There is No “We” in Bowling

...except for maybe Wii Bowling.

“We have a team of 24 customer service professionals.”That was how it started, innocently enough. This “team” had heart, heroes, and a whole lotta backlog it needed to work through. So they established what would seem to be the most logical metric: number of individual tickets processed per day, per person. People would then be able to compare their numbers; laggards would be identified, heroes could be lauded. This, they felt, would spur support staff to process more tickets and ultimately, shrink the backlog.To their dismay a month later, their backlog was larger. A second month went by and its growth showed no sign of slowing down. Epic Fail.So what happened? The “team” was indeed raising its rate of production.They were working harder, much harder in fact. Everything was working according to plan. But things were getting worse.They were functioning as a team. But what kind of team were they functioning as?Teams tend to fall into one of two categories: they are either structured like a bowling team, or a football team. In this case, the team’s structure resembled a bowling team.On a bowling team, individuals combine their scores to create a composite. The team members approach the line one-at-a-time and aim for a strike. If one bowler gets a strike, it in no way impacts his teammates’ individual scores. On a bowling team, other than camaraderie, there is no combined effort; there is no bonus for playing well together.With a football team, 11 players convene on a field, and from that point on can achieve absolutely nothing alone. Either they perform as a coordinated unit, or they get annihilated. The same is true for all football - rugby, soccer, whatever.Does winning require a competent coach? To some extent, yes. But even the best coach is limited by the capability of his athletes and their ability to work as a team. Each player is optimized not only to their position, but also to the situation. They read the field, they make changes on-the-fly, they optimize for effectiveness at that precise moment.The team we were working with was a bowling team on a football field.And man were they getting hammered.Part of the problem with the bowling team approach is that individuals optimize for themselves and assume that in the end, the group will benefit. This team needed a re-orientation. Cumbersome and overburdened, they relied extensively on “heroes,” putting flexibility and long-term effectiveness at risk. So we put into place some game-changers. Taking into account complexity theory, we recomposed the unwieldy, 24 person team into four smaller, interdisciplinary teams to optimize the department’s capabilities and help focus the teams’ resources. We introduced a visual control  - a kanban - to give team members transparency into what their colleagues were working on and where their strengths lie. We set up daily stand-ups to encourage and reward knowledge sharing/cross-training, collaboration, and continuous improvement. And when those kaizen moments occurred, we ensured those improvements were implemented immediately.Most important, was that we re-invisioned the backlog: no longer was it a pile of distinct tasks for the individual to process and remove serially but instead was now a large, coherent team target of which we began to ask a series of questions:

• Are there tasks that are no longer relevant?

• Are there tasks that can be consolidated?

• Are there tasks being ignored due to personality issues?

• Are there tasks stalled waiting for internal expertise?

By viewing the backlog from various perspectives, the newly-formed smaller teams could combine their talents and solve problems quicker. True teamwork not only increased the rate at which tickets were processed, it helped focus on the right tickets to process: work was quickly directed to the team member(s) most capable of handling that specific work type. Information dissemination and cross-training became a by-product of day-to-day teamwork.The result: their backlog shrunk approximately 50%.Examine your teams. Ask yourself if they are more akin to a bowling team or a football team. When problems arise, do they focus on their tasks, or do they swarm to find a resolution to the team’s most pressing problem? Is the team structure inhibiting their situational awareness?What can you do to make a situation more collaborative?

Kanban for Short Intense Projects: How We Used Kanban to Visualize Our Hiring Process Workflow and Make Our Lives Easier

