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David Anderson

Enterprise Services Planning: Module 2 – Enterprise Services

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Enterprise Services Planning is a new modular 5-day training curriculum for managing modern businesses involving lots of knowledge work and creative services. If your organization contains people who must think and make decisions for their living then Enterprise Services Planning is the management training framework that will transform your business. While ideally taken together as 5 days of intensive emersion, ESP training is offered in 4 modules.

esp_map_large

Map of the Enterprise Services Planning Framework

Enterprise Services Planning Module 2: Enterprise Services

Training class for up to 24 attendees

Duration: 1 day

Pre-requisites: Recommended KMP (Kanban Management Professional) or knowledge and experience of using kanban systems for services delivery. Basic understanding of market payoff from Cost of Delay section of Module 1

Foundation level understanding of Kanban systems is included as revision for attendees who don’t meet the pre-requisites

Target Audience

“I am a product manager. I’d wonder if we can use Kanban to manage development of ideas and requirements.”

“I am a product manager and I’d like to work more effectively with our delivery partners.”

“I am a service delivery manager and I’d like to know how to facilitate commitment meetings and replenish our kanban system.”

“I am a project manager and I want to know how to make and communicate plans when we are using Kanban to manage our delivery”

“I am a function manager and I want to understand how we can improve our delivery performance, shorten lead times and improve predictability”

“I am a process engineer and coach and I want to know how to advise our delivery organization on process improvement”

Curriculum

Day 3 – Options, Commitment & Delivery

  • Posit Science case study – a bit of everything in this one, we also use it in coaching masterclasses
  • Seeing Services – examples of how to put the Kanban Lens into action
  • Understanding Kanban Systems
    • mostly revision from Foundation training
    • understanding commitment
    • Little’s Law
    • definition of Service Delivery Agility
  • Options
    • understanding real options
    • understanding the value of options under various forms of uncertainty
    • understanding how to balance option development with committed delivery based on uncertainty and risk
  • Upstream Kanban
    • embedded options
    • governance framework for option development versus committed delivery
    • minimum & maximum WIP limits
    • discard rates in relation to uncertainty in the business domain
    • defining organizational boundaries & commitment points
  • Replenishment & Commitment
    • replenishment meetings
    • synchronous vs asynchronous commitment
  • Understanding Lead Time
    • histograms and distribution curves
    • flow efficiency and its implications
    • identifying sources of delay
  • Chance versus Assignable Cause variation
    • recognizing the type of variation
    • understanding how to cope with chance cause variation by redefining the system in operation through policy changes
    • understanding assignable cause variation and its relationship with event-driven risk
    • learning the dynamics that left or right shift a lead time distribution or trim the tail on the distribution

Learning objectives

Observing STATIK (Systems Thinking Approach to Implementing Kanban) in action with Posit Science. Understanding risk profiling, asynchronous commitment and evolutionary change at Posit Science

Learning how to see services in an existing organization that can be improved with Kanban. Understanding that several services can be aggregated onto one kanban board and serviced by one team, or department.

Understanding fundamentals of kanban system mechanics at an advanced level including symmetrical versus asymmetrical commitment, Little’s Law, and how to define service delivery agility

Understand real option theory and learn to recognize the value of options under different conditions of uncertainty

Understand upstream Kanban, embedded options, minimum & maximum WIP limits, and the relationship to real option theory

Learn how to define a commitment point and organizational boundary based on uncertainty and risk assessment of the business domain

Learn to read and use lead time histograms and distribution curves. Understand the relationship of lead time distribution to Little’s Law

Understand the definition of flow efficiency and the implications of low flow efficiency environments and the system dynamics that affect lead time

Learn to identify typical sources of delay

Learn the difference between chance and assignable cause variation and how to manage them appropriately

Learn the management levers that can be pulled to left or right shift a lead time distribution curve or trim the tail from the curve

Understand how to use lead time distribution curves to communicate probability of delivery times and indicate predictability of delivery.

Who should attend?

Portfolio and program managers, project managers, service delivery managers, risk managers, those responsible for corporate governance, product managers, function/line managers or team leads, management trainers, management coaches, individual contributors working in creative or knowledge work service delivery or project environment, anyone responsible for service delivery to customers, anyone wishing to learn how to scale Kanban implementations beyond a single team or a single service workflow.

