Kanban for process improvement

Kanban is a popular topic these days in the agile world, even spurring some debate about whether or not it is a lean technique. While is does move away from some of the standard elements of agile such as fixed length iterations, in my opinion this is another good tool for any project manager's toolbox. If you're looking for a good overview of Kanban for software development, go here.

As I was thinking about it, I could see how Kanban would be especially effective in Business Process Improvement (BPI) where Lean is being used. The idea to BPI is to apply Kaizen; find an improvement, implement it, watch the results, and then figure out the next improvement and repeat the cycle.

Kanban would work well because you aren't trying to build up a long queue of improvements. The completion of one improvement is the signal to examine your process and identify your next improvement; just like running low on a part in manufacturing is the signal to get more parts.

For example, you've implemented a new business process in your organization, most likely with a BPM tool. A good BPM tool will capture metrics on project execution; how long are various steps taking, are there bottlenecks, are exception paths being followed a lot etc. Based on this, you would identify the next improvement. Maybe, for example, putting in some business rules to automate an approval that is currently a manual step. This improvement would go through your development cycle and be implemented. At this point, your queue is empty; signaling for the next improvement. Or it could be you already have a list of improvements, you just need to pick the next one off the list and move it to the first queue in your development process, which may be elaboration. When it moves on to the next queue (development maybe), something else moves into the elaboration queue. With Kanban, you've turned your development lifecycle into more of a pipeline and your process keeps improving.

When Six Sigma isn't enough

I had an interesting conversation with a client last week. They had a process that was a "burning issue." They threw a couple Six Sigma Black Belts at it to make process improvements.

Six months later, they approached Lombardi to ask if this process was a good one for Business Process Management (BPM), which is were I got involved.

So what does BPM provide that 6 sigma doesn't? In their case, they had a manual process for tracking metrics. Someone would go into a time tracking system, acknowledge that they were starting a task, go do the task, and go back to the time tracking system to say it was done. This is what is referred to as a "swivel chair" integration. The task execution and time tracking aren't truley integrated. This is one area that BPM can help, it tracks execution of the task because the task and tracking of the task are integrated in the same tool.

So BPM can improve capturing metrics, what else? In their case, the task itself was still being performed with emails and spreadsheets. Moving to BPM will eliminate these activities. All process data and communications happens via the BPM platform.

A BPM platform also lets you tweak the process easier. You identify a bottleneck through metrics captured automatically, figure out how to work around it, make a change to the process, and you're done. Kaizen at its finest.

So while 6 sigma gets you in the right direction, BPM will set the groundwork for continous improvement.