WIP: The Kidzban Book

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My dad was magical.

When I was growing up, he turned everything into a game - studying, yard work, even combatting my fear of the Wicked Witch of the West. "Life should be fun!" he'd insist, invoking his own father's optimism, a dictum in broken Italian dialect I struggle to remember but have long since forgotten. I can't say if it was by way of nature or nurture, but there’s no doubt the DeMaria men believed in enjoying life. When situations that were decidedly unpleasant presented themselves, they simply viewed them as opportunities to get creative.And creative they got.Whether it was setting the seemingly interminable list of prepositions I had to learn by rote to the tune of Pop! Goes the Weasel (

About, above, across, after, against, among, ar-rou-uuund!

), or sending me into the science class I struggled with carrying a Tupperware container filled with a freshly butchered calf's brain (can I still distinguish between the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata? you betcha!), my father believed life was too short not to make even difficult tasks enjoyable.And then came the bane of my existence: Mr. Pittman's history class. I despised it, and the 10 pound textbook that I'm still convinced was written to combat chronic insomnia. All those foreign names to pronounce! All those dates to remember!

Boooor-ring

was my justification for coming perilously close to failing an exam. But my father assured me, "they're just stories," after which he proceeded to re-create tales from Greek mythology casting all my friends as characters. Thousands of "stories" and two history degrees later, I couldn't agree with him more. Life - even the tedious parts - should be fun. With a little creativity in fact, they can be fun

and

educational.That's why I had to write this post. And why Kidzban is so important to me.

For the past year and a half, Jim and I have heard from countless people - some from as far away as South Africa and Japan - all excited to share inspiring accounts of how they use Personal Kanban (and a little creativity) to inspire their children. Among the most common uses for “Kidzban” (as we’ve affectionately come to call it) involves visualizing and tracking progress as it relates to household chores, family projects, homework and exam prep, extracurricular activities, religious pursuits, and even confidence building initiatives.

Lately however, another group of Kidzban practitioners is emerging. Increasingly we’re hearing from teachers and home educators who are using it with great success in and beyond the “traditional” classroom. In an attempt to maximize student performance - and make learning fun - they are utilizing Kidzban to establish course goals, visualize homeschool curriculum workflow, track progress (relative to the student’s personal best as well as to that of their peers), identify strengths and weakness, and implement and monitor solutions.We look forward to sharing many of their stories with you in the upcoming publication from Modus Cooperandi Press

Kidzban

, the follow-up to our recently released

Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life.

So why all the enthusiasm about some sticky notes on a whiteboard, you ask?Personal Kanban creates a narrative of  “work” comprehensible to people of all ages and learning styles. Work ceases to be a collection of unrelated tasks and instead becomes a series of events that impact each other and flow from one to the next. With just a glance, users see the things they do well, identify areas that cause them to struggle, and gauge the distance from their goal. In the context of Personal Kanban - or Kidzban, in this case - struggle is not construed of as a failure but rather, as an opportunity for improvement. As a visual radiator, Personal Kanban lets the user know their success simply requires an alternate path. When that happens, they can look for root causes and then going forward, they can adjust their actions to suit.Personal Kanban transforms our “work” into a system. It takes even the most tedious tasks and turns them into a game that’s appropriate for all ages.Consistent among the stories we’ve heard is how children become excited about taking on even the most unpopular or even boring tasks, like picking up their toys or writing the letter “G” until they perfect it or making sure Fido has enough kibble in his bowl.Not only is this "game" a simple one, but it’s an evolutionary one, too. Because Personal Kanban reflects our ever-changing context, it creates a game with an ever changing board. It’s a game we can improve upon, so boredom is kept at bay.Children “beating” their siblings (and even their parents) by completing the most chores becomes commonplace. Students “compete” not only with their classmates but with themselves, finishing their lessons quicker and with less error. In both cases we’ve discovered that upon task completion, kids often seek additional tasks, incentivized by the satisfaction they get from moving yet another sticky note into the “Done” column.Games can assume myriad forms, from head-to-head battles, to problem solving, to role-play. Depending on the circumstance, kids can find themselves besting their brothers and sisters in individual performance, or they can team up - “swarm” on a problem to solve it quickly and effectively. Parents and educators alike are using visualization to build creative games aimed at specific outcomes and to reward specific behaviors.In the end, the games themselves become an education.Whether it entails chores or schoolwork, being able to visualize and focus on the task at hand as part of a system - with immediate and ultimate goals - allows kids to see their action’s trade-offs while learning the best way to exercise their options. They take responsibility for their action (as well as their inaction), and feel pride in a job well done, establishing their independence and buttressing their self-esteem.Kidzban curtails arguments, energizes families, and leaves kids empowered.As a visual radiator, the board offers reinforcement for their efforts. Every member of the family can see that they’ve been effective, that they contribute value. When one person gets hung up, they know where help is needed.So tell us - how are YOU innovating with Kidzban? Are you interested in sharing your experiences or visualizations, or just want to hear more from other practitioners? Whether you’re a parent or educator or even a kid, we invite you to become part of the emerging Kidzban community of practice.On Facebook:“Like” the Personal Kanban page on Facebook to meet and engage with others interested in Kidzban.On Twitter:Whether you have questions, ideas, or experiences you want to share, be sure to add the hashtag #kidzban to your Tweet to ensure other members of the Kidzban community can join in on the conversation.In the interim, be sure to check out some of our favorite Kidzban practitioners:For an innovative approach to chores, see Janice’s

