Kanban in the development and operation of the project application _ Kanban

Bo Jun a smile when it was written in a PMP essay campaign

The application of Kanban in development and Operation Dimension Project

Background

Since the beginning of 2011, the company began to start a new project, I was appointed as the PM and PO for the project, began a two-year trip to the agile. Let me share with you the experience of using Kanban in product development and operation Management.

To use industry best practices to test the results of the previous phase of agile training, this project has been a lot of attention from the outset as one of several pilot projects for the company's overall agility and application scrum. I brought the team the main work includes the development of new features and project on-line operation and maintenance management.

As we all know, agile development is a human-centered, iterative, step-by-step approach to development. In agile development, software project construction is divided into several subprojects, the results of each subproject are tested, with integrated and operational characteristics. In other words, a large project is divided into several interconnected, but can also run independently of small projects, and completed, in this process the software has been in use. Reduce the inaccuracy, rework, procrastination, problem blocking and other waste, imbalance and risk caused by the original project estimate. Small-grained user stories can be developed and tested (in parallel development) within a two-week iteration, which can shorten the delivery cycle. and Kanban can effectively manage a large number of small-grained user story. On how to divide the sprint, user story already has a lot of articles and materials to refer to, we only focus on kanban in this article. Because the general Kanban description, or only to take into account the development of new features, or only focus on Yu YUNWI, how both, this is what I studied. Our team is an international team, half in China, half in North America, how to make two teams better to work together is also a challenge and fun.

As a traditional PM to the new Agile Development Po (productowner), PO will convert a series of ideas from the project sponsors into specific Userstory, which is planned to be implemented by the Agile team, It can be said that the main work of PO is communication and backlog work queue management. Kanban and daily stations are powerful tools for promoting communication and managing work queues. The following figure [4] describes the basic framework of agile projects stakeholder, PO, development team, user story, Work queue management and team capacity management.

After discussions between management and the backbone of the team, decided to use the following stages of agile: the first phase of the local team in the use of physical Kanban, and then converted to electronic kanban, and finally the two team of electronic kanban integration. Throughout the process, the implementation of the daily station will be 10 o'clock in the morning every day to the end of 10:15, strictly controlled within 15 minutes.

Physical Kanban and daily station meeting

Kanban is originally produced from the factory, use is a large physical kanban, each task is visualized, in the daily station everyone can move and change the relevant task blocks, such as pulling a task from the task queue to assign to themselves, from the development status to test, from test to delivery. The problem with the customer, then, is from the survey to the validation scheme, to the completion of the solution, or because of the blocked, will be posted to the waiting state.

The template is as follows:

Kanban is important is the management of task queues, which is one of the main tasks of PO. But not all tasks must be added to the work queue by the PO? It is generally true for new feature development and new release and Sprint, but not necessarily for operational tasks. Because the general new operation and maintenance task will have the mail system to inform the team, and not necessarily by the PO real-time monitoring management, PO also can not guarantee timely all the tasks are added to the backlog queue, so we originally Yun-Dimensional team leader (screener), is responsible for observing and reviewing the daily new tasks, in time to put in the backlog queue. But sometimes because only a PO can get the most important external information, such as a customer suddenly request a feature or patch for business reasons for early release and so on, and the other team screener or scrummaster do not know, then the PO will immediately come out to add high-priority work to the task queue.

Station will start, soon can see the effect is increased communication, PM or now the PO pressure reduced, do not need to passively accept the task, everyone can take the initiative to get, and everyone can immediately know the overall status of the work. But the station will be inadequate sometimes round for the account of the story, although all the people and all the working conditions are understood, but the focus is not enough, sometimes in order to avoid overtime, will not finish the cancellation. In order to start with today's most important things, the most important thing is also in order of priority, this can guarantee the first thing is the principle, and even if the time is not enough, may ensure that the most important things to finish first.

