Value stream mapping and kaizen in agile retrospectives

Angela@PolarisSolutions.com Twitter: @OakParkGirl

 Deconstruction SAFe – the Scaled Agile
Framework in a Nutshell on April 20th from 1:30pm to
3:00pm

Decomposing SAFe
Saturday, April 30th, 2016 at IIT – Chicago
Always FREE!
Registration is OPEN! http://www.chicagocodecamp.com/

Discussion of Lean principals
Quick review of Agile
A Look at Agile Retrospectives
Kaizen
Value Stream Mapping
Kaizen and VSM in Agile Retrospectives

Specify value
Map the value stream
Establish flow and eliminate waste
Create pull
Continuously improve
Lean

Japanese term meaning "the real place.“
Lean definition = the place where work is actually being
done or value is being created
Go to where the problem is if you want to have a real
chance of solving it!
Lean

No one knows best what and how to improve than
the people closest to the work!
Lean

Iterative development methodology where requirements evolve through
collaboration between the customer and self-organizing teams. Agile
business approach aligns software development efforts with business
and customer needs.
Agile

Individuals and interactions over
processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive
documentation
Customer collaboration over contract
negotiation
Responding to change over following a
plan
OVER <> INSTEAD OF
Agile

State of Agile (VersionOne) 2015

Stop Doing
Start Doing
Continue Doing

Set the stage
Gather Data
Generate Insights
Decide What to Do
Close the Retro
Retrospectives
Set the
stage
Gather
Data
Generate
Insights
Decide
What to
Do
Close the
Retro

1. Setting the stage: Think about the check-in process for the
QAI conference.
2. Gather Data: Did anyone not have a badge ready when they
arrived? Was your name wrong? How long did it take?
3. Generate Insights: Any patterns? Root causes?
4. Decide What to Do: What are some reasonable
improvements for the 2017 conference?
5. Close the Retro
Retrospectives

Process: Agile (kinda)
Team Size: 16 (3 BAs, 8 DEV, 2 AUTO, 3 QA, 1 PO)
Project: Complete rewrite and consolidation of 2 legacy
customer and employee portals into 1 website
Timeline: 2 years and still going strong. Original release
date was supposed to be Dec 1, 2015 
Retrospectives

03/18/16 Retrospective Notes
Insights:
Standups are taking 45 minutes. Too hard to get through everyone’s status (scrum master)
Product owner not approving User Stories before grooming, so team committing to “half-done” stories and end up
doing a lot of in-sprint refinement (dev lead)
Vendor shipping rates engine delivered a week late and quality was poor. Team wasted 2 days manually backing out the
changes and restoring the old version to environments. (whole team)
Team sometimes waits up to an hour for CI builds to finish. Need another build server and CI environment. (dev lead)
The team carrying an average of 50% of committed stories into the next sprint (product owner)
Action items and owners:
Focus standups on WIP only, avoid stand-up turning into a status meeting - Scrum master
Review agreed upon timelines with vendor, what recourse do we have when things are late or broken? - Product owner
Work with operations team to setup a new CI environment - Dev lead
Retrospectives

Insights:
Standups are better. Still taking 30 minutes due to disagreements about story acceptance criteria. (scrum master)
Vendor shipping rates engine delivered on time, but services did not match the documentation so we’ve had a big increase
in bugs the past few sprints. (QA lead)
Development team still waiting on new CI environment. (DEV lead)
The team’s had an increasing number of defects overall, many due to misunderstood requirements. The tests QA writes
are based on original requirements, but they aren’t notified when requirements change (QA lead)
The team still carrying 50% of committed stories over into the next sprint, many items are rejected during sprint review
due to requirements not being fully met (product owner)
Make sure more time is spent discussing AC during backlog grooming - Scrum master
Meet with vendor to discuss our standing SLA. What recourse do we have for missed milestones? - Product owner
Work with operations team to setup a new CI environment - Dev lead
Retrospectives

Insights:
Standups are on track, team doing a great job of focusing on WIP 
CI environment is up and running as of late last night! 
Developers encountered no issues with vendor code, but still needs to go through QA to be sure (dev lead)
Team moving from Skype to Slack for day-to-day communication (dev lead)
BA team is very waterfall and is still struggling with user story development (dev lead)
Not enough user stories on the backlog for next sprint, never seem ready for approval (Product Owner)
Over 50% of features being rejected in Sprint Review due to defects (Product Owner)
Manual testing required for regression has outgrown available team capacity, we may be missing bugs! (QA lead)
Work with BAs and product owner on agile user story development techniques – scrum master
Focus on reviewing features with PO as soon as complete, don’t wait for Sprint Review – dev team
Recruit sales and marketing folks to assist with manual testing – QA lead
Retrospectives

Kaizan

Identify an opportunity
Analyze the process
Develop an optimal solution
Implement the solution
Study the results
Standardize the solution
Plan for the future
Kaizan

Kaizan
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future

How is the Kaizen process different than what a team does in a
retrospective?
Where do the two methods overlap?
Kaizan

A Kaizen burst, also known as a Kaizen blitz, refers to a short
burst of activity that solves a problem with intensity and urgency.
The goal of a Kaizen burst is to identify and quickly remove
waste
Kaizen bursts are focused activity on a particular process or
activity

04/18/16 Retrospective Themes
Recurring issues:
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future

1. Break into teams of ~5 people
2. Review the Acme case study and retro notes
3. Identify ~3 recurring themes in the retrospective notes
4. Prioritize those items in order of ROI
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future

1. What recurring themes did the teams identify in the
retrospective notes?
2. Which theme had the highest ROI on your team?