This is how we used Kanban techniques to visualize our hiring workflow, empower hiring process participants, and give executives a bird's eye view on a short term project.For many companies, hiring is something that happens in spurts rather than every day, week, or even month. At this very moment, many firms may be going through a hiring process, significantly staffing up as the recession appears to ease. If you are involved in this effort and are like me, you are probably banging your head against your desk as you try to keep track of all the job candidates and what phase of the hiring process they are in, while simultaneously trying to attend to your regular job.In smaller businesses that have limited to no HR resources, this process can be a daunting endeavor. To hire for just 6 to 10 developer positions, there are often hundreds, if not more, applicants to sort through, review resumes, conduct phone and in-house interviews with, and offer jobs. Frequently, company participants have forgotten the steps and effort involved from the last time this process was enacted and therefore feel foolish as they stumble through it again. Executives and participants generally have little insight into what is going on and end up constantly emailing back and forth to check on the progress of the effort, to find out who was rejected and why, or to find out who has made it through and requires a formal offer. Interviewers must always report results back to a single point of contact (or more likely a single point of failure) who is tasked with keeping track of every candidate's application "state." Finally, anyone other than the single point of contact is usually clueless when a potential candidate calls in to check on the status of their application. After going through a full on hiring process, most people, other than  seasoned HR professionals, are loathe to attempt it again.To combat the organizational nightmare that is inherent in intensive short term one-off projects, a group at our company took a stab at visualizing our hiring process workflow on a Kanban board. Our CTO made the suggestion, as our company is currently in the process of making a heavy transition to Kanban (facilitated by Jim Benson's amazing consultancy) and we all have "Kanban on the brain." My first reaction to this suggestion was, "haha, thats a good one" but after a moment of contemplation, I realized this was truly a great idea. Our team used Kanban Tool (kanbantool.com), as we have multiple remote users, but this could just as easily be done on a traditional white board, with Agile Zen, or even Google Draw.I worked with our office manager Judy, the CTO Jabe, and the developers responsible for interviewing candidates to come up with a Kanban board reflecting our ideal hiring workflow, accompanied by a document laying out roles and responsibilities associated with each column on the board. We held a  30 minute kickoff meeting to describe the process to all involved and get feedback and then we were off the races. Our company has a good amount of experience with "Agile" after working within Scrum parameters for the last 3 years so everyone understood that the Kanban board and hiring process might start off imperfectly but the goal would be to adapt and improve along the way.This is the document which was shared with all hiring process participants, containing roles and responsibilities:Interview Process DocumentHere is a screen grab of our Kanban board (click to see full size):

Kanban for Hiring

If you read the Roles and responsibility document I linked to, you'll understand the hiring process we proposed and some of the changes and suggestions for improvement that happened along the way. However, even if you didn't read the document, the beauty of using a Kanban board is its self explanatory nature. This was especially apparent when few participants had questions during the kickoff meeting. In my experience, even the best laid plans are often confusing and require multiple explanations when presented in a list or outline format. Outlines and text just aren't the most effective way for people to process or remember initiatives requiring multiple pieces to be pulled through multiple phases. Kanban made this easy.When we created the board, we used color coding for the type of job the candidate was applying for and we implemented the following columns:

• Candidate Backlog (candidates who submitted resumes)

• Contact Candidate (candidate placed here when it was determined he/she was qualified from resume)

• Candidate Contacted (candidates who had been contacted)

• Phone Interview Scheduled (candidates who had a phone interview scheduled with a developer)

• Phone Interview (phone interview in progress between candidate and developer)

• Schedule in-house interview (candidates who passed phone interview phase and should be scheduled for in-house interview and test)

• In-House Interview scheduled (candidates who had in-house interview scheduled with product owner and developers)

• In-House Interview (in house interview and code test in progress between candidate, po's and developers)

• Candidate Rejected (candidates who were rejected after phone or in-house interview  *this column was later changed)

• Simon Interview (candidates who passed all interviews and would be called by COO for final discussion)

• Candidate for Offer (candidates who were receiving formal offer letter).

Candidate Info

After some experience with the process, participants asked us to add the job type in actual text to each card (the color coding was considered a bit too confusing on its own). We also split the "Candidate Rejected" column into "Candidate Rejected - No Interview" and "Candidate Rejected - After Interview" and added a column for "Candidate On Hold."The nice thing about using something like Kanban Tool is the ability to add candidate information, such as a link to each candidates resume in Google Docs, to each Kanban card. This information is readily accessible when a card is clicked. This makes it easy for interviewers to find documents and information associated with each candidate in a timely and efficient manner.There is also an area for interviewer comments so executives and anyone else can effortlessly check in on why a candidate was rejected or passed on to the next stage:

Card Comments

Card History

Finally, Kanban Tool records each step along the way, allowing us to know exactly who made which decision, in case we ever need to trackback (although this feature, along with comments, is just a perk of the tool we used - not something completely necessary to visualize the workflow).Using Kanban to visualize this intense short term effort resulted in many positives compared to using traditional project management approaches. Here are some of the things we saw:

• Rather than relying on single point of contact for all information, participants and interested observers could get just about everything they needed from the board.

• Participants were empowered to make the hiring decisions themselves because they readily understood and could act on the goal. The Kanban board visually facilitates this type of understanding.

