Agile Project Management with Kanban
1st Edition
Published on 26. February 2015
160 pages
978-0-7356-9898-7 (ISBN)
Description
Use Kanban to maximize efficiency, predictability, quality, and value
With Kanban, every minute you spend on a software project can add value for customers. One book can help you achieve this goal: Agile Project Management with Kanban.
Author Eric Brechner pioneered Kanban within the Xbox engineering team at Microsoft. Now he shows you exactly how to make it work for your team.
Think of this book as "Kanban in a box": open it, read the quickstart guide, and you're up and running fast. As you gain experience, Brechner reveals powerful techniques for right-sizing teams, estimating, meeting deadlines, deploying components and services, adapting or evolving from Scrum or traditional Waterfall, and more.
For every step of your journey, you'll find pragmatic advice, useful checklists, and actionable lessons. This truly is "Kanban in a box": all you need to deliver breakthrough value and quality.
Use Kanban techniques to:
Start delivering continuous value with your current team and project
Master five quick steps for completing work backlogs
Plan and staff new projects more effectively
Minimize work in progress and quickly adjust to change
Eliminate artificial meetings and prolonged stabilization
Improve and enhance customer engagement
Visualize workflow and fix revealed bottlenecks
Drive quality upstream
Integrate Kanban into large projects
Optimize sustained engineering (contributed by James Waletzky)
Expand Kanban beyond software development
With Kanban, every minute you spend on a software project can add value for customers. One book can help you achieve this goal: Agile Project Management with Kanban.
Author Eric Brechner pioneered Kanban within the Xbox engineering team at Microsoft. Now he shows you exactly how to make it work for your team.
Think of this book as "Kanban in a box": open it, read the quickstart guide, and you're up and running fast. As you gain experience, Brechner reveals powerful techniques for right-sizing teams, estimating, meeting deadlines, deploying components and services, adapting or evolving from Scrum or traditional Waterfall, and more.
For every step of your journey, you'll find pragmatic advice, useful checklists, and actionable lessons. This truly is "Kanban in a box": all you need to deliver breakthrough value and quality.
Use Kanban techniques to:
Start delivering continuous value with your current team and project
Master five quick steps for completing work backlogs
Plan and staff new projects more effectively
Minimize work in progress and quickly adjust to change
Eliminate artificial meetings and prolonged stabilization
Improve and enhance customer engagement
Visualize workflow and fix revealed bottlenecks
Drive quality upstream
Integrate Kanban into large projects
Optimize sustained engineering (contributed by James Waletzky)
Expand Kanban beyond software development
More details
Series
Edition
1. Auflage
Language
English
Place of publication
Boston
United States
Publishing group
Microsoft Press,U.S.
Target group
College/higher education
File size
8,90 MB
ISBN-13
978-0-7356-9898-7 (9780735698987)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Eric Brechner
Agile Project Management with Kanban
Book
04/2015
1st Edition
Microsoft Press
€31.99
Available immediately
Person
Eric Brechner is the development manager for Microsoft's Xbox Engineering Services team. At Microsoft, he has also been development manager for Xbox.com, engineering learning and development, and Office Media Store. He has previously worked at Boeing, Silicon Graphics, Graftek, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The author of a book and blog on software best practices (as I. M. Wright), he holds eight patents and a Ph.D. in applied mathematics.
