FLOW FROM BLOCKERSHow to Use Blocker Clustering to Improve Predictability

WHAT IS FLOW?The movement of customer value through a process.

— Dan Vacanti

— Photo from Woodland Trust

WHAT IS A BLOCKER?An abnormal condition that prevents

a committed work item from progress

WHAT IMPACTS DELIVERY TIME?

— From Real-World Kanban

@mattphilip #ale15

BLOCKER CLUSTERING @mattphilip #ale15

THE INVITATION @mattphilip #ale15

Subject: Improve planning and reduce risk

Dear Asynchronites,

Would you like to improve planning and reduce risk in your team? I'm offering to coach up to two teams in the practice of blocker clustering…

© 2012, Asynchrony Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Talk with teammates about the experiment.

2. Define “block” for your team.

3. Start gathering blocker data, including reason and duration — simply and easily.

GETTING STARTED @mattphilip #ale15

ANALYSIS SESSIONWe started on a monthly cadence.

CLUSTERS EMERGEAfter dividing into Internal and External, the team further clusters the blockers

into reasons for blocks.

ANALYZE ROOT-CAUSEWe used fishbone technique.

Internal blockers caused 20 days of delay

External blockers caused 147 days of delay

The biggest blocker cluster accounted for 86 days of delay

WHAT WE DISCOVERED (TEAM 1) @mattphilip #ale15

35 Dependent Story blockers

BLOCKERS BY COUNT @mattphilip #ale15

69 days lost to Dependent Story blockers

BLOCKERS BY DAYS @mattphilip #ale15

141 stories in the release

66 stories were blocked at some point — nearly half!

WHAT WE DISCOVERED (TEAM 2) @mattphilip #ale15

WHAT DOES THIS DO TO FLOW?

85th percentile

@mattphilip #ale15

IMPROVED FLOW

85th percentile

@mattphilip #ale15

TAKEAWAYSYou can learn from our mistakes

and try some things that worked for us.

1 2 3 4 5

Teams

UNEXPECTED INSIGHTS

Biggest blocker cluster for each?

@mattphilip #ale15

1

2

3

UNEXPECTED INSIGHTS

Dependent Stories

@mattphilip #ale15

THINGS TO AVOID

Most blockers were of “unknown” reason

@mattphilip #ale15

Differing definitions of “blocker”

Misunderstanding your commitment point

Bad (or no) data

THINGS TO TRY @mattphilip #ale15

Manage empirically as a safe-to-fail experiment

Start simple, with invitation

Tell others about it

Klaus Leopold and Troy Magennis bit.ly/SimResources

mattphilip.wordpress.com @mattphilip

THANK YOU/Благодаря

Esmé