Oka_Flow Team_Flow Facilitator_Guide V1.0 2b. Oka Flow Team Facilitator Guide V1.01 20170808

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TEAM FLOW MODULE

Version 1.0

June 2017

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WELCOME

Thank you very much for acquiring Okaloa Flowlab to experience flow in a realistic but safe-to-fail

work environment!

This slide deck contains following sections that will help you understand how to best use the

material to get the most value out of Okaloa Flowlab when facilitating a workshop:

•Introduction –explaining the why and philosophy behind the simulations

•The material –overview of material included in the set

•The quick, standard and advanced simulations –background information and explanation on

how the simulations work (set-up, rules, policies); guidelines on how to introduce and debrief

the simulations

•Questions and answers –examples of typical questions participants could ask with suggested

answers, list of Q&A asked by other facilitators

•What’s next – description of the extended “Enterprise” Okaloa Flowlab set and examples of

more advanced simulations and options

•Acknowledgement

Get a first

impression

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

TEAM FLOW -OBJECTIVE

TEACHING

FLOW

THINKING

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

INTRODUCTION

Agility is a mindset. It is not a set of practices that can be installed. But how do you get out of the

practices trap, especially when you have to mobilize not just software development and IT teams

but the entire organization towards business agility where value is created through meaningful

work? How do you engage business teams, users and customers? How do you enable higher levels

of collaboration, not just within teams but also across teams? In other words, how do you get

individuals, teams and even the entire organization into a flow state where everybody is doing the

right thing at the right time by having the right conversation? Rational explanations and models of

agility will only go so far. To be truly effective, the agile mindset needs to be experienced, which is

exactly the purpose of Okaloa Flowlab.

Through simulating a conventional work environment that reflects a mechanistic mindset

characterized by a focus on resource efficiency, command and control and specialist workers,

participants experience which roadblocks need to be overcome. As the team is taking its first baby

steps into agile, they will experiment (in 2 or 3 rounds) with policies and practices (e.g. pull of work,

cadences, limiting WIP) that enable collaboration, get the team into flow, and allow an agile

mindset to emerge. Weaved into the simulations they will discover the fundamental difference

between resource efficiency and flow efficiency.

Watch our

intro video

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

SIMULATIONS, NOT A GAME

By using Okaloa Flowlab, you step into the flight simulator for experiencing and

practicing agility in a safe-to-fail environment. It differentiates itself from other

lean agile games by the fact that the focus is on learning and not on winning a

game. Okaloa Flowlab is a learning tool that should be weaved into your course

material so that practice and theory can interchange. Built on the premise that

experience must come before theory, with Okaloa Flowlab you do experiments

through board-play style simulations that reflect real work environments.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ACTIVE LEARNING

Every set of Okaloa Flowlab is played in different rounds of simulations. The standard play typically exists out

of 2 rounds of simulation. The 1st round simulates the current way of working (starting from a pre-defined

business scenario); in the 2nd (and 3rd in case of an advanced play) round, the participants will define under the

guidance of the facilitator an experiment to improve the current situation.

The goal with Okaloa Flowlab is to let participants discover a new way of thinking integrating science and

experience. Our aim is to provide a learning tool that allows participants to learn new techniques to handle

change and adaptation:

•reflective observations (Observe–Orient-Decide-Act) –after the 1st round participants will be asked to

make observations in order to analyze what impedes flow

•active experimentation (Plan-Do-Check-Adjust) –based on these observations, participants will then be

asked to define experiments and hypotheses

Action

Results

Thinking

Reflective

observation

Active

experimentation

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

1ST ROUND –REFLECTIVE OBSERVATION

OODA LOOP

Orient

Decide

Act

Observe

Unfolding

events

Implicit

guidance

Implicit

guidance

Habits, experiences and dispositions Rational choice

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

2ND ROUND –ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION

PDCA LOOP

Check

Adjust

Plan Hypothesis

Experiment

Results

Learning

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

FLOW AND CAUSAL LOOPS

Flow and organizational resilience are the foundation for business agility. Flow, in one sense, is the

creation of value through meaningful work. In another sense, it is the state that is characterized by

clear purpose, total engagement and great situational awareness. Resilience is the study of how a

system responds to a perturbation. Organizational resilience is the study of how organizations

respond to change. The essence of resilience is to understand the causal loops that keep the

system self-organizing. Causal loops can keep a system in an undesirable state, or they can keep a

system in a desirable state. They are important to understand how to bring a system from one state

to another. Flow - or the absence of flow - can be understood through a set of causal loops.