Sometimes kanban in the discussion unknowingly outdated, but also Po, SM also try to avoid too much control, so we introduced the Kanban host to guide the discussion, control time, as well as the overall understanding of all tasks and related follow-up. We use every Monday in the form of change, found that the effect is good, everyone has the opportunity to be a moderator, show their leadership, to avoid everyone is only concerned about their own task, more everyone should (at least have the opportunity) from the overall focus on the entire team's task.

Unified Electronic Kanban

After tasting the physical kanban and agile freshness, the team began to set out to the next goal, how to unify the process with the geographically diverse international teams – using a unified kanban. The process and database behind Kanban, for international team cooperation, how to unify kanban, how to handover work, is a difficult problem. Physical Kanban can only be applied locally, so there are a lot of limitations, and electronic kanban seems to be our only option.

We investigated several Kanban tools available on the market, such as Hansoft,leankit and so on, which were not functional and difficult to integrate with our existing databases, so we decided to reinvent the wheel ourselves-we developed a web-based electronic kanban ourselves that is well integrated with our current system. Fortunately this demand is not very difficult, because the development and operation of two pieces we have their own work interface and database, all we have to do is a new interface for Kanban.

For example, our original mode of electronic work, if there is a new feature over, or to do a new patch of the system, or the operation of the task, we will be through the company's Web page to create a work item, will be required (ticket or story point), people, delivery date, etc. Then update the status and progress every day, with the help of the North American team, write your needs, and then at night the team will put forward their suggestions and specific work progress. Similarly, if the North American team needs our help, it is also handled. This mode of work for the general task is no problem, but if for more difficult, shorter delivery date work, the handover can not be so simple, you need the telephone real-time communication and handover. The task of electronic Kanban is simply to integrate the original electronic workflow, the daily station will also become the need for a projection of the conference room "sit", we can only "sit" in the seat pointing Kanban.

The worry of growing up

Later, due to the expansion of the project staff, the entire team expanded from 8 to 14 people, almost one times the increase in workload, if the same as before the task one minute to explain, that time must be more than 15 minutes. Then how to keep the time under control, but also to maintain the same efficiency as before. The strategy we take is: sort and lean. It is not the task in sequence, but it is described in order of precedence. First of all, the most important task today, then implement round table, each person fast once, this can make the first thing, also can understand everyone's state, also because everyone has to speak, so also avoid someone in the idle state, can make people more active to "pull" work queue work.

One of the most important tasks is to ensure that the highest priority task is done first, so we have also modified the tools of electronic kanban, plus one more horizontal lane to represent the highest priority task. Reflection

Implementation of a look, there are several observations, the good phenomenon is: increased communication between the team, improve the morale. Timely reflect the problems in the work in order to resolve in a timely manner. Reduce the idle state, improve the team's productivity.

Deficiencies: Important task only station will not enough of the statistical function of the electronic kanban is not enough task can not be cleaned up in time, unlike physical kanban, to clean up the task, the note strip a tear on the line.

Summary of Best practices

PO uses priority Management Kanban to guide the discussion and to use rotation for some important tasks that cannot be discussed in Kanban are war room key research for cross-regional teams, try to use a unified electronic Kanban

Corresponding follow-up measures: on statistics and measurement functions, will continue to refer to other companies such as LeanKit to enhance

Summarize

In the internationalization of the group collaboration, electronic Kanban can complete the physical kanban cannot achieve cooperation, is essential. Run the daily station by priority and Roundtable, even if the team expands to control the time. For the most important technical problems, the use of warroom for focus.

Reference: Take Kanban to save you--my "red" project
Http://www.infoq.com/cn/articles/kanban-distressed-projects?utm_source=infoq&utm_medium=related_content_ LINK&UTM_CAMPAIGN=RELATEDCONTENT_ARTICLES_CLK Kanban and scrum--complement each other
HTTP://WWW.INFOQ.COM/CN/MINIBOOKS/KANBAN-SCRUM-MINIBOOK-CN Kanban Task Management
Http://www.infoq.com/cn/articles/hl-kanban-task-management/PO in a nutshell
Http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=502ILHjX9EE
Http://pan.baidu.com/s/1qpqt9

Update

2014-01/07-Add Kanban best practices, update Kanban presenters and rotate practices