Stand-ups in Kanban style
Stand-up meeting, Daily Scrum Meeting, or simply scheduling have become common practice in IT. I described various nuances of stand-ups 5 years ago in the article Stand-up meeting: best and worst practices . It would seem that the technique of stand-ups has already been considered from all sides. What can be complicated in the planning? But more recently, our company began to practice a slightly different approach, with which we accelerated the release of tasks in the release.
It all started when, in the summer of 2014 in Moscow, Askhat and I went to the training and he drew my attention to the difference between the standpads in Scrum and Kanban. Before that, I did not attach much importance to such nuances. In our company, Kanban is used for part of the projects, but the stand-up style remains from Scrum.
Now we have changed the approach to the stand-ups, I will tell you more about this later, show the difference between what was and what has become. At the end of the article there are links for deeper immersion into the topic with a description of different opinions and nuances.
In Scrum, a stand-up is focused on people - each member of the team takes turns in telling about the results for the last day, makes a promise for the current day and shares problems. The fact is that in Scrum the emphasis is on fulfilling the promise that the team gives to iterate during planning. Everything must be done to fulfill the promise. The purpose of the stand-up is to see if we can accomplish all the tasks of the iteration, if not, then as soon as possible understand what the problem is and take action.
Other goals are pursued in Kanban - it is important to minimize Lead Time, i.e. time of work on the task at all stages. In connection with this, the approach to the stand-up is changing. It is done with a focus on the board, focusing on the flow of tasks and the detection of bottlenecks . It turns out that we are going in columns with tasks from right to left, discussing how we can quickly transfer the task to the next stage. When discussing each task, any team member can speak on it.
Total we get that the Scrum meeting goes around people who talk about tasks, and the Kanban meeting goes around tasks. If to speak in another language, then in Scrum we have the link Programmer 1 <-> * User Story , and in Kanban the link User Story 1 <-> * Programmer .
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Let's take a step-by-step look at what a stand-up in Kanban consists of. For example, we will consider the board from an article in Wikipedia .
As you can see, in Kanban, unlike Scrum, you definitely need a board with a visualization of the situation on the project. Since you are not discussing the specific actions of people, but the current position of the tasks and their flow; it is very important to see where these tasks are located. That is why Kanban-style stand-ups are also called Story-focused stand-up or Work Items Attend.
In addition, you can ask 3 questions (and you can not ask, this is Kanban), as is done in Scrum, but these questions will arise around tasks, and not around team members:
After changing the stand-up style from Scrum to Kanban, the result appears immediately. For example, here’s the Cumulative flow diagram from the project, where we applied the new stand-ups. We did it on March 24 and you can see how the situation has changed - we have increased the release of tasks to the release:
It is important to understand why the tasks were hung up in the final stages and did not go into release. Everyone in the team understands the management of IT projects, the customer is aware of the current situation, but it happens that the tasks are waiting for a long time. We identified several reasons:
The transition to stand-ups in the Kanban style is very simple. You can use it from any moment of work on the project. It doesn't matter what process you have now: Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban or something else, if you have a board and visualization of the current situation on a project, then the described method of holding stand-ups will suit you.
Links to dive into the topic:
The Daily Kanban Stand-up , Neel Lakshminarayan
Kanban - what should I care? , Landon Reese, Kathy Iberle
It's Not Just Standing Up: Patterns for Daily Standup Meetings , Jason Yip
Kanban vs Scrum , Henrik Kniberg
It all started when, in the summer of 2014 in Moscow, Askhat and I went to the training and he drew my attention to the difference between the standpads in Scrum and Kanban. Before that, I did not attach much importance to such nuances. In our company, Kanban is used for part of the projects, but the stand-up style remains from Scrum.
Now we have changed the approach to the stand-ups, I will tell you more about this later, show the difference between what was and what has become. At the end of the article there are links for deeper immersion into the topic with a description of different opinions and nuances.
The difference in stand-ups between Scrum and Kanban
If you are new to Scrum, then first I recommend reading about Daily Scrum .
In Scrum, a stand-up is focused on people - each member of the team takes turns in telling about the results for the last day, makes a promise for the current day and shares problems. The fact is that in Scrum the emphasis is on fulfilling the promise that the team gives to iterate during planning. Everything must be done to fulfill the promise. The purpose of the stand-up is to see if we can accomplish all the tasks of the iteration, if not, then as soon as possible understand what the problem is and take action.
Then we will talk about Kanban. If you have not used it, I recommend that you first read the free book Priming Kanban .
Other goals are pursued in Kanban - it is important to minimize Lead Time, i.e. time of work on the task at all stages. In connection with this, the approach to the stand-up is changing. It is done with a focus on the board, focusing on the flow of tasks and the detection of bottlenecks . It turns out that we are going in columns with tasks from right to left, discussing how we can quickly transfer the task to the next stage. When discussing each task, any team member can speak on it.