Applicability

This class is ideally suited to a single corporate for private delivery on premises. Typical scope should be a medium-sized entity or a product or business unit of a larger entity. The class is most suitable for the private sector but is adaptable to public sector environments.

Sales

Enterprise Services Planning classes are currently offered exclusively through David J. Anderson & Associates, Inc.

For open registration classes please consult our training listings http://anderson.leankanban.com/events If you don’t see a class listing near you please contact us sales@kanban.university

For private classes please email sales@kanban.university

Download the module curriculum

Enterprise Services Planning: Module 3 – Project & Capacity Planning

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Enterprise Services Planning is a new modular 5-day training curriculum for managing modern businesses involving lots of knowledge work and creative services. If your organization contains people who must think and make decisions for their living then Enterprise Services Planning is the management training framework that will transform your business. While ideally taken together as 5 days of intensive emersion, ESP training is offered in 4 modules.

Enterprise Service Planning Map
Map of the Enterprise Services Planning Framework

Enterprise Services Planning Module 3: Project & Capacity Planning

Training class for up to 24 attenedees

Duration: 1 day

Pre-requisites: Recommended KMP (Kanban Management Professional). At minimum understanding of work item type definition from the 2nd day of “Getting Started with Kanban” Foundation Level training. Knowledge of the use of Little’s Law from ESP Module 2.

A revision exercise to help understand basic work item type and demand analysis is included as an option for this class.

Target Audience

“I am a portfolio manager and I want to know if we have enough capacity to complete our commitments from our strategic plan”

“I am a function manager and I want to know how to allocate capacity across our kanban systems in order to deliver on our commitments and meet expectations”

“I am a service delivery manager and I’d like to know how to make plans and estimates and communicate realistic expectations”

“I am a project manager and I’d like to know how to make plans and estimates and communicate realistic expectations”

Curriculum

Day 4 – Project & Capacity Planning

  • Demand Analysis
    • work item type definition
    • recognizing patterns of demand
    • classifying demand: value-adding or not; refutable or not; planned or not; speculative or not; disruptive or not
  • Demand Shaping
    • using risk management policy to shape demand
    • studying the risk tradeoffs of demand shaping
  • Capacity Planning
    • using Little’s Law to align Kanban system capacity allocation with desired go-to-market or strategic outcomes
    • outcome-driven design (ODD)
  • Large Project Forecasting
    •  using Little’s Law & the s-curve to model large project delivery
  • Labor Pool Liquidity
    • understanding the concept of liquidity as a task to skills & experience matching problem
    • kanban system design strategies to increase Labor Pool Liquidity
    • tying career path and staff development to improved Labor Pool Liquidity
    • exploring the challenges of scaling Labor Pool Liquidity as a management tool
  • Kanban System Liquidity
    • understanding Kanban system liquidity as a work to worker matching problem
    • measuring liquidity
    • why Kanban system is a good metric
    • understanding how to measure volatility
    • using volatility as a method for sampling data sets for lead time distributions and probabilistic forecasts
    • validating whether the current system performance, continues to reflect the recent past, and use of reference class forecasting is still valid

Learning objectives

Learning to use advanced demand analysis to understand opportunities for improvement and how to design a Kanban system with adequate capacity and risk hedging to cope gracefully with variation in demand over time. This is particularly useful for areas such as IT operations with lots of irrefutable demand and unplanned demand.

Learning how to trade risk for capacity by using policies to shape demand.

Understanding the outcome-driven design (ODD) approach to capacity planning. Planning delivery rates of work items using WIP limits rather than allocating people, resources or units of time.

Learn how to use Little’s Law and other probabilistic approaches to make quick, cheap but highly accurate project delivery forecasts.

Who should attend?

Portfolio and program managers, project managers, service delivery managers, risk managers, those responsible for corporate governance, product managers, function/line managers or team leads, management trainers, management coaches, individual contributors working in creative or knowledge work service delivery or project environment, anyone responsible for service delivery to customers, anyone wishing to learn how to scale Kanban implementations beyond a single team or a single service workflow.