One Kid'z Kanban Board

For ways to use Kidzban throughout the home, see Maritza’s

Becoming and Agile Family

For incorporating Kidzban in the classroom, see Patty’s

Not Out of Reach

And last but certainly not least...Recently I had the extreme pleasure of stumbling upon the most delightful yet profoundly insightful videologs from two of Kidzban’s most perceptive practitioners: siblings Jillian and JoHanna - ages 8 and 11 respectively who, later with the help of 3 year old Joy - are Kidzban rockstars (and agilistas in the making). Don’t miss their dad Joseph’s

Saturday Chores with Kanban

series, part I and part II.

Saturday Chores with Kanban, Part I

Saturday Chores with Kanban, Part II

And it's just a hunch, but judging by the fun these young ladies are having helping out with the housework, I'm fairly certain they feel their dad is magical, too.

Image by Sprezzatura.

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!

Undertow and Churn: Workflow isn’t Always Linear

Undertown and Churn

In Personal Kanban, our primary step is to define our workflow. Workflows tend to be linear, and often look like this:

Waiting -->Doing-->Done

or

Outline --> Pre-writing --> Draft --> Edit --> Final Draft

or

Backlog --> Coding --> Testing --> Integration --> Release

Unfortunately, life isn’t always that straightforward.  A few weeks ago on Twitter, I was asked if it is ever acceptable to move a card backwards along a value stream in a Personal Kanban.

My answer?  Absolutely!

If you write some code and turn it over to your testers and the testers hate it, of course it should come back to you for re-coding.

There are a few ways of dealing with work that splashes back, but first let’s define two ways this can happen, further exploring the water metaphor of value stream and workflow.

Undertow: The scenario above (where the code failed testing) generally suggests that something was pulled prematurely and needs to go back to an earlier stage in the value stream for additional work. Undertow is a hidden, submerged current of water flowing contrary to the flow of the stream. It is present in most rivers and in the ocean, and quite often in our work.

Just like undertow in nature, if we ignore it in our workflow it will pull us under and we will drown.  But if we recognize it as a natural part of the environment, we can compensate for it.

Churn: Water sometimes finds a point where it no longer flows linearly, but instead thrashes about.  Even in these violent moments, water can be beautiful, exciting, and self-purifying. In the end of a moment of churn, water resumes its flow.

Innovation often results from moments of such thrashing about – through collaborative processes that may happen while the creators are all together and focused (synchronously) or separately, when the individuals happen have time to touch that piece of work (asynchronously).  To further complicate things, asynchronous work can happen linearly (Bob edits, then Mary, then Yuri...) or at-will (Bob, Mary and Yuri each edit whenever they get time to do the work).

How to Deal With Undertow and Churn

Undertow

Backlog --> Conceptual Design --> Business Analysis --> Production -->

Stakeholder Feedback --> Final Production --> Done

Here we have a generic, linear workflow. It could be for new software, a clothing line, or a consulting offering. Work is pulled from one stage to the next, as it reaches completion in one phase and a worker is available in the next.  Each stage has its own Work in Progress (WIP) limits and work generally flows well with each stage at their limit.

When undertow occurs, work can move backwards through the system.  This can be moving back one step (Production doesn’t feel there is clear enough direction from Business Analysis) or multiple steps (Stakeholder Feedback is that this is the single most stupid idea in the history of ideas, and may send it back to Conceptual Design).