• Executives, who often worry about efforts which are extremely important to the company, were able to see the plan was being followed, the rate at which the process was progressing, and the status of each candidate at a glance. This meant less questions from above, and therefore smoother day to day operations.

• There was little confusion concerning the process at kickoff because of the visual nature of Kanban.

• Participants felt free to make change suggestions to improve the process on the fly. Those changes could be made and disseminated quickly. This is crucial to a short term project where oftentimes if change can't be made extremely fast, it's not worth making.

• We now have an easily accessible and quick to read "living" document of how this process should work for future reference.

• For some reason, this process just felt much more effortless than times in the past when I've gone through something like this. I believe this is because, by empowering all participants, a "team" mentality was fostered which led to cooperation and a culture of improvement centered around a short term process (unheard of!). This was good for everyone involved and good for the company.

One thing to note: Seasoned Kanban practitioners might wonder how we dealt with WIP. We did discuss WIP limits in the beginning but as this was for a hiring process and not development, we decided not to set any and to see what happened. The WIP for this process seemed to work itself out and stay low as each phone interviewer could only obviously handle one phone interview at a time, and each in-house interview group could also only interview one candidate at a time. It may also have been the superb scheduling abilities of our office manager but it never became an issue and there were very few bottlenecks, the worst being "phone tag" moments. This is not to say we would not have immediately imposed WIP limits if flow or end results were poor.Finally, a word of warning: As with anything, someone still needs to "own" the process, watch the board, and make sure the gears keep turning. Our office manager Judy assumed this role. She made sure busy developers had the interviews scheduled on their calendar and if a responsible party let candidates stack up or sit too long in a column Judy would make sure to poke at them until they took action.So that, in a nutshell, is how we used Kanban to keep ourselves sane and productive during a massive (for us) hiring effort with no HR staff. It would be interesting to see comments on how our process could be improved!

Getting "Personal" with Your Kanban

So why call it "personal" if I can use it with my family, in the classroom, or with a team at the office?In life and in business, we create value.  For Personal Kanban, "personal"  relates to  personal value.  Personal Kanban tracks and visualizes items of personal value - tasks, work, and goals.

Industrial-style kanban - as it was conceptualized by Taiichi Ohno and notably implemented at Toyota - tracks industrial objects of value (tasks) as they travel thru a production stream that is often predictable. These objects have primary value to the organization. This model, while flexible, still tracks relatively well-defined objects through a relatively well-defined value stream. Tracking a crank case over its assembly process is markedly different from tracking the workflow of your upcoming move or your daughter's wedding.

In contrast, "Personal Kanban" tracks items of personal value as they travel thru a less predictable path. These objects are often smaller and more varied.

In Personal Kanban, even when tracking the tasks of a team, the object of value - and by extension the resultant epiphany about the nature of that work - is still connected primarily to the individual.

Small teams work better when using a group Personal Kanban because such epiphanies are not only shared, but they can likewise be distributed. A realization that something can be improved does not have to be limited to your individual work.

Photo by Tonianne

Multiple Projects & Threaded WIP: Using The Big Picture for Personal Kanban

The two rules of Personal Kanban: Limit WIP and visualize your work.The truth about personal work: it’s messy.So people with messy work have been asking me for:

• ways to create multiple Personal Kanban(s) with unique workflows,

  1. ways to manage the WIP of multiple projects in one kanban,

  2. ways to manage projects with different collaborators, and

  3. better ways to integrate a calendar.

To be sure, these are not easy requests to satisfy.For all of my projects, I have been using Agile Zen as my primary Personal Kanban tool. I have found it to be the best designed, easiest to use, and most powerful online tool available. It likewise gives me the statistics I need to help me understand the "way" that I work, which ultimately helps me to make better informed decisions.Unfortunately however, it doesn’t lend itself to the aforementioned demands, because those demands break some pretty fundamental laws of Lean.  Such demands ask us to:

• abandon a central workflow (by integrating multiple workflows),

• acknowledge a time-box constraint (by introducing a calendar), and

• decouple WIP from a team and relegate it to the individual.

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So in an attempt to manage multiple projects, I've begun to use  The Big Picture. It isn’t perfect, but with its unique interface this free tool gets us a little closer to handling "the messy" than any other online tool I've come across.