Applicability

This class is ideally suited to a single corporate for private delivery on premises. Typical scope should be a medium-sized entity or a product or business unit of a larger entity. The class is most suitable for the private sector but is adaptable to public sector environments.

Sales

For open registration classes please consult our training listings https://kanban.university/courses/list If you don’t see a class listing near you please contact us sales@kanban.university

For private classes please email sales@kanban.university

Enterprise Services Planning Module 4 – Portfolios, Program & Dependencies

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Enterprise Services Planning is a new modular 5-day training curriculum for managing modern businesses involving lots of knowledge work and creative services. If your organization contains people who must think and make decisions for their living then Enterprise Services Planning is the management training framework that will transform your business. While ideally taken together as 5 days of intensive emersion, ESP training is offered in 4 modules.

esp_map_large

Map of the Enterprise Services Planning Framework

Enterprise Services Planning Module 4: Portfolios, Programs & Dependencies

Training class for up to 24 attendees

Duration: 1 day

Pre-requisites: KMPs (Kanban Management Professional) will find that about 50% of this class repeats Day 2 of “The Kanban Method” class.

Minimum pre-requisites would be “Getting Started with Kanban” (Foundation Level) or completion of ESP Module 2: Enterprise Services. ESP Module 1: Portfolio Management is recommended to be taken together with this module as there is considerable synergy.

Target Audience

“I am a portfolio manager and I want to how we can use Kanban to better manage our portfolio”

“I am a process coach and I want to know how to scale Kanban throughout our business”

“I am a project manager and I want to understand how to do retrospectives with Kanban”

“I am a program manager and I want to understand how to manage dependencies when we are using Kanban in our delivery organization”

Curriculum

Day 5 – Portfolios, Programs & Dependencies

  • Scaling Kanban
    • approaches to scaling
    • bounding unbounded queues
  • Dependencies
    • between services
    • integration dependencies
      • peer-to-peer dependencies
      • parent-child dependencies
  • Visualizing Dependencies
  • Portfolio Kanban
  • Scaling out across an organization
  • Feedback Loops to Improve Service Delivery
  • Conducting Standup Meetings
    • lower maturity, walk-the-board right to left
    • higher maturity, larger scale, focus on exceptions
  • Conducting Service Delivery Reviews
  • Conducting Operations Reviews

Learning objectives

The primary objective of this class is to learn how to implement Kanban at scale.

Understand advanced visualization for dependencies, programs & portfolios

Understand the feedback mechanisms that allow Kanban to scale and kanban systems to adjust and evolve in response to interdependent demand

Learn how to conduct the important meetings that make Kanban work as an evolutionary approach to creating service delivery that is “fit for purpose”

Who should attend?

Portfolio and program managers, project managers, service delivery managers, risk managers, those responsible for corporate governance, product managers, function/line managers or team leads, management trainers, management coaches, individual contributors working in creative or knowledge work service delivery or project environment, anyone responsible for service delivery to customers, anyone wishing to learn how to scale Kanban implementations beyond a single team or a single service workflow.

Applicability

This class is ideally suited to a single corporate for private delivery on premises. Typical scope should be a medium-sized entity or a product or business unit of a larger entity. The class is most suitable for the private sector but is adaptable to public sector environments.

Sales

For open registration classes please consult our training listings https://kanban.university/courses/list If you don’t see a class listing near you please contact us sales@kanban.university

For private classes please email sales@kanban.university

Introducing Enterprise Services Planning

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This year, we’re officially introducing Enterprise Services Planning (ESP) as a concept and specifically as a management training curriculum. Later this year, I anticipate the launch of Enterprise Services Planning software tools to support the mechanisms and methods taught in our classes.

What is Enterprise Services Planning (ESP)?