In general, a stand-up is not part of a kanban practice. There is no special practice in Kanban, there are only a few basic principles. Stand-up can be considered one of the ways to implement the principle of continuously .
Total we get that the Scrum meeting goes around people who talk about tasks, and the Kanban meeting goes around tasks. If to speak in another language, then in Scrum we have the link Programmer 1 <-> * User Story , and in Kanban the link User Story 1 <-> * Programmer .
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Process description
Let's take a step-by-step look at what a stand-up in Kanban consists of. For example, we will consider the board from an article in Wikipedia .
- The whole team gathers around the board. If the team is distributed and the board is electronic, then everyone opens this board and calls up.
- It is advisable to appoint someone who will lead. This can be someone from the team or any other person who can conduct open discussions.
- We go through the columns from right to left and the tasks from top to bottom. The bottom line is that the rightmost column indicates the completion of the work, so the tasks that are closest to completion are of high value. The faster we translate the task to the rightmost column, the less will be Lead Time.
- In our example, the rightmost User Story 754. The moderator asks: “What is stopping us from moving task 754 to the Deployed column?”. Several people may say the reason and explain that we are waiting for confirmation from the head of the company. In this case, the task is clearly marked with a sticker or a comment that it is blocked for the reason of such and such.
- Next User Story 75. The facilitator asks the same question. For example, one of the team members who is responsible for testing on the Pre-Production environment says that he takes this task into his work. He takes a card with the task and “pulls” it into the Test on Pre-Production System column. On this task, we note who took her to work with a sticker.
- Then we go through all the tasks that are on the board until the team’s resources run out. Everyone will take tasks to work in order to transfer tasks to the next columns or tell you what blocks work.
As you can see, in Kanban, unlike Scrum, you definitely need a board with a visualization of the situation on the project. Since you are not discussing the specific actions of people, but the current position of the tasks and their flow; it is very important to see where these tasks are located. That is why Kanban-style stand-ups are also called Story-focused stand-up or Work Items Attend.
In addition, you can ask 3 questions (and you can not ask, this is Kanban), as is done in Scrum, but these questions will arise around tasks, and not around team members:
- What prevents the task from moving?
- How is the task moving downstream?
- What can be improved?
Transition results
After changing the stand-up style from Scrum to Kanban, the result appears immediately. For example, here’s the Cumulative flow diagram from the project, where we applied the new stand-ups. We did it on March 24 and you can see how the situation has changed - we have increased the release of tasks to the release:
In more detail about Cumulative flow diagram I recommend to look in the presentation of Explaining Cumulative Flow Diagrams
Causes of task hanging
It is important to understand why the tasks were hung up in the final stages and did not go into release. Everyone in the team understands the management of IT projects, the customer is aware of the current situation, but it happens that the tasks are waiting for a long time. We identified several reasons:
- A large number of blocked tasks. For example, the task has reached the penultimate stage and is waiting for confirmation from the Product Owner (PO) on the fill. At the same time PO can be busy, changed the focus to other tasks. It turns out that the task hangs in one step from the release, a lot of working time has already been invested in it and it remains to make a little effort. If we are doing stand-ups in the Scrum style, there is no one to pull such tasks into the release, because no one has been involved in this task for a long time. When we make a stand-up in the Kanban style, such tasks become immediately visible, besides every stand-up we return to them, because we go from right to left.
- The priority of the tasks is changing. Tasks reach the final stages, they suddenly become not very important, the team switches to new tasks. It turns out that PO changed priorities and did not let it complete the work. Initially, all put up with this state of affairs, because during the stand-ups in the Scrum style there is a discussion of the tasks that the team is working on now. All that was not so interesting before.
- Work fills the time allotted to it. . If the iteration is 3 weeks, then all tasks will hang somewhere on the board until the iteration is completed. Even if some task can be done earlier, then it may not reach the last stage. In Scrum, there is no goal to reduce Lead Time, then why release the task before the end of the iteration? Kanban pushes tasks into release, and Kanban-style stand-ups contribute to this.
- A lot of work! = A lot of results. At the Scrum meeting, the team can discuss how much was done yesterday. But does the shock work mean that the team has given a lot of business result? Maybe after the shock work a lot of bottlenecks formed? The task flow is important and needs to be monitored.
Conclusion
The transition to stand-ups in the Kanban style is very simple. You can use it from any moment of work on the project. It doesn't matter what process you have now: Scrum, Kanban, Scrumban or something else, if you have a board and visualization of the current situation on a project, then the described method of holding stand-ups will suit you.
Links to dive into the topic:
The Daily Kanban Stand-up , Neel Lakshminarayan
Kanban - what should I care? , Landon Reese, Kathy Iberle
It's Not Just Standing Up: Patterns for Daily Standup Meetings , Jason Yip
Kanban vs Scrum , Henrik Kniberg
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/290438/
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