Playing the GetKanban game

Last weekend (14th March 2020) I had the good fortune to facilitate a meet-up that was sponsored by LeanPitch and AgilityThinking.

I had earlier wanted to talk about “Jobs to be done” and to have a discussion with the group on its implications. However, I had this nagging thought that the meet-up ought to be something that people can relate to, something tangible. I realized that the GetKanban game was something I could utilize to engage a diverse group, without a ppt.

Participant were from diverse backgrounds and I was pleasantly surprised to see that we had folks from manufacturing and HR backgrounds participating as well ! It made complete sense because Kanban is inherently “business-agility” embedded.

We had a quick ice-breaker at 6 PM along with the tea/coffee and got started. The game setup and pre-brief took nearly 45 mins followed by some “hand-holding” for days 9 and 10. After that I was merely an observer and had a lot of fun watching the “team” take decisions.

This is the post game board.
Briefing by yours truly.

What I truly loved about the outcome was that, the first 30 mins participants (rather – the developers, testers, analysts) were all talking about “getting their piece of work done” , how “we need to pull in more work”, “why is work piling up” – and when they saw the impact on the “outcomes” (in this case subscribers and the $ earned) – the perspective changed completely.

This was the moment, Carlos entered the game 🙂 Almost everyone was exasperated at this point.

Since we were bound by time (had to wrap up by 9 PM), we ran the simulation upto Day 15 and decided to proceed to post-game briefing.

We briefly touched upon, Little’s Law, WIP limits and how it affects “flow”, Reading CFD diagrams, interpreting Run charts. Not much time to discuss “Work-item types” or Lead time calculations and their impact on the charts.

Overall, it was good #learningwithfun and #learningbydoing.

All pictures are from participants at the meet-up.

You can read more about the Kanban System Design program (KMP1) here. KMP2 is a slightly advanced program for Kanban practitioners who’d like to build a Kanban system of systems.

Comment / put in your queries in the comment section below, or use the “Contact us” form and I’ll get back to you at the earliest.