So Long Scrum, Hello Kanban

Last year, Stormpath made the big shift from Scrum to Kanban. While we love Agile principles, the Scrum process wasn’t working for us. Kanban made our team more efficient, happier, and increased our focus on quality software. More importantly, it has become a core part of our company culture, and is now used by non-technical teams like Marketing and HR.

Kanban software development focuses on continuous delivery and drives high efficiency by limiting how much work can be done at once. Invented by Toyota and modified by David J. Anderson for software development, Kanban can have a huge impact on modern teams delivering cloud software in continuous environments.

Learn More About Stormpath: https://stormpath.com

Transcript

1. So Long Scrum, Hello Kanban Alex Salazar, @SalaTzar Founder & CEO, Stormpath
2. About Stormpath • User Management API for Developers • Registration and Login • User Profiles • Role Based Access Control (RBAC) • Permissions • Password Security
3. SCRUM, IT’S NOT YOU, IT’S ME
4. About Agile Scrum • Most popular Agile process • Drives efficiency thru timeboxing (Sprints) • Sprint Planning defines features • Daily 10-minute Stand-ups • Sprint Retrospective meetings to fix inefficiencies • Well-defined and rigid process Learn more at Stormpath.com
5. High Overhead of Sprint Planning • Half day event for entire team • Hours of prep for product team • Long debates on priority/scope • Engineers sitting through unrelated issues Learn more at Stormpath.com
6. Good Estimates are a Myth • Sprint planning relies heavily on good estimates • 100% of us are bad estimators • Effort divining estimates felt wasted • Work needs to get done regardless Learn more at Stormpath.com
7. Bad Estimates Break Sprints • Bad estimates throw off Sprint Plans • Bigger-than-expected items overload Sprint • More meetings to fix Sprint and “commitment” • “Gaming” feature scope to fit into Sprint Learn more at Stormpath.com
8. Change Management Sucks • Sprint planning locks in feature set • Changes to priorities and scope are hard • Even if work on a feature hasn’t begun • Changes = more freaking meetings! Learn more at Stormpath.com
9. Morale Suffered • Bad estimates led to unrealistic expectations • Team missed sprint commitments • Retrospective meetings turn into finger-pointing • Biz felt Eng missed their targets • Eng felt Biz kept moving the ball Learn more at Stormpath.com
10. Spikey Productivity Drove Burnout Learn more at Stormpath.com
11. Learn more at Stormpath.com ENTER KANBAN
12. About Kanban • Pioneered by Toyota manufacturing • Modified by David Anderson for software dev • Simple and flexible • Growing software community support Learn more at Stormpath.com
13. What is Kanban? • Continuous flow process Issues are “pulled” through steps • Often visualized as a board Columns are steps in the process Rows/Swimlanes can show priority • Workers “pull” work right to left on board. Learn more at Stormpath.com
14. Efficiency through WIP Limits • WIP: Work-in-Progress • Forced limit on concurrent work capacity • Time estimates no longer part of process • Cycle Time measures velocity at item-level • Work furthest along is highest priority • “Stop multi-tasking and context shifting” Learn more at Stormpath.com
15. Sample Kanban Board Learn more at Stormpath.com
16. Sane Change Management • Biz owns “To Do” column Means engineering work has not started Change “To Do” items as much as you want • Eng owns the rest of the board Once item leaves to “To Do” it means engineering work has already started Hard to change items outside of “To Do” column • Engineers insulated from business changes Learn more at Stormpath.com
17. Kanban = Happy Team • Flexible & Process-Driven • Kanban owned by team, not management Sense of ownership and pride across team • Smooth transition from Scrum (2 days) Learn more at Stormpath.com
18. Productivity Went Up • Swap Deadlines for Velocity pressure • Fewer meetings, more doing • Reduced multi-tasking and context shifting • Self-documenting process (thanks to Board) Learn more at Stormpath.com
19. Structural Focus on Quality • No deadlines = less temptation to cut corners • Less tech debt • No skipped code reviews • 95% code coverage • Code quality baked into process • Team fights to ensure quality in their process Learn more at Stormpath.com
20. Near Zero Overhead • Sprint Planning? Gone. • Project Management? Minimal. • Estimation Poker? None. • Short Stand-ups • Engineering spends their time doing Learn more at Stormpath.com
21. Kaizen vs Retrospectives • Kaizen: Continuous Improvement • Forward Looking Less critiquing Focused on process improvement No “right” way, just new ideas to try • More Collaboration Ideas are experiments to be tested Upbeat, creative feel Learn more at Stormpath.com
22. Kanban Isn’t Perfect • Nascent Tools Atlassian Jira and Greenhopper Lack of customization • Urgency is Abstract Less pressure to move fast (no deadlines) Sense of urgency comes from culture Learn more at Stormpath.com
23. Keep Calm and Kanban • Efficiency through WIP Limits • Not right for everyone • Helped Stormpath Happy team Less Overhead Higher productivity and quality WIN! Learn more at Stormpath.com
24. Resources • Read the full article on our blog: http://www.stormpath.com/blog/so-long-scrum-hello-kanban • Agile Chalk Talk: Kanban and Scrum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jx6_E5XxqEo • Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business http://www.amazon.com/Kanban-Successful-Evolutionary- Technology-Business/dp/0984521402 • Atlassian’s “Do Agile Right”: https://www.atlassian.com/agile/kanban • What is Kanban? http://www.kanbanblog.com/explained/
25. About Stormpath • User Management API for Developers • Registration and Login • User Profiles • Role Based Access Control (RBAC) • Permissions • Password Security
26. Follow Us on Twitter @SalaTzar @goStormpath Learn more at Stormpath.com