Understanding of these causal loops can help to understand how to bring people, teams or even

entire organizations into a state of flow. With Okaloa Flowlab you will be able to explore these

causal loops.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

OKALOA FLOWLAB

Because Flow must be experienced

rational

brain The rider

intuitive

brain The

elephant

Quickly iterate between theory

and practice

Engage the intuitive as well as

the rational brain

Explore current and future

way of working in a safe

environment

Watch our

intro video

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

LEARNING THROUGH SIMULATION

who has learned

the most

The winner is

not winning

Purpose is learning

to reflect on what

has been learned

Labs notes

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

OKALOA FLOWLAB APPROACH

Okaloa Flowlab is a simulation environment that forms the backbone of your own workshop(s)

whereby practice/experience comes before the theory. With Okaloa Flowlab, we are offering the

material with which you can define your own workshop. In this guide we provide two scenario’s of

how to use Okaloa Flowlab. You are welcome to produce your own slides out of this guide provided

that you respect the copyrights. Read our terms and conditions for more information.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

LEARNING GOALS FOR PARTICIPANTS

Typically you run the simulations with 3-5 people around the board (ideally 4 people and 1

person taking up the role of project coordinator or leader). You can either run 2 or 3 rounds

of simulation (i.e. quick, standard or advanced play) depending on how much time you have

and what exactly it is that you want the attendees to experience.

Quick

Play

90’

Standard

Play 3h

Advanced

Play full day

The quick play and standard play can also be

used during a coaching session; with the

advanced play you could run a full day workshop

that is tuned towards your own needs.

•Basics of flow thinking

•Understand the difference between

resource efficiency and flow efficiency

•Understand how to improve (business)

agility

•Quick play learning goals

•Flow metrics and Little’s law

•Causal loops that underlie the

organization of work

•Active learning loops (OODA and PDCA)

and doing sound experiments

•Standard play learning goals

•Additional specific learning goals that you

want to address

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ADVISED LEVELS OF EXPERTISE FOR

FACILITATION

As a facilitator of Okaloa Flowlab we expect that you are comfortable with facilitating workshops.

To run a quick play you need have experience with Scrum and/or Kanban and it is advised to have an understanding of

flow thinking. We recommend to get familiar with the work of Niklas Modig: “This is lean”.We belief that this is key in

order to be successful with using Okaloa Flowlab in your workshops. Here is a link to an introductory Ted talk of him

about “The efficiency paradox”.

For the standard play you need to be an active lean agile practitioner. You need to have decent knowledge of flow

metrics and know how to use them in practice: leadtime, CFD, Little’s Law, flow efficiency (reference work: “Principles of

Flow”, by Donald Reinertsen). We also recommend to familiarize yourself with causal loops (Systems Thinking; Peter

Senge). Furthermore, having knowledge about how to define and validate hypothesis as part of active learning

(OODA/PDCA) is required (ref. John Boyd and W. Edwards Deming).

In order to run a full day workshop (advanced play) with Okaloa Flowlab you need to be able to embed the simulation

material into your own course material whereby simulations and theory interchange with each other. This might require

the ability to tune the simulations to your own needs. In this case, we encourage you to familiarize yourselves with the

different simulations and extensions* so that you can broaden your experience and extract your own workshop

material out of it.

*e.g. quality simulation, bottleneck, and capacity allocation –will be made available Fall 2017; some variants are

developed by our contributor’s network; we encourage you to participate in that network.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ADVISED LEARNING PATH

Quick

Play

90’

Standard

Play 3h

Advanced

Play full day

Facilitator workshop

Facilitator Guide

Co-facilitation

Co- facilitation

Facilitator workshop

Online session (3h)

Custom workshop co-

creation

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ONLINE COACHING SESSION

Through our slack channel you will be able to ask questions, receive and submit feedback or simply

get in touch with us, Okaloa Flowlab beta testers and other users. At the time of purchase you

should have been invited. If this was not the case, please send an e-mail to info@okaloa.com.

In case you need more elaborated assistance, we can offer you an online on-boarding session to get

you up to speed with the material and the approach. We will explain the simulations in detail and

answer your questions regarding using the material for facilitation purposes. Typically such a

session takes up to 3-hours (Price : see website).