04/18/16 Retrospective Themes
Recurring issues:
Too much rework due to incomplete or misunderstood requirements
Operations team is a bottleneck
Quality issues due to lack of automated tests adding risk
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future

Value Streams

Visualizes process and problems
Qualitative tool for identifying and eliminating waste
Aligns organizations and promotes teamwork
Spans entire value chain from requirements to delivery
Results in model of current state, future state, and an
implementation plan
Value Streams

1. Define Customer Value
2. Create and Analyze the Current State VSM
3. Create and Analyze the Future (Ideal) State VSM
4. Create an Action Plan
Value Streams
Define Customer
Value
Create and
Analyze the
Current State VSM
Create and
Analyze the Future
State VSM
Create an
Action Plan

The Acme software team strives to deliver all
features that they commit to at the end of each and
every sprint, with high quality, to the Product
Owner.
Define Customer
Value
Create and
Analyze the
Current State VSM
Create and
Analyze the Future
State VSM
Create an
Action Plan

Identify the product or process
Define the scope of the mapping project.
Map the process steps
Include information flow
Collect process data.
Create a time line
Define Customer
Value
Create and
Analyze the
Current State VSM
Create and
Analyze the Future
State VSM
Create an
Action Plan

Define Customer
Value
Create and
Analyze the
Current State VSM
Create and
Analyze the Future
State VSM
Create an
Action Plan

Customer value/Opportunity: all committed features are
delivered in line with requirements with high quality
Reviewing Acme’s Current State VSM answer the following:
1. What activities are wasteful (not value added)?
2. Where are there bottlenecks?
3. In your experience, what steps/activities seem to be missing?
Value Streams
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future


Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future
Identify Scope of Value
Stream Map
Create & Analyze
the Current State
Create & Analyze
Future State
Refine
Retrospective
Action Items
Set the stage
Gather
Data
Generate
Insights
Decide
What to Do
Close the
Retro

1. Return to teams
2. Discuss the chosen recurring theme/opportunity
3. Map out a process Current State VSM for that theme
• Identify who is doing what
• Identify value add activities
• Identify wasteful (non-value add) activities
• Always consider customer value

1. Choose a team representative
2. Presents the team’s identified critical issue(s)
3. Walk through current state map around the identified issue(s)

The current state map is a starting point for applying lean principles to
improving your process
This involves one or more of the following:
Improving cycle time
Reducing downtime
Improving quality/reducing errors
Focusing on delivering what the customer wants when they want it

1. Return to teams
2. Analyze current state map
a) Determine what processes, activities, and deliverables to keep
b) Determine what processes, activities, and deliverables to replace
c) Collaborate to add new processes or activities to replace waste (if
needed)

1. Choose a team representative
2. Present future state map and point out where:
a. You identified wasteful activities
b. Where you added additional activities

Action Steps: What Will Be Done?
Responsibilities: Who Will Do It?
Timeline: By When? (Day/Month)
Resources: Resources Available, Resources Needed (financial,
human, political & other)
Potential Barriers: What individuals or organizations might
resist? How?
Communications Plan: Who is involved? What methods? How
often?

04/05/16 Action Plan
Identify an
opportunity
Analyze
the
process
Develop
an
optimal
solution
Act on
the
solution
Study
the
results
Share
the
solution
Plan for
the
future
Action Steps: Start holding proper grooming meetings with the whole team!
Accountability: Product owner and scrum master
Timeline: Next sprint’s Grooming meeting on April 15th
Resources: need to secure the larger conference room
Potential Barriers: sales team meets in that room, can they shift to afternoon?
Communications Plan: SM and PO to send email explaining need for proper grooming meetings.
PO will also have f2f conversations to make sure we have “buy-in” from business folks

1. Return to teams
2. Create an action plan to move from your current state to your
ideal state
a) Action Steps
b) Responsibilities
c) Timeline
d) Resources
e) Potential Barriers
f) Communications Plan

Study the results
Share the solution
Plan for the future

Make sure the right people attend
Make sure that leadership is aware of your efforts and “has your
back”
Allocate enough time to analyze the important issues
Keep future state and action plan documents someplace visible
to everyone

Agile Kaizen: http://agilekaizen.net/
Agile Retrospectives: https://pragprog.com/book/dlret/agile-
retrospectives
Lean Change Management: Amazon has a great price!
Kim Scott’s Radical Candor: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-
surprising-secret-to-being-a-good-boss-2015-12
Value Stream Mapping: How to Visualize Work and Align
Leadership for Organizational Transformation (95% off kindle
version on Amazon)

Email: Angela@PolarisSolutions.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andugan
Slideshare.NET: http://www.slideshare.net/angelabinkowski
Twitter: @OakParkGirl, @ChicagoALM, @TeamPolaris
Blog - http://www.tfswhisperer.com/
Chicago Visual Studio ALM User Group - http://www.chicagoalmug.org/
Polaris Solutions website - http://www.polarissolutions.com/

Value stream mapping and kaizen in agile retrospectives

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