When work moves backwards, it can simply move into the active working column for the unlucky section.

Or, if the Personal Kanban is using “ready” columns, it can move to the ready column of that part of the stream.  If this happens with any frequency, the ready column is far superior to handling this type of event.

If the team rarely encounters undertow, then simply moving  task back and having the affected column momentarily bust its WIP limit is fine.  The discomfort, in fact, will make it patently clear that something has happened that may need to be scrutinized.

Churn Baby Churn

In Personal Kanban, we’re expect to deal with a lot of churn. Knowledge work is often highly iterative.  Making a linear kanban might be just plain crazy and may end up looking something like this:

Outline –> Pre-writing Jim –> Pre-Writing Tonianne –> Pre-Writing Paul –> Discussion –> Draft Jim –> Draft Tonianne –> Draft Paul –> Draft Jim –> Draft Tonianne –> Draft Paul –> Draft Jim –> Draft Tonianne –> Draft Paul –> Draft Jim –> Draft Tonianne –> Draft Paul –> Draft Jim –> Draft Tonianne –> Draft Paul –> Draft Jim –> Draft Tonianne –> Draft Paul –> Draft Jim –> Draft Tonianne –> Draft Paul –> Draft Jim –> Draft Tonianne –> Draft Paul –> Discussion –> Final Draft Jim –> Final Draft Tonianne –> Final Draft Paul –> Final Draft Jim –> Final Draft Tonianne –> Final Draft Paul –> Final Draft Jim –> Final Draft Tonianne –> Final Draft Paul –> Final Draft Jim –> Final Draft Tonianne –> Final Draft Paul –> Final Draft Jim –> Final Draft Tonianne –> Final Draft Paul –> Final Draft Jim –> Final Draft Tonianne –> Final Draft Paul –> Final Draft Jim –> Final Draft Tonianne –> Final Draft Paul –> Draft Production –> Crowdsourcing –> Discussion –> Release Draft Jim –> Release Draft Tonianne … etc.

Phew.

Add to this that during those big repetitive blocks, work isn’t necessarily done all at once.  Jim, Tonianne, and Paul are accessing a shared document, writing it and editing it over the course of several weeks.  But during those weeks, we want to be able to see who is doing what.  We don’t want to lose work in a black hole called “Churn” and have it turn out that Tonianne really wrote the chapter because Jim and Paul were just plain lazy.

Making the task “Churn” with no clear understanding of responsibility obscures who is actually doing the work, the amount of work it entails, and what - in this context - the definition of "done" is. This sends us back to our pre-Personal Kanban state of knowing there is a task, but not understanding its true nature.

Handoffs don’t work. Genericizing the group task doesn’t work. We need clarity.

To respond to this, I’ve created a few design patterns:

The Churn Chart

The Churn Chart – We created this pattern in response to a project at the World Bank. The Churn Chart lists elements in churn, the people responsible for them, their relative state of completion, and any issues they may be facing. If the group can meet regularly (or if an automated system can be developed) Churn Charts are useful for reporting how close to done the element is in that phase.

Routing Slip Ban

Routing-Slipban – This pattern pictured here is a circle but it can, of course, assume any shape you choose. Routing-Slipban owes its admittedly inelegant name to the now-antiquated paper trail tracker that used to accompany documents as they circulated throughout an office. People would read the material, take appropriate action, pass the envelope to the next person on the list and the process would repeat.

With Routing-Slipban, the attached sticky note includes a short routing slip showing who has and has not touched the task.  When an individual is done with a task, they move it into the backlog of whomever they feel should handle it next.  I would assume this pattern would be best used by small groups where the individual members had a very clear idea of whose attention was appropriate for this task next. (This pushes work and therefore can be dangerous).

Cycleban – Like Routing-Slipban, Cycleban notes on the sticky who has and has not worked on this specific item yet.  Here we take tasks completed by an individual and place them into a shared ready queue where they can be pulled again until the task is complete.  As more people complete them, the tasks become increasingly focused inching closer to completion.

This may be a visual cue that one item may be more important to pull than another.  The more boxes that are checked off, the more a task is prioritized because it can be completed and moved entirely off the board.

To Every Season, Churn, Churn, Churn

Undertow and churn are inherent to both knowledge and individual work.  Since the goal of Personal Kanban is to visualize the true nature of work, we cannot hide from these two forces. Embrace churn! Know your undertow!

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