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

OKALOA FLOWLAB FACILITATOR’S

WORKSHOP

To become more skilled and proficient with Okaloa Flowlab, we recommend to attend one of our

facilitator’s (train-the-trainer) workshops. We will shorten the time needed for you to:

•become an experienced flow thinker,

•learn all you need to know about causal loops (systems thinking), and

•practice reflective observation and active experimentation (OODA/PDCA).

The Okaloa Flowlab facilitator workshop is run in the spirit of co-creation. Not only will you learn

from the creators of Okaloa Flowlab how to best facilitate Okaloa Flowlab, introduce and debrief

the different simulations and be creative with it, you will also be exposed to the “Enterprise set”

featuring cross-team, upstream and end-to-end flow. Participants are encouraged to jointly explore

workshop scenario’s and how to best facilitate Okaloa Flowlab workshops.

A list of facilitator’s workshops will become available after summer 2017.

Check some testimonials about the facilitator workshop.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

CO-FACILITATION

Co-facilitation is highly recommended as a means to get familiar with, or further hone your skills to

facilitate Okaloa Flowlab workshops. We recommend co-facilitation with peers as well as with

Okaloa Flowlab creators and/or contributors. In all cases you remain responsible for organizing and

marketing your workshops.

CUSTOM CO-CREATION

See slide p160.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DOMAIN INDEPENDENT

Team Flow is created such that it can be used in any business domain; the simulations

lend themselves very well to be played with diversified teams (e.g. we have good

experience with IT and business teams participating the same workshop; it stimulates

a common language and allows them to reach a mutual understanding of underlying

problems).

Check out our user testimonials and reach out

to other users for more information (use the

Okaloa Flowlab Slack channel).

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DO NOT FORGET TO READ THE

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SECTION!

Click

here

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Material used for Team Flow

simulations Back to top

✔✔✔✔✔✔

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

What is in the box

Each piece of material will be

addressed in the following

section when the mechanism

of the simulations is explained.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

What is in the box cont.

The included white board markers

contain a wipe. This wipe works

sufficient for wiping the cards.

The 2 set of blocker cards needs to be mixed

and shuffled very well (make sure that each

round they are well shuffled!).

The set includes 1 bloc note, if needed you can order

extra copies by sending e-mail to info@okaloa.com.

The blue and purple marker

appear almost the same when you

tick off work on the cards so if

possible avoid to use them

together.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Cleaning the board

If you want to keep your board clean, we recommend that after each usage

you immediately clean the board with a whiteboard cleaning kit.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Static labels

•The boards are provided as blank boards so that you can map the

different steps of any business process on it.So the participants

need to define the labels of the columns themselves. For simplicity

we are working in 2 steps A and B.

•Some would like to have a fixed labels on the board and that is

why we are experimenting with static, re-usable labels.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

TEAM FLOW IS A STARTING KIT

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUICK, STANDARD AND ADVANCED PLAY

The Team Flow set supports a quick, standard and advanced play. The

standard play is explained in the next 2 sections; for the advanced play

go to here. The major difference between quick and standard play is:

1) the level of tracking of metrics

2) the level of debriefing between the 2 rounds of simulation

Where relevant, differences will be indicated in the slides.

THE TEAM FLOW

THE STANDARD PLAY

VISUAL MANAGEMENT

Resource efficiency –round 1

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

BACKGROUND FOR ROUND 1

Organizational &

People silos

Command

& Control

Focus on

resource efficiency

•We are assuming a resource efficiency mindset

•Players and roles:

•3-5 players per boards with 1 (additional) player taking

up the role of project manager or coordinator (if not

enough players a player plays double roles);

•project manager or coordinator is a very traditional

project manager who is very focused on keeping the

team busy at all times; and has a strong command and

control mindset (he/she defines who is working on

what when).

•Team members are specialists in their domain and

work in isolation (silo thinking).

Resource efficiency =

Available work time

Actual work time

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR

CURRENT MINDSET

Introducing visual management

Set up video

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

First steps into flow

VISUALIZATION OF WORK

Read for

development Development Testing

(Work) flow

Complete

In progress Done

Incoming

solicitations

1st

interview

2nd

Interview Negotiation

(Work) flow

Contract

Requests

Open positions

Candidates

User stories

IT Application development

HR Recruiting

Team Flow is created such that it can be used in any business

domain; the simulations lend themselves very well to be

played with diversified teams

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

FOCUS ON WORK

State A State B

Items move in this direction

The board shows workflow

steps: state A and state B

These are items that are ready

for the next step in the

workflow

The board shows workflow

steps: state A and state B;

state A is subdivided in 2

states: in progress and

done.