Kanban is now table stakes for many businesses managing enterprise services delivery. They’ve learned that introducing Kanban to their management system has improved service delivery with typical results showing 400% increase in delivery rate, drops in lead time from 50% to 90%+, and significant gains in predictability and on-time delivery, or “due date performance.” The results are so good organizations like to duplicate it – one workflow after another, one service after another. This raises a challenge. Businesses are ecosystems of interdependent services. Kanban isn’t enough on its own. Business struggle with the challenge of managing their portfolios and aligning their activities with their strategy and choosing a strategy that is appropriately aligned with their capability. We see people every day struggle to make decisions and do their jobs with confidence. What should we start next? When do we need to start something to feel confident it will be delivered when we need it? How many activities should we have running in parallel? Do we have capacity to do everything we need to do? If we delay starting something, are we confident the capacity will be available when we need it? How will dependencies affect our ability to deliver?

esp_overview_large

The 7 Elements of Enterprise Services Planning

If you are using Kanban to enable your service delivery and improve customer satisfaction then you need Enterprise Services Planning to answer all of these questions. Enterprise Services Planning teaches you how to select things, when to schedule them, which order to sequence them, how to know when and whether there is capacity, how to manage dependencies, how to plan, how to track, and how to know whether your results are good enough or need to be improved.

View my Slideshare Introducing Enterprise Services Planning. This presentation show the history of 10 years of success with Kanban and defines the vision for the future of Kanban as Enterprise Services Planning as “AI for your work.”

Training Curriculum

We broken the extensive Enterprise Services Planning training into modules. Altogether the curriculum provides 5 solid days of training. This can be consumed in a modular fashion. There are four modules that can be taken individually or in combinations.

Module 1 – Portfolio Management (2 days)

Module 2 – Enterprise Services (1 day)

Module 3 – Project & Capacity Planning (1 day)

Module 4 – Portfolios, Programs & Dependencies (1 day)

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Enterprise Service Planning Framework (rel 1.0)

Some recommended combinations:

  • Modules 1 & 2 together are ideal for product managers, business analysts, product owners, and marketing directors
  • Modules 1 & 4 together are ideal for portfolio and program managers
  • Modules 2, 3 & 4 together are ideal for project managers and function managers with responsibilities for delivery
  • An stripped down version of Module 1 focusing on strategy & fitness for purpose would be ideal for senior decision makers

Prerequisites

  • Module 1 requires on information knowledge of Kanban and is ideal for those who haven’t used or experienced Kanban previously
  • Module 2 will work better with participants who have experience with Kanban and have completed the “Getting Started with Kanban” foundation level class. The advanced “Kanban Method” class is an optional prerequisite for Module 2
  • Module 3 requires some background in Kanban and elements from Modules 1 & 2 in order to take the full benefits from the curriculum
  • Module 4 has a 50% overlap with the “Kanban Method” class and will work best for attendees who’ve taken Modules 1 and/or 2

ESP Tools

The future for the use of software with Kanban is advanced ESP tools. ESP tools will feature inference engines that help you answer all these enterprise scale questions: what should we start next?; when should we start something in order to know it will be finished on time?: do we have capacity to do everything we need to do?; if we delay starting something will capacity be available when we need it?; when will it be ready?; if we increase capacity what will that do to the schedule? how will that affect other things in our portfolio? ESP tools are “AI for your work”. I’m excited to see 3 vendors already dedicated to the development of ESP tools. I truly believe that we are looking at the emergence of a major new category of software product. ESP is the way 21st Century businesses will be managed in future.

ESP at Lean Kanban North America

We’re expecting some exciting product announcements at Lean Kanban North America in June this year. Our exhibit area already has 3 vendors lined up to show their ESP software. Each vendor seems to be focusing on slightly different features and aspects ESP. So we can expect to see different inference engine focus in each tool. I’m really excited by this development. I feel that we are finally going to see Kanban software that works the way users need it to work and provides the features that really help plan and deliver work at enterprise scale.

Kanban: When Is It Appropriate?

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In the Kanban Coaching Professional Masterclass, I teach coaches and those leading Kanban initiatives how to assess the appropriateness of the Kanban Method and the appropriateness of applying a kanban system within an organization. This is the first of a series of blog posts on appropriateness and getting started with an enterprise scale Kanban initiative.