Multiple Projects

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Pictured to the right is the main page from my Big Picture. We see that I have four simultaneous projects that are contributing to my WIP: Instant Karma, Modus, Music, and Personal.Each of these projects has its own workflow, set of collaborators, and type of demands. If we double click on one of the balls we get to see the kanban for that particular project.In this first example, we see that music can go from:idea --> in progress --> mix down --> review --> publicationTasks might also have subtasks or elements to be satisfied.  For example, the song “Presence of Mind” is in review and is awaiting feedback from John, Tonianne, and Chris.For the Instant Karma workflow, we see something very different -  a totally different workflow and totally different types of tasks.This system is inherently flexible.

Multiple WIP and Calendar Integration

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This system manages WIP by actually moving current WIP into the calendar.In the image to the right, I’m dragging a task from one of the task lists to the calendar in the upper right corner.  This brings up the calendar screen where you can begin to manage your day – your messy day filled with multiple tasks from multiple projects with different workflows and different teams.Color coordinated by the various projects, the day now is filled with tasks.  This is your WIP.  You can move it from day to day until it is complete. When it is complete, you simply check the tick box.You can rearrange them. The time really isn’t important but rather, it’s the activities during the day which are vital.  This is your shared WIP column.At the beginning of the next work day, you can revisit each of the projects, pull the appropriate tasks from one stage to the next, and then select the WIP for that day.

Multiple Users

The Big Picture allows you to share individual projects with other users. They can add tasks, complete them, and change the workflow.This means that people see only the tasks you want them to see, and can work tightly with their teams.

What This is Missing (Blessing and Curse)

This is missing performance metrics, detailed backlog tracking, user management, and firm definitions of what is a task, what is a project, and what is a point in your workflow.  The Big Picture offers almost no firm definitions, it simply allows you to create an arbitrary container and place things inside it.What this means is that it won’t give you some of the high-end features you want – but it also means that this simple system can help visualize some of the most complicated workflows.  Additionally, it means you need nearly zero time to set up your management system, and that you can be part of a plethora of projects and still manage them coherently with the other people participating.

What This Has

In addition to its flexibility, this system also has a completely unique interface. It’s both colorful and functional, making the user experience enjoyable. I believe this is an excellent launching pad for experimentation and innovation.Will it replace Agile Zen for me personally? No. I need the metrics, the serious database, and the superlative UI design that Agile Zen gives me.Can I see myself using The Big Picture for quick projects or projects with weird workflows, like recursive or multi-variant workflows?  Absolutely. The utter free-form of The Big Picture makes it too attractive an alternative when the bizarre raises its head.

Starting Is Easy, Finishing Is Hard

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A wise man once told me, "starting is easy, finishing is hard."This has been my struggle my entire professional career, but I would argue it started as far back as grade school. I've always had projects and tasks to complete and deadlines to meet.  I've tried multitasking.  I've tried listing A, B, C tasks in a Franklin Covey Day Planner.  It has been a lifelong struggle to find a tool or process that provides clarity to my chaotic, goal-driven life.As the manager of software engineering and project management teams, I've used kanbans in the past.  In those applications, I referred to kanbans as "information radiators."  Large billboards were strategically placed around the office so anyone could passively see the status of the current project.  Anyone could see what the highest priority was, what was currently being completed, and what was being delayed.  I believe the key to our successes was the ability to visualize our work.  Everyone knew exactly what they needed to complete and everyone else knew if it was getting done.  People were not allowed to go on to ancillary activities until their assigned tasks were completed.  This constant feedback loop was very powerful.You would think if it worked so well for my teams, for business purposes, I would use it for myself for personal purposes.  It took some time but I finally started using a personal kanban and I kick myself for not doing it earlier.In order to communicate my kanban to collocated teammates, I use a product called Zen by Enkari, Ltd.  It is a web-based kanban and does an excellent job.  It's simple, clean, affordable, and very scalable.  Having a web-based tool like this also allows me to review my kanban at home and not upset my wife by having a large whiteboard covered with post-it notes in the sitting room.  The other step I've taken is having a physical kanban at work.  It looks exactly like my web-based kanban, right down to the color of the post-it notes.  Anyone can see what work I have on my backlog, what I'm currently working on, or what I have recently completed.Despite my best intentions, I've always made managing personal tasks WAY too complicated.  To the contrary, using a kanban is simple and it allows me to focus on what is important.  I no longer multitask and get nothing done.  I now limit my work in progress, focus on the task at hand, and finish.