These are work items in progress.

They have an owner.

These are items that are ready, but not

yet committed (no owner yet)

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WORK ITEMS

Work to be done in

State A.

Initials/color of owner.

This field can be used to

indicate Urgent, Fixed

date, Expedite, …

We will explain later!

Ignore these for the moment.

Work to be done in

State B.

Date for when a fixed

date item needs to be

delivered.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WORKFLOW

State A State B

Ready CompleteDone

E.g. Developing E.g. Testing

Our visualization is based on a workflow. We will show an example of

how work “normally” goes through the workflow on the board in the

next slides.

Work state Work state

Wait state

Wait state Wait state

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Starting work

WORKFLOW –DAY 1

State A State B

Ready CompleteDone

E.g. Developing E.g. Testing

Work state Work state

Wait state

Wait state Wait state

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DAY 1 –ASSIGNING WORK

State A State B

The project leader assigns work to people (at

the daily standup). Once a work item is assigned

to a team member, this team member becomes

the owner of the work item. Mark the name of

the owner on the item and move it in the in

progress column.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DAY 1 –PERFORMING WORK

State A State B

1. Throw your die

2. Tick off the work

✔✔✔✔

The die score represents variability of the

work; the number of check boxes on the cards

are the same but variability is introduced

through throwing the die.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WORKFLOW –DAY 2

State A State B

Ready CompleteDone

E.g. Developing E.g. Testing

Moving to the first “done” column

Work state Work state

Wait state

Wait state Wait state

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DAY 2 –DO MORE WORK

Immediately move items in

the “done” column when

work is finished.

✔✔✔✔✔✔

State A State B

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WORKING ON MULTIPLE ITEMS

You can tick off work on a

second item that has already

been assigned to you.

✔✔✔✔✔✔

✔✔

State A State B

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WORKFLOW –DAY 3

State A State B

Ready CompleteDone

E.g. Developing E.g. Testing

Moving to the next work state

Work state Work state

Wait state

Wait state Wait state

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DAY 3 –AUTHORIZE CONTINUATION OF

WORK

State A State B

The project leader authorizes the

continuation of work on a work item by

moving it from “Done” to “State B”

during the daily standup.

✔

✔✔✔

✔✔

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DAY 3 –WORK CONTINUES

State A State B

Work items in state B can be

worked on.

✔

✔✔✔

✔✔

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WORKFLOW –DAY 4

State A State B

Ready CompleteDone

E.g. Developing E.g. Testing

Completing work

Work state Work state

Wait state

Wait state Wait state

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DAY 4 –WORK IS FINISHED

State A State B

✔✔

✔✔✔✔

✔

✔✔✔

Immediately move items in

the “complete” column when

work is finished.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EVENT CARDS

Draw the event card at the END of each day.

The event card will give

instructions that need to be

executed at the end of the

day to the team; it is typically

the project manager that

reads them.

The number on the back of the

card gives an indication of what

day we are on.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

BLOCKER CARDS

How work gets blocked.

The event card will

indicate when a blocker

card needs to be drawn.

•In reality work can get blocked because of many reasons. When introducing blocker cards, it is good to

discuss why work gets blocked in the participants’ work environment. Reasons may include:

•Dependencies

•Technical issues

•Waiting for input

•Not clear what must be done

•Interruptions

No particular action

required. Put back at

the bottom of the

blocker cards stack.

Block the item for

which this blocker card

was drawn.

Tip for the facilitator:

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DRAWING BLOCKER CARDS

Active

Draw a blocker card for each of your “active” work items.

Put the blocker card on the work item.

Not active

Active

Blocker cards

Not active

State A State B

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

TURN BLOCKER CARDS

State A State B

Turn cards around and remove the green ones and put them

back at the bottom of the stack of blocker cards.

Blocker cards

Orange blocker cards stay

on the work item

indicating that it is

blocked.

Green blocker cards are

put aside.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

BLOCKING AND UNBLOCKING

•No work can be performed on the item as

long as it is blocked.

✔✔✔✔

Blocked item

✔

•An item can only be unblocked by

throwing a 4 or more during the normal

work-cycle.

•Remove the blocker card to unblock (and

place it back at the bottom of the stack of

blocker cards).

•No more work can be performed for the

day (die score is made void by

unblocking).

Unblocking an item

Tip: Stress to the participants that on a single

day they can either perform work or unblock

but not both at the same time.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

One team member plays the role

of coordinator who reads and

makes sure that the daily steps are

followed correctly, reads the event

cards and completes the lab notes.

