Kanban

Every system operates under specific conditions, including Kanban with Flow Metrics. Of the 4 Flow Metrics, it is important to understand that Kanban with Flow Metrics is supported by Little’s Law. Little’s Law states that the average number of customers in a stable system is equal to the average arrival rate multiplied by the average time a customer spends in the system. To uphold Little’s Law, the system must be in a steady-state condition. ...

Last time, I described how my team applies Flow Metrics with Scrum. Although we don’t often estimate the short-term delivery, we are sometimes asked when a big feature will be completed. In the Story Points era, we used Story Points and calculated the average velocity of the previous 3 to 5 sprints for forecasting. In theory, averaging is the easiest way to forecast. However, in reality, unexpected situations may arise. For example, someone may call in sick, there may be a public holiday in the middle of the Sprint, or a PBI may be blocked by external parties. It is easy to fall into the trap of relying solely on averages, resulting in an unrealistic forecast. Moreover, communicating Story Points to stakeholders can be challenging due to their inherent ambiguity. In such situations, Monte Carlo Simulation comes into play. ...

It has been over three months since I introduced Flow Metrics to my team. My team has changed their mindset when it comes to work. Today, I am going to discuss how I apply Flow Metrics to the team. Before implementing Flow Metrics, I created a spreadsheet and recorded all the Product Backlog Items (PBIs) created in 2023. Following Daniel Vacanti’s Flow Metrics for Scrum Team, the spreadsheet includes an Aging Work in Progress Chart, Cycle Time Scatterplot, and two Monte Carlo Simulations: “How Many” and “How Long.” I obtained the Service Level Expectation (SLE) for the Cycle Time. ...

The Agile coach training programme at my company has reached its second half. One of the training objectives was to teach the Agile coaches about unit testing and code refactoring. Naturally, the coaching programme expects the trainees to subsequently coach their teams on the same topics. As a mentor to two new Agile coach trainees working in different teams, I often allow them to choose their approach and evaluate it later on. Both teams had no prior knowledge of unit testing and code refactoring. After learning the basic techniques, Trainee A decided to ask everyone to try writing unit tests themselves simultaneously. They would then share and discuss their work during Code Review. On the other hand, Trainee B dedicated all his time to working with a single developer, allowing others to continue working as they had been. Once that developer had grasped everything Trainee B knew, they would split up and work in pairs with the other two developers. ...

Last month, I wrote a blog post about why I have refrained from using Story Points and capacity estimation in my team since day one. I have been delving deeper into Kanban and immersing myself in the materials, and I have started implementing it. After introducing Kanban and Flow Metrics to my team, I received a lot of questions and feedback from them. Kanban is a strategy for optimizing the flow of value through a process that uses a visual, pull-based system. There may be various ways to define value, including consideration of the needs of the customer, the end-user, the organization, and the environment, for example. ...