 Appropriateness of Using a Kanban System

When should we use a kanban pull system? Firstly, we should realize that we apply kanban systems to a service delivery workflow. Assuming we have identified a workflow and can describe the types of work it processes and the service interface and service levels it offers then we have a good candidate for a kanban system. Early examples included IT system software maintenance and sustained (or business as usual) engineering. This is classic example of an IT service within most large corporates. So we have a service delivery workflow but why would we choose to use a kanban system with such a workflow?

There are various reasons for choosing a kanban system. Any or all of these might be true and would represent an appropriate choice:

  1. Deferred commitment is desirable – because early commitment is causing excessive re-work and wasted effort
  2. There is unnevenness in the flow of work – and we want smooth, even flow
  3. The workflow system (and its workers) are overburdened – and we wish to relieve this

Let’s look at each of these in turn and learn how to recognize them

Deferred Commitment is Desirable

We prefer to defer commitment on specific work items to be processed through a service delivery workflow if the future is uncertain and our opinion on what is important and timely is likely to change. Similarly if priorities keep changing and we are continually re-planning and communicating new delivery dates and new sequencing for items to be processed in through the service, we would prefer to defer commitment and reduce our planning and prioritization overhead. If we do this properly, we can reduce waste in this area to almost zero. We would also prefer to defer commitment if we have a high abondonment rate – ideas that are never started and always depioritized – or a high discard rate – ideas that we actively discard as of low value, low return on investment, or low priority. Equally, if we have a high abort rate after commitment where we actively cancel items that had been requested and confirmed, or if we have a high level of completed work which is delivered by never used or not actively commissioned for use in the field. All of this indicates that we have a habit of committing early to things for which we are not certain we really want to take delivery. This is a strong indicator that we wish to defer commitment. Kanban systems enable us to defer commitment and would be an appropriate choice. In summary, deferred commitment is desirable when

  • the future is uncertain
  • things might change
  • priorities are often changing
  • replanning is common and frequent
  • there is a high abandonment rate for incoming requests
  • there is a high discard rate for incoming requests
  • there is a high abort rate for committed requests where work already started
  • there is a high level of delivered work which is ignored, never used or never commissioned for use in the field

Unnevenness in the Flow of Work

Typically unnevenness in the flow of work affects our predictability or has a tendency to overburden workers then leave them idle for periods of time. If we value predictability or we value evenly loaded workers who work to produce good quality then we wish to smooth the flow of work through the service. Unnevenness in flow can be caused by large batch transfers, by arrival of unplanned work in an unpredictable fashion, or by blocking issues which prevent work from being completed. Unplanned work is often of a speculative nature and often comes with a desire for a high class of service. This results in planned work being set aside in order to service the unplanned, speculative work. Requests for information such as estimates for future work are typical of unplanned, unpredictable, speculative demand. The arrival of this work prevents planned and committed work from being delivered in a timely manner and within customer expectations and service level agreements.

In summary, unnevenness in flow is caused by

  • large batch transfers
  • unplanned, speculative, disruptive work requests
  • blocking issues

Overburdening

It is common in creative and knowledge worker industries for workers to be constantly overburdened with too many requests and too much work-in-progress. The results of this lead to stressed workers, poor quality and long and unpredictable lead times. If we desire good quality, short lead times and predictable delivery then we need to relieve the workers from overburdening. This is simply achieved with a WIP limit. Kanban systems are good solutions for relieving overburdening.

In summary, overburdening can be observed by

  • long queues of requests waiting to be serviced
  • too much work-in-progress
  • too much multi-tasking and task switching
  • stressed workers
  • poor quality
  • long and unpredictable lead times

Summary

Kanban systems are an appropriate choice for improving service delivery when there is a need for greater predictability in delivery times, higher quality in deliverables, deferred commitment would reduce waste and re-work in planning and prioritization, there is a need to smooth the flow of work through the service, the system (and its workers) are overburdened leading to poor quality and long, unpredictable delivery times.

The use of kanban systems can: save money by reducing wasteful upstream activities such as planning and prioritization; improve ultilization by smoothing the flow of work; improve service delivery by improving quality, predictability and time to delivery.

Enterprise Kanban: Where to Start?