TEAM MEMBERS

Assign each team

member a color.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

LANES

State A State B

Lanes can be used for

visual convenience

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

RULES –NEVER TO BE BROKEN!

1. Once ownership of a work item has been assigned, that

ownership remains unchanged until the item is finished

2. You can only throw your die once per day and use the

score to perform work

You can tick off work for the amount indicated by your

throw of die

You can tick off work from multiple work items if wanted

3. Blocked items can only be unblocked by throwing a 4 or

If you throw less than 4, then perform work on another

work item

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

POLICIES

Try to finish work as soon as possible

The team leader assigns work to the team members at the daily stand-up meeting.

Once a work item has been assigned to a team member, the team member takes ownership of

that work item

Work items can only be assigned during the stand-up

You can only work on items that have been assigned to you or that the project leader has

authorized you to work on during the stand up

Deliver work in the same order as it is started (in your lane)

Delivery rate (amount of items delivered per time period) is measured in cycles of 5 days

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

STANDARD PRIORITIES

State A State B

Keep items in your lane in the

priority that you have entered

them.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EXPEDITING URGENT ITEMS

State A State B

URGENT

Urgent items immediately bypass

all the other items when you

enter them.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EXPEDITING FIXED DATE ITEMS

State A State B

URGENT Fixed Date 10

Fixed date items may need to bypass

the urgent items in order to meet

their due date.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

PRIORITY FOR UNBLOCKING

State A State B

Fixed Date

Always give preference to unblock a

fixed date or urgent item over

working on standard items!

URGENT

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

TRACKING WORK TIME (ACTUAL EFFORT)

State A State B

✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔

✔✔

Track the work time: put a

mark on the work item(s)

that you worked on that day.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ORGANIZE THE BOARD TO GET STARTED

State A State B

Put all your work

items in the “Ready”

column

Place the events card

here (or on top of the

board)

Use one lane per

player; assign each

player a color

Shuffle and place the

blocker cards here (or

on top of the board)

We have decided for simplicity

reasons to play the simulations in

lanes (a player both performs

work in state A and state B)

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

IMPORTANT NOTES

•Start the session with 20 work items; keep the rest of the items and special

work items (e.g; fixed date items, expedite, …) separate; the event cards will

indicate when the players need to ask the facilitator for a special work item.

•In this business scenario whereby focus is on keeping everybody busy we are

going to track our timesheets; as a facilitator pay attention that every team

does this correctly.

•Use the special roster on the work item cards; we are not tracking ½

days so if a player is dividing the dice score over different work items

just tell him/her that they need to pick one of the work items

(preferable the item on which the highest score is added).

•Ask people to strictly follow this scenario; some will be temped to start

working together or will argue that this is not the way they work but ask

them to play along and to be patient. This is very important to see the

effects and learn from it.

✔✔✔✔✔✔

✔✔

Track the work time: put a

mark on the work item(s)

that you work on that day

Work time tracking is not

applicable for quick play.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DO THE FIRST DAY TOGETHER

1. Standup meeting

Decide which items to take in progress (taking ownership)

2. Perform work

Throw and process your dice

3. Take the event card of day 1

Draw a blocker card for every active work item

Put the blocker card on the resp. work item

Turn blocker cards around and remove the green ones and put them at the back of the blocker cards

stack

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

CLOSURE OF DAY 1

COMPLETING THE LAB NOTES

✔

Mark day 1 as finished. Log any exceptions such as rules or

policies that have been broken*.

*At the backside of the notes you find a

dedicated section for this.

** We noticed that completing the CFD can be confusing for some people who are not

familiar with it so make sure you explain this upfront. Ask the team members to divide

the work (the coordinator reading event cards and assigning work while another

person completes the lab notes and 3rd person handles the charts). Alternatively you

could skip this for the standard play.

Tip: mark a color to the column labels to make it more visible.

Complete the CFD** –use the 4-color

pen to draw the dots and lines.

CFD is not applicable for

quick play.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ASK IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING

QUESTIONS?

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

PLAY DAY 2 TO 5

1. Standup meeting

Assign work to the team members (team or project leader)

2. Perform work

Throw and process your dice

3. Close the day (team or project leader)

Draw an event card

Mark the day as done, complete the lab notes

Make sure that everybody has followed the rules and policies as agreed!

