Deliver Value: Lean Kanban for Portfolio Prioritization
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The document provides tips for managing queues, flows, and uncertainty when prioritizing projects using Lean Kanban. It recommends limiting work-in-progress, reducing batch sizes, and using metrics like queue size and feedback speed to track performance. Specific techniques include visualizing flows, modeling project queues, exploiting economies of scale between projects, and using cadences to predict wait times and enable small batches. The document also identifies common sources of queues like testing bottlenecks and describes wastes like unnecessary information movement that can cause delays.
Deliver Value: Lean Kanban for Portfolio Prioritization
- 1. Deliver Value: Lean Kanban for Portfolio Prioritization - by Ram Srinivasan http://linkedin.com/in/ramvasan email: vasan.ram@gmail.com blog: http://ramvasan.com Deliver Value: Lean Kanban for Portfolio Prioritization by Ram Srinivasan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Tips for managing queues • Queues are the root cause of the majority of economic wastes in product development. In knowledge work, product development inventory is physically and financially invisible, reduce inventory (waste). • Capacity utilization increases queues exponentially, variability only increases it linearly. So, instead of maximizing resource utilization, control queue size. Reduce variability by pooling variability. • Manage queues by visualizing, limiting WIPs and monitoring using Cumulative Flow Diagrams. • Model flow of projects: M/M/n queues (e.g. n agents with one queue) are better than M/M/1 (one queue for each agent) queues. • Reducing batch size (limit WIP) reduces cycle time and consequently reduces queues. • Critical and centralized resources should have low level of capacity/utilization to reduce queues • Source of queues in knowledge economy - Marketing, Analysis, CAD, Procurement, Prototyping, Testing (most common and most risky) , Management Reviews, Specialists Tips for managing flow by managing batch size • Reducing batch size reduces variability in flow, accelerates feedback and reduces risk • In knowledge work, large batch size reduces flow, reduces overall efficiency, and causes exponential cost and schedule growth. • Economics of batch size is U-Curve optimization problem (between transaction and holding cost). Manage flow by reducing transaction cost for batch size (e.g. automated testing). • Know the difference between productions batch (batch size of the process that changes the state of the product) and transport batch (batch size that changes location of the product). Smaller transport batches allow us to overlap activities, reduce cycle time and accelerate feedback. • Dispersed teams tend to use large batch asynchronous communications. Proximity enables faster synchronous communication, smaller batch sizes and faster feedback. • Sequence first that which adds most value cheaply (or reduces risk cheaply). • Reduce batch size before you elevate bottleneck (Theory of Constraints – Step 4). • Source of large batches – Project Scope, Project Funding, Project Phases, Requirement Definition, Project Planning, Testing, Capital Spending, Design Reviews, Market Research, Post-mortems. Tips for controlling flow under uncertainty • Limit WIP to sustain high throughput. When WIP is consistently high, purge low value projects. • Use forecasts of expected flow times to make congestion visible (e.g. wait times for starting projects) • Exploit pricing to reduce demand during congestion. Differentiate quality of service by work streams. • Use cadence to enable small batch sizes and to make waiting times predictable (Product Introduction Cadence, daily build-test cycles, operational review, Program level Stand-ups). • Exploit scale of economics by synchronizing work from multiple projects. • When delay costs are homogenous, do the shortest job first. When job durations are homogenous, do the high Cost of Delay (CoD) job first. When duration and CoD are not homogenous, use WSJF. • Make tasks and resources reciprocally visible at adjacent processes. • For faster responses, pre-plan and invest in flexibility. Pull high-powered experts to emerging bottlenecks. Develop people who are deep in one area and broad in many. Useful Metrics to Track Queues: Design-In-Process (DIP) Inventory, Queue Size and Trends, Cost of Queues, Aging of Items Batch Size: Batch Size, Trends in Batch Size, Transaction Cost per Batch, Trends in Transaction Cost Feedback: Feedback speed, Decision Cycle Time, Aging of Problems Flexibility: Breath of Skill Set, Number of multipurpose resources, Number of Processes with Alternate Route Other: Processes Using Cadence, Trends in Cadence, Capacity Utilization Rate, Efficiency of Flow, DIP turns
- 2. Deliver Value: Lean Kanban for Portfolio Prioritization by Ram Srinivasan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Wastes Examples Overproduction of Information • Producing more than needed (by next process) • Creating documents that were not requested • Redundant tasks, unneeded tasks • Over-dissemination, i.e. sending information to too many people (e.g. excessive emails, big teams) • Information churn • Reinventing the wheel, lack of reuse Waiting • People waiting for information or decision • Information or decisions waiting for people to act • Large queues • Long approval processes • Unnecessary serial effort Unnecessary Movement of Information • Hand-offs (to another person or functional silo) • Extensive information distribution • Dis-jointed facilities, geographical distribution of work, non-colocation Over-Processing of Information • Refinement beyond what is needed • Point based designs made too early, causing iterations • Use of excessive complex processes • Lack of transparency in process Inventory of Information • Excessive time intervals between sequential steps • Poor 5 S (Sorting, Straightening, Systematic Cleaning, Standardizing and Sustaining) practices • Keeping more information than needed Unnecessary Movement of People • Context switching during task execution • People having to move to gain or access information • Manual interventions to compensate for lack of process Rework/Defects • The “Re”s - Rework, Rewrite, Redo, Reprogram, Retest • Unstable requirements • Uncoordinated complex tasks • Incomplete, ambiguous or inaccurate information • Manual inspections to catch defects Loss of tactical Knowledge/Skills • Lack of multi-learning, functional silos, specializations, working to job titles, • Knowledge and information scatter • “Key man” dependencies (e.g. permissions, access) • Creating dependencies through “knowledge hoarding” • Personnel turn-over (attrition, getting moved to different projects, etc.) In knowledge work, most of the times, these wastes are translated as invisible queues and are usually manifested as Delays (Longer Cycle Time)