Speed up that beer!
What the Beer Delivery System in Cologne’s Pubs Can Teach Us About Kanban and Communication
Agile Humans Meetup #46, June 2, 2022
Stefan Koehler, Strukturmeister
Schedule
- Introduction (15')
- Kanban basics and exercise on systems properties (25')
- Introduction to and exercise on systems design (30')
- Actual organization in Päffgen (5')
- Wrap-up, transfer and goodbye (15')
Warm up! (5')
In your group (aka breakout room) answer the following questions and bring them back into the forum:
Have you ever tasted Kölsch?
What are your associations on Kanban?
What is Kölsch?
What is Kölsch?
It is a pale, highly attenuated, hoppy, bright (i.e. filtered and not cloudy) top-fermenting beer
Kölsch is warm fermented with top-fermenting yeast, then conditioned at cold temperatures like a lager.
Kanban is...
- a self-regulating system (via optical signals)
- a way of designing and running systems
- a way to set up systems to serve different specific purposes, like fast delivery, high troughput, maximal quality...
- a "tool" to change (and maintain) systems of any size
- about flow control
- many times uses a board for visualization ;-)
- about metrics (lead time, cycle time, idle/wait time)
System analysis
- identify the building blocks of your system
- identify the main properties, (i.e. fixed/variable, always there/sometimes there, important/marginal)
- identify the actions attached
There exists a huge difference between building and running a system!
Our environment
Our environment
Our environment
Our environment
Our environment
Our environment
System analysis: exercise (10')
On the board you will find many predefined items from within a Brauhaus.
Your task is to
1. sort the items into the given categories (fixed/variable)
2. identify critical items and explain why you think they are critical
System design
Systems are usually designed for a specific purpose
This purpose can be fast delivery, continuous flow, high quality, maximized output (or outcome), no idle time etc.
The results can be operationalized by using one or several boards and by defining the rules for operation
The system ideally "speaks", e.g. rows have an inherent meaning and the board is quite self-explanatory
System design: exercise (15')
1. Define a goal and draft a basic workflow from a waiters perspective
2. Try to figure out the start and end point for
a) cycle time (time from starting to "produce" the item, i.d. get the beer into the glass)
b) lead time (time from order to delivery)
Present your work to the forum, if you want to
Visual tokens and inherent rules in real life
Sitting down at the table means getting a beer (not negotiable)
Putting the coaster on the glass means "no more for me"
Visual tokens and inherent rules in real life
Sitting down at the table means getting a beer (not negotiable)
Putting the coaster on the glass means "no more for me"
The number of beers consumed is registered like this:
Visual tokens and inherent rules in real life
Sitting down at the table means getting a beer (not negotiable)
Putting the coaster on the glass means "no more for me"
The number of beers consumed is registered like this:
The amount of beer left is/was tracked via tokens:
Visual tokens and inherent rules in real life
Sitting down at the table means getting a beer (not negotiable)
Putting the coaster on the glass means "no more for me"
The number of beers consumed is registered like this:
The amount of beer left is/was tracked via tokens:
Ordering an "Alt" (beer from Düsseldorf) means:
I want to get kicket out immediatly!
Wrap-up
A cologne pub is designed for continuous flow of beer
It has some nice built-in tweaks, that enable said flow
Customers need to know some basic rules, though
Analysing such a system may provide useful ideas and thoughts for designing other types of systems
Thanks for being here tonight and živeli!
stefan@strukturmeister.de
