Kanban Lab

Soma had a thoughtful talk with his husband about making policies (rules) for their team, especially since they're new to the Kanban method.

In a recent conversation, someone asked Soma about using Kanban alongside Scrum.

Empowering Agile Coaches through Continuous Learning and Kanban Mastery

Teams and organizations often fall into the trap of committing to deliver customer requests immediately without conducting proper analysis. As a result, they face long lead times and spend more than anticipated.

Many people have told Soma that they use Scrumban, which they believe is a framework that combines Scrum and Kanban practices.

In this episode, Orod and Soma discuss Scrumban. They explore the origins of Scrumban, its name coined by Corey Ladas, and why it was initially called Scrumban. They highlight that Scrumban represents an evolutionary journey starting from the implementation of Scrum, and gradually transitioning into a complete Kanban system.

The main lesson from this episode is that Scrumban is a continuous journey rather than a final destination.

Watch Corey Ladas video here https://vimeo.com/88885445

A lot of people told Orod that Kanban is just a simple board and there's nothing more to it.

But in this episode, Orod and Soma explain that the Kanban board is actually quite different. It's not just a regular board, but a big wall filled with cards. The purpose of the Kanban board is to let you know when you should start working on a task based on the availability of resources.

The Kanban board is like a storyteller. It uses visualization, which is a powerful way to understand and process information. Designing Kanban systems aims to provide us with enough information about the system, so we can optimize and improve it.

Organisations often misunderstand the Pull System, mistakenly believing that it grants team members the freedom to choose any work they desire or feel most comfortable with.

In this episode, Soma and Orod discuss the "Pull System" and designing a Kanban system for effective signalling. They emphasise the importance of "Managing the work, not workers," a key Kanban principle and clarify that empowering the team doesn't mean team members can self-select tasks arbitrarily, they should collaborate and pull the appropriate work based on its "Cost of Delay" to ensure timely delivery that aligns with business and customer needs.

It's quite common for teams to mistakenly assume that they are practising Kanban simply because they have a visual representation of their work on a big wall.

In this episode, Soma and Orod delved into the true essence of Kanban. They revisited the definition and meaning of Kanban, which is derived from the Japanese word for "signal." Kanban serves as a signal that indicates the available capacity and signifies readiness to pull the next work item. Merely having a board without this signalling mechanism does not qualify as a Kanban board; it is merely a wall with numerous cards.

During the discussion, we explored the significance of two key Kanban practices: limiting work in progress and visualizing the workflow. By implementing these practices effectively, teams can create the necessary signals that indicate capacity and readiness for new work. As a coach, you play a crucial role in supporting teams as they gradually evolve and transform into true practitioners of Kanban.

Soma expressed her recurring encounter with individuals stating that Scrum doesn't work and let's do Kanban.

In this enlightening episode, we delved into the realm of Kanban's evolutionary change management and explored how its principles and practices can significantly enhance team and organisational workflow, regardless of their existing framework. Unlike prescriptive frameworks, Kanban empowers teams to improve their systems over time continually. We also highlighted the symbiotic relationship between Scrum and Kanban, with the Kanban board emerging as an indispensable tool for Scrum teams, or "make policies explicit" —a practice commonly embraced by numerous teams as a form of social or working agreement. Orod emphasised the importance of recognising the complexities inherent in people before implementing any changes, focusing on identifying the problem that you want to solve, and ensuring that our systems work for us rather than the other way around.

In this episode, Orod addresses a common misconception among his Kanban students who believe that Kanban is only suitable for operations and not for projects.

We emphasise that Kanban is a versatile method that can effectively manage both knowledge work in operations and projects. By examining the origins of this misconception, We provide insights into its underlying causes. Additionally, Orod presents a compelling case study wherein he successfully introduced Kanban to a project team with no historical data, enabling them to deliver a new project within a tight deadline. Throughout the episode, we highlight the customer-centric approach of Kanban, reinforcing its applicability to various domains.