Kanban is something that features in both Lean Six Sigma and Agile software development. It descended from the Lean improvements of the Toyota Production System, and is a proven approach to optimise effectiveness of a production line system. How then can it be useful for a project manager, if it’s about production lines for motor vehicles I hear you ask? Well, for software development projects at least, the software development life cycle of individual software “features” is very much like a production line. Ok, so you aren’t creating the exact replica of a specific part over and over again - they will vary. But if features are segmented such that they are all of a similar size and complexity, the production line approach can work.

What’s the value of this production line approach? Simply, it’s the speed of throughput - or Lean Cycle Time. Ever had a of scope item/task/work package just drag on forever, with the percentage complete painfully increasing by just a couple of imprecise percentage points per day? Ever just want to get stuff moving and feel like work is reaching a completed state? Kanban may be for you. It links to Agile because Agile development is all about delivering early value to the customer and incrementally improving it with further deliveries - incremental delivery. The Kanban production-line system focuses on getting throughput in the software development lifecycle, so stuff gets “done” (remember: we need to define that in agile!)

So, what are it’s jet features and how does it work? I’d highlight two critical components:

(1) Visual Kanban Board - Kanban uses a visual board to bring attention to the startus of each item that is Work In Progress (WIP), and uses columns to delineate the progress with each column representing a phase of production. An item is recorded in a “card” that starts in the left hand column and progressively moves through each column, representing each stage in the process until it reaches the right hand side and is “done”. In the software development lifecycle these will be things like: backlog, selected for development, in development, testing, user testing, implementation, done. The precise columns can be more extensive, and some organisations would use two columns m for each phase: “Waiting” or “In Progress”, meaning that waiting time (which in Lean is Waste) can be more clearly identified. M I’d recommend you document in your project approach/tailoring the precise standards around each phase: Input & Output Criteria and Evidence Required at each stage (test scripts, approvals etc)

(2) Limiting Work In Progress (WIP) - While the Kanban board is a visually arresting part of the approach, the real key lies beneath the surface in how it limits production in the system. Kanban knows that there will be natural bottlenecks in certain stages of the process, so pushing more work to in progress that can pass the constrained part of the process is pointless - it won’t speed up delivery, is just wasting resources, diverting attention and adding complexity by having more plates spinning. Kanban lImits WIP by only allowing so many items in production in any one time, achieved by limiting the total number of work cards on the board, or by only allowing so many work items in each column of the Kanban board at any one time. The focus is then on expediting the few items that are WIP before looking at new scope; this is achieved by reviewing the Kanban board in a right-to-left manner and the potentially using approaches such as swarming - having many people focus on a single item. When reviewing the board, ask: what do we need to do to get the items neatly done across the finish line? Then as we move leftwards through the columns what do we need to do to get each item moving to the next column along? Only at the end of this process do you reach the left hand end of the board and then consider bringing in new scope into WIP. In this way Kanban is regarded as a “pull” system rather than a “push” system.

What are your thoughts on Kanban and have you had much success in implementing it on your projects? Let us know your thoughts below!

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Lean Six Sigma, a management buzzword that seems to persist and many don't understand. But what is it and how is it related to Project Management? Lean Six Sigma is an approach for Process Improvement Projects, combining many different conceptual tools depending on the situation. Essentially Lean Six Sigma is a fusion of two ideas: "Lean" and "Six Sigma":

Lean
Lean is a approach that seeks to eliminate Waste during a production process; it originated in Japan on the production lines of Toyota. It tries to make a process as efficient as possible, to reduce excessive costs and time - meaning the customer get the product they want faster and cheaper, the company improves their margin. It identifies seven categories of Waste which should be investigated and eliminated (though others have since been suggested):

1. Overproduction - It puts more pressure on the production process and reduces flexibility to change production
2. Waiting - Any time delay adds has a knock on effect on the final time to delivery
3. Transporting - Moving stuff costs time and money and provides no return
4. Over Processing - Gold plating additional features which aren't being requested don't provide a return
5. Inventory - Undesired costs to create and store products
6. Motion - Needless movement add time to processes
7. Defects - Obvious issues that need fixing

Lean will often start by interrogating the Process and conducting Value Stream Mapping and producing Value-Add Maps/Charts to show in detail what value every step in the process brings. It then used changes call Kaizen to fix these; small incremental changes that generate quick wins, made repeatedly to improve the overall process

Six Sigma
Six Sigma looks to improve the quality of the output of a process by reducing the variation of the output; it was introduced at Motorola in 1986 and resulted in $16 billion of savings. The term sigma comes from the statistical concept of standard deviation of the normal distribution; if points are normally scattered about a mean then one sigma is defined such that it would capture 68% of data points, 2 sigma would capture 95%, 3 sigma 99.7% etc. Six Sigma has a strong statistical focus, and defined in purely statistical terms a Six Sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of all opportunities to produce some feature of a part are statistically expected to be free of defects.

Six Sigma uses a lifecycle called DMAIC, that has five distinct phases each consisting of an array of tools that can be employed - depending on the nature of the project:

• Define - What are you actually trying to do? Define the Problem, the associated Goals, who in involved, the key measures and the rough timescales
• Measure - Quantitatively what is the current performance? Define a measurement plan and associated operational definitions, and check the quality of your measurement systems
• Analyse - Interrogate the data with statistical techniques to understand the process and it's performance. Understand weaknesses and root causes.
• Improve - Identify potential solutions, plan and implement them
• Control - Monitor implemented changes to confirm they have the desired effect

A Lean Six Sigma project can be a really effective way of delivering Process Improvement Projects - a distinct methodology from PRINCE2 or PMBOK. Alternatively, if you are managing mainstream project using either of these methodologies, you could then run a LSS Project using DMAIC on the across the Project processes themselves e.g. your demand management process, testing processes etc.

What are your experiences of Lean Six Sigma and DMAIC, good and bad? Let us know in the Comments!

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