012: A Few Predictions” offers all around good insights for us. In particular, the value of software will continue to decline as open source contributions continues to rise and bring an overload of choices – perhaps too many. http://redmonk.com/sogrady/2012/01/13/2012-predictions/
The New Year has people experimenting with new ideas and challenging popular arguments.
This week, we check out ideas and arguments across four different countries.
“The Project Portfolio Kanban Story: A Basic Approach”, by Pawel Brodzinski (@pawelbrodzinski).
This post captures a portfolio experiment. I like how the last column is titled “Maintenance” instead of “Done” – a friendly reminder that projects once deployed will need to be maintained. http://blog.brodzinski.com/2011/12/project-portfolio-kanban-basic-approach.html
Kanban for IT Services & Operations - Dearborn, MI Mar 12-13, 2012
David J. Anderson’s
An Official “Kanban - Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business” Class
with Dominica DeGrandis (instructor)
Software only has a shot at reaping value after it is functioning in production. People who write software and people who deploy and maintain software can realize many benefits from a strong alliance. This 2-day Kanban for Ops training introduces practices that help unify teams and promote cross-functional collaboration.
We begin by looking at the demand on the organization, followed by discussions and interactive exercises on the Kanban Method. Also covered are ways to manage risks related to the increasing complexity around software delivery and support. Attendees play the “Kanban for Ops” version of the GetKanban game.
Working in small teams, class attendees will analyze and design a Kanban system that they can bring back to the organization to implement right away.
Based on David J. Anderson’s book “Kanban - Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business”, attendees of the class will receive a copy of the book.
Class Schedule
Day 1
Kanban Mechanics
- Demand Analysis
- Workflow Mapping
- Visualization
- Work Item Types
- Work-in-progress Limits
- Classes of Service
- Kanban Simulation Game - pre-beta version customized for Operations
Day 2
Kanban Progression
- Kanban System design
- Operations Review
- Case Studies
- Risk Management
- Metrics
- Service Level Agreements (SLA)
- Variability and predictability
- How to Get Started with Kanban
Is this for you?
This training provides a useful perspective for improving work done on the periphery of software development. If ever-more frequent deliveries from software development are increasing pressure on your teams and creating bottlenecks in the delivery process, look at Kanban to extend agility and balance to IT services and operations teams. From Data Administrative Services to Deployment & Release Managers to Help Desk, this class covers beginning to intermediate level material.
Register today!
Special price due to the Agile & Beyond Conference only $975 per person. EARLY BIRD SPECIAL $800 per person!
Enter Discount code: OPSEARLYBIRD
expires Feb 28, 2012
About the presenter
Dominica specializes in Kanban for IT Services and Operations - with teams interacting with software development. She spent her first 15 years in software engineering deeply embedded in Development teams performing builds, deployments and environment maintenance. She has worked in organizations of all sizes, from the US Army, Boeing, and AT&T to small start-ups. Dominica first worked for David Anderson at Corbis in 2006 where she helped deliver the first implementation of Kanban for software engineering in the US. Adept at leading teams performing Configuration Management and Release Management, Dominica found a passion for improving the way development and operations teams work together.
