Talk at DevOps Melbourne May 2011

1. Kanban, thank you ma’am David Lutz

2. What? Linux team at Lonely Planet implemented “Kanban” Daily standups Task Wall Metrics Retros

3. History Current Task Wall version 3.0 Version 1.0 Too Heavy Version 2.0 Too Light Version 3.0 Just Right

4. Why? To fix problems with current processes Tasks coming into team from multiple sources Poor prioritization Poor visibility of workload Pushy people queue jumping Toxic Tasks Internal projects neglected Poor communication with Agile Dev teams

5. Tasks coming from multiple sources Service Desk tickets Email Walk ups Instant Messages Tasks for Embedded Engineer in Dev Teams Production issues (incidents) Internal projects and proactive maintenance

6. Strict* Rules Do cards in order FIFO FTW No cherry picking tasks 2 tasks in progress per Engineer If someone wants to bump priority up they need to come to standup and argue their case * Strict but not completely inflexible ;-)

7. What is a card? Process must be lightweight to work Card = task that will take > 30 minutes work but < three days Less than 30 minutes = “Just Do It” More than 3 days = Split it into smaller tasks

8. Coloured Cards

9. Columns Backlog In Progress Done Blocked Waiting for Change

10. Blocked column Whose card is it? Who or what is blocking the card? Invite blocker to standup.

11. Toxic Tasks Poorly Defined “make it go faster” Poorly Thought Out “let’s install OS/2 on the servers” Tedious and boring How to deal with them?

12. Outcomes Smaller Queue Length Internal tasks getting done Increased Throughput Decreased Latency Better communication within and between teams Happy Customers

13. Who am I? David Lutz Sysadmin and DevOpstician Lonely Planeteer for another few days then looking for new gig… dlutzy@gmail.com twitter.com/dlutzy