Two years of applying Kanban at SAP: a report from the trenches

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "Two years of applying Kanban at SAP: a report from the trenches"

Raymond Freeman
7 years ago
Views:

1 Two years of applying Kanban at SAP: a report from the trenches Alexander Gerber and Martin Engel, SAP AG November, 2013 Public

8 SAP Source: SAP

About the Lean and Agile Core Team (LACT) Spring 2008 July 2013

unit (1500 2000 people) Snapshot April 2010 LACT Goal (taken

9 About the Lean and Agile Core Team (LACT) Spring 2008 July members, ~7 permanently Area: a big technology development unit ( people) Snapshot April 2010 LACT Goal (taken from our Wiki page): 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 11

10 LACT working mode evolution: via Scrum to Kanban? Project lead Work streams (one person in the driver seat) Meetings for content work Weekly sync meetings Kaizen events Support from Porsche consulting Product Owner, ScrumMaster 2 weeks sprints Daily Scrum meeting Planning, Review, Retrospective User stories, tasks, capa planning Sprint burndown chart Physical board First suggested April 2011; implemented June 2011 Product Owner, ScrumMaster Daily sync meeting Review meeting Planning for stories, no task planning in the team, no capa planning Retrospectives (well, often ) 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 12

11 Why Kanban? Some explicit, agreed process framework was needed to manage team dynamics Strict Scrum had some shortcomings Planning overhead Sprint as delivery cadence did not work for us (too much variance in the items we had to deal with) Resulting in bad lead-time predictability Board reset after sprint felt like waste Fine-grained WIP limits, decoupled cadences, focus on flow and built-in continuous improvement seemed promising In the remainder we ll walk you through our triggers for CI in our Kanban phase, the changes we implemented as well as the results 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 13

12 Deep-dive: Evolution of our Kanban Board Based on the changes that our board went through, we now show you how the LACT team working mode changed while adopting Kanban. Triggers: mostly from retrospective meetings 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 15

13 Deep-dive: Evolution of our Kanban Board Based on the changes that our board went through, we now show you how the LACT team working mode changed while adopting Kanban. Triggers: mostly from retrospective meetings 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 16

The Scrum Task Board we started with The move towards Kanban was

Our Kanban Board: initial version (spring 2011) The initial boad version was

17 Our Kanban Board, evolved version (fall 2011) Subsequently, retrospectives led to a continuously evolving board: Avatars Buffer column To be reviewed Introduced Waiting for External board section, with WIP limit SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 20

tickets for recurring tasks Use avatars, and a personal WIP limit of 3 Make Lead Time

19 Our Kanban Board, version 3 (fall 2012) Analysis of long-running tickets, using the run chart, led to further improvements: Make preload explicit per team member Special tickets for recurring tasks Use avatars, and a personal WIP limit of 3 Make Lead Time explicit on each ticket: one red dot per 20 days 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 22

LACT and coaching activities Our approach: practice what you preach (and even better: before you start preaching) From Scrum Sounds trivial, but it adds street credibility, based on detail

22 LACT and coaching activities Our approach: practice what you preach (and even better: before you start preaching) From Scrum Sounds trivial, but it adds street credibility, based on detail experience. We wouldn t offer Kanban workshops without having used Kanban ourselves. Adapt training content and approach based on practical experiences.... to Kanban 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 25

23 Our Kanban training approach No massive rollout, just word of mouth spread Staggered training approach: 1. Short info session (2h) 2. Full-day workshop (1d) 3. Coaching (2-3 months) We apply this approach since the beginning (2011) 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 26

24 Our Kanban training approach No massive rollout, just word of mouth spread Staggered training approach: 1. Short info session (2h) 2. Full-day workshop (1d) 3. Coaching (2-3 months) We apply this approach since the beginning (2011) 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 27

25 Our Kanban training approach No massive rollout, just word of mouth spread Staggered training approach: 1. Short info session (2h) 2. Full-day workshop (1d) 3. Coaching (2-3 months) We apply this approach since the beginning (2011) 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 28

26 Proven Practice: Triage Meeting Triage Meeting: regular backlog clean-up Effect is clearly seen in the Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD). Most prominent effects in the Themenspeicher, but also in later stages 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 29

28 Proven Practice: Malik s Garbage Collection Systematische Müllabfuhr -Meeting (à la Malik): Regular cleaning of the backlog, deciding explicitly against topics to be taken up or continued by the team SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 31

29 Summary and key points Overwhelming success stories are rare (they may occur due to very specific context conditions like experienced coach, background of involved people, type of work, etc. and are not easily repeated) Applying Kanban does not automatically result in improvements Even small, continuous improvements require hard work and a lot of discipline, perseverance and relentlessness (discipline in the team requires buy-in in the first place) But: don t take this as discouraging news, it s worth trying nonetheless! In the end, for LACT, Kanban worked pretty well (as it does for an increasing number of teams at SAP)! 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 32

Thank you Contact: Dr. Alexander Gerber Development Project Manager Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16, 69190 Walldorf +49 6227-747474 alexander.gerber@sap.

30 Thank you Contact: Dr. Alexander Gerber Development Project Manager Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16, Walldorf Dr. Martin Engel Development Project Expert TIP BIT User Interface Dietmar-Hopp-Allee 16, Walldorf

31 Appendix

32 Which core properties/practices did we implement? Visualize workflow Limit work-in-progress Manage flow Make process policies explicit Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally (using models and the scientific method) (implement feedback-loops) 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 37

33 2013 SAP AG. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or for any purpose without the express permission of SAP AG. The information contained herein may be changed without prior notice. Some software products marketed by SAP AG and its distributors contain proprietary software components of other software vendors. National product specifications may vary. These materials are provided by SAP AG and its affiliated companies ("SAP Group") for informational purposes only, without representation or warranty of any kind, and SAP Group shall not be liable for errors or omissions with respect to the materials. The only warranties for SAP Group products and services are those that are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services, if any. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. SAP and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and other countries. Please see for additional trademark information and notices SAP AG. All rights reserved. Public 38

R49 Using SAP Payment Engine for payment transactions. Process Diagram

R49 Using SAP Payment Engine for payment transactions Process Diagram Purpose, Benefits, and Key Process Steps Purpose The purpose of this scenario is to show you how to check the result of payment orders