Kanban Simulation With Dice

Learning Outcomes

This exercise provides some experience using a dice based simulation of Kanban to experience how a Value Stream flow of work and Work In Progress (WIP) Limits work together, and to discover the strategies that you and your team can use to cope with responding to change.

Prerequisites

A prerequisite for this exercise is that a Product Backlog exists with items that have been estimated with points using the Affinity Estimation technique such as at the end point of the My Sweet 16 Birthday Party exercise.

Timings

Allow 40 mins for this exercise.

Materials

• Dice, enough for tables groups to be able to throw up to 5 dice as a team
• Marker pens
• Post-it Notes

Connections

1. As a team sum up how many total points are on the Backlog of work and divide this number by 150 to indicate how many dice are needed
2. Ask the facilitator for the required number of dice to be issued to the team
3. Write on large post it notes headers called "Next (6)", "Researching (3)", "Creating (2)", "Reviewing (3)" and "Done"
4. Arrange the headers in a value stream flow in order. Note that the numbers in the "()" are the Work in Progress Limits and indicate how many tickets can be in a column at any one time.
5. Pull in the first 6 items to work on from the Backlog and place them under the "Next (6)" header

Concrete Practice

Rules

• The "Next (6)" column can be refilled at any time but can only have a maximum of 6 items in it
• To progress an item the points estimate on the item indicates the effort needed to move it to the next column. This amount is spent and deducted from the current day's effort. Items are progressed through the columns with the corresponding effort spent from the current day's effort each time until there is no more current day's effort left.
• Items that are too large to be progressed can be broken down into smaller items with new post it notes and placed in the "Next (6)" column

Steps

1. Throw the dice for the current day's effort
2. Select the an item to be worked on from the "Next (6)" column and move it to the next column to the right deducting the points estimate from the current day's effort
3. Repeat the previous step until the current day's effort reaches zero
4. Throw the dice again for the next day and repeat the process until the maximum days for the work has been reached
5. Call over the facilitator for review and discussion.

Closure

1. Reflect on the exercise with some suggested questions:
   1. What decisions did you have to make?
   2. How did this affect your understanding of what you could do within the time available?
   3. What does this tell you about having a sense of flexibility and options in the Backlog?

See Also

• Scrum Simulation With Dice
• My Sweet 16 Birthday Party