Exploring Agility

Working with a team recently after some initial Kanban training we used the following questions to help us focus and get our Kanban system up and running.

The first question

• Why do we want to use Kanban?  – If we can’t answer this stop, and it needs to be better than because we have been told to

Questions around the Work and how it flows

• Are there different types of work that you deal with?
• What happens to the work? -This is where we mapped out the flow of the work
• How are we going to limit work in progress?
• Do we need to respond differently to certain types of work? -different classes of service

Questions around our policies

• When can work move into columns? – Entry/exit criteria
• How does work come into the system? – Who puts work in the input queue/how often?
• How does work get released from your system?

Questions around feedback mechanisms

• How are we going to get feedback on the work from customers/stakeholders? – feedback on the what
• How are we going to reflect on the process? – feedback on the how
• How do we ensure that we are building quality in? – how do we get technical feedback?

These were some simple starter questions to get us started, however we expect that the answers to these questions will change as we continually improve and as your world changes.