Note - this experience report has also been accepted for the Lean Kanban Conference in May.

Full abstract
Inkubook.com came into existence in March 2008 when an existing software development and marketing organization received a new CEO and was immediately tasked with building an entirely different product. This presentation discusses the evolution from the existing Scrum process through four major changes as the team’s process shifted to meet the team’s goals and management’s demands. Focus will be given to the barriers benefits that the team perceived with each stage, including the perspectives of management, architects, and developers. Where possible, a discussion of the unintended consequences of the team’s actions will be explored with specific examples.

The massive changes in leadership, product domain, and technical domain led the team from Scrum into a period of hyper-active, burnout-inducing chaos, followed by rapid process change on a mission of providing the shortest possible lead time to the marketing team, which was learning and rapidly reassessing the table stakes for a new market. As these table stakes came into place, the team refocused on steadily and consistently providing new functionality on short order. The effort inevitably, yet painfully led to the team implementing a pull-based flow through the entire organization from marketing through all development roles and back to marketing for release and operations decisions. The first steps into what would be considered a kanban approach came when program management recognized the dangers of piling up too much work and we identified a loose WIP limit and began to focus all improvement attention on reducing friction and improving flow on behalf of the marketing team. Over time, the team’s leadership recognized the failures of “kanban” caused by partial implementation of the principles and initiated a complete implementation supported by all levels from the Director through individual contributors in every role.

Mechanics
This is a basic experience report delivered in a typical slide-supported lecture format. It will conclude with a Q&A and further discussion can be made available in the following break or in the community areas. If desired, this could be expanded to a 90 minute talk with short simulations and further explorations of the details of each transitionary process.

Timing
0: Introduction of inkubook.com and ASI, Inc
5: Explanation of business context, timing, and overall value stream
10: Overview of five variations of the processes
15: Scrum - Benefits and challenges, consequences
20: Ad hoc, called “kanban” - Benefits and challenges, consequences
25: Basic flow, called “Scrum” - Benefits and challenges, consequences
30: Advanced flow, implicit WIP - Benefits and challenges, consequences
35: Full kanban implementation - Benefits and challenges, consequences
40: Questions