Agile Project Management with Kanban (Developer Best Practices)

Description

Use Kanban to maximize efficiency, predictability, quality, and value With Kanban, every minute you spend on a software project can add value for customers. One book can help you achieve this goal:  Agile Project Management with Kanban.   Author Eric Brechner pioneered Kanban within the Xbox engineering team at Microsoft. Now he shows you exactly how to make it work for your team.   Think of this book as “Kanban in a box”: open it, read the quickstart guide, and you’re up and running fast. As you gain experience, Brechner reveals powerful techniques for right-sizing teams, estimating, meeting deadlines, deploying components and services, adapting or evolving from Scrum or traditional Waterfall, and more.   For every step of your journey, you’ll find pragmatic advice, useful checklists, and actionable lessons. This truly is “Kanban in a box”: all you need to deliver breakthrough value and quality.   Use Kanban techniques to: Start delivering continuous value with your current team  and project Master five quick steps for completing work backlogs Plan and staff new projects more effectively Minimize work in progress and quickly adjust to change Eliminate artificial meetings and prolonged stabilization Improve and enhance customer engagement Visualize workflow and fix revealed bottlenecks Drive quality upstream Integrate Kanban into large projects Optimize sustained engineering (contributed by James Waletzky) Expand Kanban beyond software development Table of Contents Introduction Chapter 1 Getting management consent An open letter to your manager Problem Solution Risks Plan Moving forward Checklist Chapter 2 Kanban quick-start guide Step 1: Capture your team's high-level routine Step 2: Redecorate your wall Step 3: Set limits on chaos Step 4: Define done Step 5: Run your daily standup Troubleshooting Checklist Chapter 3 Hitting deadlines Populate your backlog Establish your minimum viable product (MVP) Order work, including technical debt Estimate features and tasks Track expected completion date Right-size your team Basic approach Advanced approach Checklist Chapter 4 Adapting from Waterfall Introducing Kanban to a Waterfall team Working in feature teams Completing features before starting new ones Dealing with specs and bugs Specs Bugs Engaging with customers Celebrating performance improvements Rude Q & A Checklist Chapter 5 Evolving from Scrum Introducing Kanban to a Scrum Team Mapping the roles and terms Evolving the events Celebrating performance improvements Rude Q & A Checklist Chapter 6 Deploying components, apps, and services Continuous integration Continuous push Continuous publishing Continuous deployment Checklist Chapter 7 Using Kanban within large organizations Deriving a backlog from big upfront planning Ordering work based on dependencies Fitting into milestones Communicating status up and out Dealing with late or unstable dependencies Late dependencies Unstable dependencies Staying productive during stabilization Checklist Chapter 8 Sustained engineering Define terms, goals, and roles Consistent vocabulary Challenges and goals Define roles and responsibilities Determine SE ownership Lay out support tiers Tier 1 Tier 2 Tier 3 Collaborate for efficiency Triage Quick-solve meeting Implement Kanban SE workflow Escalations Bugs/Other Work Kanban tools Troubleshooting Checklist Chapter 9 Further resources and beyond Expanding Kanban to new areas of business and life Scaling Kanban up, down, and out Personal Kanban Mixing Agile and Lean with Kanban Why Kanban works Single-piece flow Theory of constraints (TOC) Drum-buffer-rope Improving beyond Kanban Critical chain Lean development Global optimization Checklist Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W About the author