Whether a Russian hunter or a software/project/programme team the proverb “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one” offers useful advice.
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Tag Archives: kanban
Work Item Tracking, to See or Not to See?
Work Item Tracking, to See or Not to See? This is always an interesting debate. The lists are much longer but for simplicity I’ve surfaced a few salient points. So which is best? Physical or virtual? For me physical boards win hands down, but there are occasionally good reasons for a careful blend.
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How to Distinguish Between Activity and Queues on a Kanban Board
My Kanban boards follow a certain pattern, what I call the “Step In Progress then Done” pattern. By default each step in my process has an “In Progress” column and a “Done” column. Some people don’t like that. You wouldn’t believe the number of conversations I’ve had about it. These conversations more or less boil down to me explaining that “Done” is a queue, not an activity. And I want my Kanban board to make it clear that each activity has an associated queue.
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Lead time versus Cycle Time – Untangling the confusion
Despite being a fan of Lean and using Kanban I’ve stopped talking about “Cycle Time”. The problem is that there are two conflicting definitions of Cycle Time. And one of those definitions is identical to Lead Time. Given the competing definitions for Cycle Time, and that the variations have alternative unambiguous names, it is easier not to use the term at all. All I need is “Takt time”, “Order Lead Time” and “Production Lead Time”.
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Delivery Manager – A new role for an Agile world
Rich Lewis is the best I’ve worked with. When I met him he was a Business Analyst who, on the sly, was Scrum Master of a small team. He was good at this but capable of much more. I invited him to be the Delivery Manager on the programme I was running at the time.
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Continuous Delivery by Default; Timeboxes by Exception
Once I used timeboxes by default. Now I relegate Sprints and such like to exception situations.
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Programmes can use more than one method: Kanban, Scrum, XP, BDD, etc
I have my preferences – Kanban and BDD – but don’t enforce these on my teams. That means I’ve got a couple of Scrum (ish) teams and teams that don’t use BDD. And I also have a bunch of people working in isolation – I just leave them to it.
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Little’s Law – the basis of Lean and Kanban
Sometimes I think it helps to go back to basics. And when using Lean Software Development, including Kanban, that means a man called Little and his Law. “Little’s Law” is a fundamental of queue theory and defines the relationship between Work in Progress (WIP), Throughput and Lead Time. It is the reason why Kanban teams try to limit WIP.
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I shall call him ‘Kanban,’ and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Kanban
“I shall call him ‘Kanban,’ and he shall be mine, and he shall be my Kanban.” I am outrageously paraphrasing Dory from Finding Nemo. My point is that everybody seems to want a piece of Kanban. As the authorities, and a few others, tear Kanban apart in definition wars and vying claims of ownership, a few flavours of Kanban are emerging with even more competing names. I thought I’d run through them.
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The Kanban Method 101
I’ve been using Kanban for a few years, quite a few years. I like it and mention it often in this blog, so I thought I would outline some of the basics for the benefit of those who haven’t dipped their toe in the Lean waters. Of course I’ll comment on what I like/dislike about it as I go along.
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