Content
Introduction ix
Chapter 1: Getting management consent 1
An open letter to your manager 2
Problem 2
Solution 2
Risks 3
Plan 3
Moving forward 4
Checklist 5
Chapter 2: Kanban quick-start guide 7
Step 1: Capture your team's high-level routine 7
Step 2: Redecorate your wall 8
Step 3: Set limits on chaos 10
Step 4: Define done 13
Step 5: Run your daily standup 14
Troubleshooting 17
Checklist 24
Chapter 3: Hitting deadlines 25
Populate your backlog 25
Establish your minimum viable product (MVP) 27
Order work, including technical debt 28
Estimate features and tasks 29
Track expected completion date 31
Right-size your team 33
Basic approach 34
Advanced approach 35
Checklist 37
Chapter 4: Adapting from Waterfall 39
Introducing Kanban to a Waterfall team 39
Working in feature teams 42
Completing features before starting new ones 43
Dealing with specs and bugs 44
Specs 44
Bugs 45
Engaging with customers 46
Celebrating performance improvements 48
Rude Q & A 51
Checklist 56
Chapter 5: Evolving from Scrum 57
Introducing Kanban to a Scrum Team 58
Mapping the roles and terms 60
Evolving the events 61
Celebrating performance improvements 62
Rude Q & A 65
Checklist 70
Chapter 6: Deploying components, apps, and services 71
Continuous integration 72
Continuous push 75
Continuous publishing 77
Continuous deployment 79
Checklist 83
Chapter 7: Using Kanban within large organizations 85
Deriving a backlog from big upfront planning 86
Ordering work based on dependencies 87
Fitting into milestones 91
Communicating status up and out 92
Dealing with late or unstable dependencies 94
Late dependencies 94
Unstable dependencies 95
Staying productive during stabilization 98
Checklist 100
Chapter 8: Sustained engineering 101
Define terms, goals, and roles 101
Consistent vocabulary 102
Challenges and goals 102
Define roles and responsibilities 103
Determine SE ownership 104
Lay out support tiers 105
Tier 1 106
Tier 2 106
Tier 3 106
Collaborate for efficiency 106
Triage 106
Quick-solve meeting 108
Implement Kanban SE workflow 108
Escalations 109
Bugs/Other Work 109
Kanban tools 111
Troubleshooting 112
Checklist 115
Chapter 9: Further resources and beyond 117
Expanding Kanban to new areas of business and life 117
Scaling Kanban up, down, and out 118
Personal Kanban 120
Mixing Agile and Lean with Kanban 120
Why Kanban works 123
Single-piece flow 124
Theory of constraints (TOC) 124
Drum-buffer-rope 126
Improving beyond Kanban 128
Critical chain 129
Lean development 130
Global optimization 132
Checklist 136
Index 137
About the author 145
Chapter 1: Getting management consent 1
An open letter to your manager 2
Problem 2
Solution 2
Risks 3
Plan 3
Moving forward 4
Checklist 5
Chapter 2: Kanban quick-start guide 7
Step 1: Capture your team's high-level routine 7
Step 2: Redecorate your wall 8
Step 3: Set limits on chaos 10
Step 4: Define done 13
Step 5: Run your daily standup 14
Troubleshooting 17
Checklist 24
Chapter 3: Hitting deadlines 25
Populate your backlog 25
Establish your minimum viable product (MVP) 27
Order work, including technical debt 28
Estimate features and tasks 29
Track expected completion date 31
Right-size your team 33
Basic approach 34
Advanced approach 35
Checklist 37
Chapter 4: Adapting from Waterfall 39
Introducing Kanban to a Waterfall team 39
Working in feature teams 42
Completing features before starting new ones 43
Dealing with specs and bugs 44
Specs 44
Bugs 45
Engaging with customers 46
Celebrating performance improvements 48
Rude Q & A 51
Checklist 56
Chapter 5: Evolving from Scrum 57
Introducing Kanban to a Scrum Team 58
Mapping the roles and terms 60
Evolving the events 61
Celebrating performance improvements 62
Rude Q & A 65
Checklist 70
Chapter 6: Deploying components, apps, and services 71
Continuous integration 72
Continuous push 75
Continuous publishing 77
Continuous deployment 79
Checklist 83
Chapter 7: Using Kanban within large organizations 85
Deriving a backlog from big upfront planning 86
Ordering work based on dependencies 87
Fitting into milestones 91
Communicating status up and out 92
Dealing with late or unstable dependencies 94
Late dependencies 94
Unstable dependencies 95
Staying productive during stabilization 98
Checklist 100
Chapter 8: Sustained engineering 101
Define terms, goals, and roles 101
Consistent vocabulary 102
Challenges and goals 102
Define roles and responsibilities 103
Determine SE ownership 104
Lay out support tiers 105
Tier 1 106
Tier 2 106
Tier 3 106
Collaborate for efficiency 106
Triage 106
Quick-solve meeting 108
Implement Kanban SE workflow 108
Escalations 109
Bugs/Other Work 109
Kanban tools 111
Troubleshooting 112
Checklist 115
Chapter 9: Further resources and beyond 117
Expanding Kanban to new areas of business and life 117
Scaling Kanban up, down, and out 118
Personal Kanban 120
Mixing Agile and Lean with Kanban 120
Why Kanban works 123
Single-piece flow 124
Theory of constraints (TOC) 124
Drum-buffer-rope 126
Improving beyond Kanban 128
Critical chain 129
Lean development 130
Global optimization 132
Checklist 136
Index 137
About the author 145
