Delay: The Kanban Word for Snow

The Inuit have 50 different words for snow. Or so the legend goes. Regardless of whether that's actually the case or not, the concept is that a richer vocabulary can be used to convey a more nuanced understanding around something. Conversely, the use of a single word, while it's helpful to summarize an idea, it also can hide all that nuance.

In Kanban we like to talk about "bottlenecks" (and more generally, "delays"), but over time we have actually developed a richer understanding of different kinds of delays. Bottleneck is, then, the Kanban word for "snow".

Identifying, and then eliminating, sources of delay is one of the main improvement strategies we follow with Kanban. Therefore, having a more nuanced way of talking and reasoning about delay can help us do that more effectively. This is what we'll be exploring in this session.

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Presented at the Kanban Coaching Exchange Meetup, on Oct 5, 2023

Transcript

1. Delay: the Kanban word for Snow Fernando Cuenca fernando@squirrelnorth.com Kanban Coaching Exchange Meetup October 5, 2023
4. "Bottleneck is the Kanban word for Snow" Selected Done Build Test Ready for Test Expedite Queues / Buffers NIA Task Switching Preemption Done In Progress To Do Dependencies Bottleneck!
5. Do you rely on anyone who is not "instantly available"? How long does work wait in the queue in average? How is work selected from the queue? (FIFO? LIFO? random?) If used for batching, how big are the batches? What's the average size of the queue? Is there a limit? How is this queue helping? or not? What's the purpose of having it? Would it make sense to remove it? if so, how? Pool of Options Selected In Progress Done Done In Progress Done Analysis Testing Commitment Point Ready for Deployment To Do In Progress Done To Do Testing Done Development Queues & Buffers Is there any hand-​ off here? is any work collected to be processed in batches? Any internal verification / approval step? (by team leads, for example) is there any "done" work waiting for other work to be done? Is there a mechanism to prevent "starvation"? Any "done" work not usable by the Customer yet? Selected Some boards will show obvious queues Others, not so much.. but you can ask questions to find them Ready for Test Waiting for PO Approval Waiting for Feature Flag enable-​ ment And then m ake them visible So that you can ask even m ore questions
6. To Do Develop Done Test Waiting for Code Review Protection (at bottleneck) Subordination (upstream of bottleneck) Elevation (system-​ level) First, visualize Then, ToC to the rescue Remove distractions "throttle down" Increase capacity Non-​ Instant Availability Very Busy Team Tech Lead
7. High WIP work will wait until someone is available to do it. It "ages" in place. Lead Time increases Information decays with time. Some becomes irrelevant. value delivered decreases, or is lost defects and wrong assumptions stay hidden for longer feedback loops become longer other work upstream may be allowed to proceed, causing more rework later any required rework is delayed rework delays the completion of work that has been batched together (projects) management overhead/cost goes up more time needed in meetings to talk about the work (grooming, status, etc) more effort required to track the work on boards, spreadsheets, reports, etc less time available to work on the work multitasking likely increases ability to focus decreases likelihood of introducing defect increases more rework needed cognitive overload stress paralysis confusion lack of transparency decreased trust we start forgetting things More time needed to get "back into the zone" More chances of introducing defects High WIP & Task Switching
8. Work We'd Rather Do Less Of Defect Fixes Production issues Manual Work Workarround & "Training Issues" Deliberate Technical Debt Disrruptive Delays other work Adds to management overhead Erodes Trust What's the proportion? Understand Trends Allocate capacity & CoS Find and remove root causes Understand your demand Which Work Item Type is Value/Failure demand? Failure Demand (and other forms of Preemption)
9. Not a planning & scheduling problem! External Dependencies
10. Delay: the Kanban word for Snow Q & A + Thank you! Fernando Cuenca fernando@squirrelnorth.com Sources of Delay Queues Non-​ Instant Availability Dependencies High WIP / Task Switching Failure Demand Idle waiting in-​ workflow Preemption work hapenning off-​ workflow