Management Overview of Agile, Lean, Systems Thinking and Kanban

Waterfall Delivery Method

Agile Delivery MethodCustomer collaboration

Prioritisation by business value

Incrementally build, and release working systems

Respond to change faster

Better quality systems, faster, at lower cost and lower risk.

Agile working very well for at the team level

Can still result in building the wrong thing right

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_Manifesto

Software Project

Systems Thinking

Often IT develop solutions based on sub optimised status quo

If we build an IT system around a wasteful process, then we are locking in that process for longer.

Projects often focus on the needs of a single business unit

Focus on customer needs, and the organisation as a system

Many of the previous problems that apparently required software projects may well have been ‘dissolved’

The improvement effort can be targeted to where it has most benefit.

Systems Thinking

A Summary of LeanDeveloped by Toyota over 50 years ago as TPS

Using less to do more

Comes from observing best practice in workplace – not theory

Relentless focus on creating brilliant processes

Toyota say:Continual Improvement + Engaged People = Amazing Results

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System

Core of Lean

Identify what creates value for the customer

Identify, then remove what is non-value adding

Make the value adding activities flow

Allow the customer to ‘pull’ the service or product from you

Review and RedesignRecord data from customer contact to delivery

Work out how to improve (pilot)

Make changes, measure results

Implement successes, repeat

Align project deliverables with business strategy objectives

Able to respond as the business strategy alters

IT looks to pull work based on customer value

IT focused on delivering better systems rather than better software

Objectives, Deliverables & IT

Within:

Where is Lean and Systems Thinking Being Applied?

HBOS

NHS

BT

Power-Gen

West Midlands Police

Microsoft

What is Kanban?

Implements Lean for Software delivery

Focus on Quality

Balance Demand against Capacity

Reduce Work-in-Progress, Deliver Often

Improve Flow; removing waste, bottlenecks, blockers

Maximize value, minimize risk

Where Is Kanban Working Well?IT Application Maintenance

Examples include Microsoft, Corbis, Robert Bosch, BBC Worldwide

Media Sites and Applications

Publishing houses, video, TV, radio, magazines, websites, books. Examples include Authorhouse, BBC, BBC Worldwide, IPC Media, NBC Universal and Corbis

Games Production and Design Agencies

Where there is a lot of specialisation and a lot of hand-offs, kanban helps them manage work in progress and flush out issues quickly.

Incremental Features & Funding

Software systems can be deconstructed into units of value.

A complex software product can deliver value even if it isn’t complete.

These can be delivered not as a monolithic whole, but as a series ofincrementally deliverable features.

This gives rise to the concept of incremental funding.

Incremental Features An Example

Rolling Wave Planning

[2]

Different planning buckets for different time horizons: 

• 6 week bucket: well-defined Features

• 3 month bucket: loosely-defined features 

• 6 month bucket: broad feature areas 

• 1 year bucket: strategies, goals, market force

In Summary

We recognise IT is about delivering business value and enabling business agility, not technology for the sake of it

We are constantly trying to better ourselves through innovation and building on industry best practice