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For a corporation setting out on a large scale Kanban implementation, there is the inevitable question of, where to start? Typically, clients want to run a pilot on a single service delivery workflow but which one to choose? Firstly, we must find a service delivery workflow that is appropriate for a kanban system. [See the first post in this series on appropriateness of kanban systems]. To do this, we might view the organization through The Kanban Lens in order to identify suitable services. Secondly, we must assess whether this service is a good choice for a place to start Kanban.

 Goals for a pilot kanban system

Assuming we hope to implement the Modern Management Framework widely across our enterprise and across many creative or knowledge worker services in our business, then we want our initial kanban system pilot to be successful, to be permission giving for others, to inspire and motivate further change and to catalyze a viral spread of Kanban throughout our business. In order to achieve these goals we must be careful where we choose to start.

Enterprise Kanban: Where to Start?

This flip chart shows our guidance on where to start with Kanban initiative. Let’s look at each of these in turn…

Must be highly visible

If we wish a pilot project to be inspirational, to cause a viral spread, to be permission giving for others, then they have to be able to see it. Typically, we advise that initial pilots should be in services provided in the headquarters or main corporate campus. We do not advise that the pilot is run at a satellite office as this is unlikely to meet our goals of being permission giving for others. There are some exceptions to this. If we pick a service within a product range that is core to the identity of a business, for example a platform development unit such as core layer in telecom infrastructure where the firm makes telephone switching equipment and being in that business is core to its identity, then regardless of the geographic location then the outcome is likely to be permission giving to other product units within the enterprise.

Connectedness

An aspect of visibility and ability to be permission giving or catalyze viral spread is whether the service is connected to others or not. Ideally, we don’t want to start with an isolated pilot. We want to choose a service that actually has dependencies on others or services others which are dependent on it, or both. The reason for this is that we want other services to feel the effects of implementing this first kanban system. We want the pilot system to perturb the wider system of systems, our ecosystem of interdependent services within our enterprise.

Must not be mission critical

Executive tolerance is greater when changes are being made to services that are not considered mission critical, therefore we will get more time and latitude to make change if we pick an area that isn’t mission critical. The J-curve effect can be larger when we pick a non-mission critical service as a starting point. Our goal will be to be successful and as a result gain more executive tolerance before we try to apply similar changes to a mission critical part of the business.

The Intersection

At first, the sets “highly visible” and “not mission critical” sound like they are mutually exclusive. However, it appears that maintenance work on mission critical systems is often viewed as not mission critical. However, because it is a mission critical system, any upgrades and enhancements deployed have a high level of visibility. Hence, the maintenance group for a mission critical system is actually a highly visible part of the business. It is perhaps no accident that all the early Kanban implementations were on IT systems maintenance in large firms such as Microsoft and Robert Bosch.

Management motivation

Early Kanban implementations fell into the first category – in so much pain, no one cared what was tried. Simply put when current service delivery is so poor there is a desire for change, any kind of change so long as someone is willing to show leadership and make it happen. However, we may choose to start in a part of our business where the local management is enthusiastic about Kanban, the Modern Management Framework or things which inspired them such as Lean, Theory of Constraints, or Agile methods. There is one other circumstance where we may choose to start: an area of the business where senior management wishes to actively shift cost, risk or investment. This third category requires a truly deep implementation of the Kanban Method and hence the J-curve will be larger. We would only pursuse this if other circumstances were suitable such as strong executive tolerance and a high level of organizational maturity. We need these things in order to buy enough time and understanding to allow our deeper changes to take hold.

Scaling Out

As our pilot kanban system shows success we want to start scaling out Kanban across the enterprise. Typically, we would look to “kanbanize” dependent services and those connected to our initial pilot until we’ve completed the roll-out across an entire business unit. We’d then repeat the process in other business units until the entire enterprise is running on Kanban.

Soft Targets

Obvious places to start with Kanban are existing shared services within an organization. These can be simple places to get started. Some shared services, such as enterprise architecture, database administration, code security and so forth, can be so simple that the resultant kanban systems are degenerate forms such as personal kanban or team kanban. They typically have no real workflow and result is visualizations that show To Do | Doing | Done three column boards. While these are not bad they are typically not permission giving examples for wider service delivery workflows with multiple activities and handoffs between different groups of specialist workers.