Every 5 days, note down the amount of work items that have been completed (= delivery rate)

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

END OF DAY 5

COMPLETING THE LAB NOTES: METRICS

Log any exceptions such as rules or

policies that have been broken.

At the backside of the notes you find a

dedicated section for this.

Complete the CFD –use the 4-color

pen to draw the dots and lines.

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 2 9

Mark throughput and work

items in progress at the end of

day 5.

Mark delivery rate (items that have

been completed in this cycle) and

work items in progress (WIP) at the

end of day 5.

CFD is not applicable for

quick play.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

PLAY DAY 6 TO 10

1. Standup meeting

Assign work to the team members (team or project leader)

2. Perform work

Throw and process your dice

3. Close the day (team or project leader)

Draw an event card

Mark the day as done, complete the lab notes

Make sure that everybody has followed the rules and policies as agreed!

Every 5 days, note down the amount of work items that have been completed (= delivery rate)

Play 1 more cycle of 5 days:

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ESTIMATION FOR REQUEST 1

At day 7 the players will be asked to make an estimate

for Request 1; use the dedicated roster on the lab

notes for this (same for request 2 during round 2 of

the advanced play).

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

END OF DAY 10

COMPLETING THE LAB NOTES: METRICS

Log any exceptions such as rules or

policies that have been broken.

At the backside of the notes you find a

dedicated section for this.

Complete the CFD –use the 4-color

pen to draw the dots and lines.

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 2 9

Mark throughput and work

items in progress at the end of

day 5.

Mark delivery rate (items that have

been completed in this cycle) and

work items in progress (WIP) at the

end of day 5.

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ 315

✔

CFD is not applicable for

quick play.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DEBRIEFING APPROACH

The following slides serve as background information to facilitate the debriefing session

The debriefing is typically done in the following steps;

1. Observations and problem analysis by participants in their teams

Where are we in the OODA loop?

What are good observations?

Identifying causal loops!

2. Sharing the observations and analysis

3. Interpretation by facilitator

Calculating the lead time to demonstrate the use of Little’s Law (CAUTION: boundary conditions may not

hold)

Calculating flow efficiency to establish how realistic the simulation is (flow efficiency of the simulation

should be around 10-15%)

4. Summary and preparation for the next round

Summarizing the root causes and their effects

Options to improve

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

REFLECTIVE OBSERVATION

The OODA loop

Orient

Decide

Act

Observe

Unfolding

events

Implicit

guidance

Implicit

guidance

Habits, experiences and dispositions Rational choice

What do you see? Do you see flow?

What impedes flow? Analyze what

is happening.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

MAKING OBSERVATIONS

Observations

What do you see?

Observations are not opinions!

Observations are not actions!

Look for impediments

What impedes flow?

What impedes fulfilling customer expectations?

What impedes giving answers to questions such as: “when will it be done?”

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

IDENTIFYING CAUSAL LOOPS

Gaining a deeper understanding by analyzing causal

relations by looking at the parts AND the whole.

Tip: Participants can use their favorite problem analysis technique to analyze the problem (e.g. five why’s).

Participants however gain most insights when they look for causal loops (the above figure shows an example). In

the simulation, look for the causal loops between blockers and WIP; predictability and “urgent” work (see also

slides: “A vicious feedback loop” and “Low liquidity”).

Identifying causal loops

is not applicable for

quick play.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WHAT DO WE SEE?

State A State B

Gaps in the flow. Work items are

at extreme ends of the board.

Delivery rate is low and

variable (despite that

everybody was 100% busy).

Many work items in progress.

Many items blocked.

A lot of wait time (long lead

times compared to touch

time).

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Lead times are dominated by wait times

WAIT TIME

Lead time (duration)

Work time

(actual effort)

Wait time

Ready

State A

Done

State B

Complete

Work is mainly waiting as work in progress (WIP).

Large WIP and long lead times result in low flow efficiency.

Blocked Queuing Queuing Queuing

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

TOUCH TIME VS. LEAD TIME

Have a discussion about flow efficiency (use flip chart)

•Calculate the leadtime using Little’s Law

•Calculate



2 8 3 15 3



During the debriefing session of round 1

calculate together with the group the

average time spent on an item (touch-

time).

Delivery rate = WIP

Leadtime

(make sure to use the values of 1 day and not 10 days)

0,5 (5 items over 10 days)

Leadtime = WIP

Delivery

rate

Use this formula to explain

that the simulation is

reflecting quite a realistic

situation.

In most simulations flow efficiency will be

around 10% which is compared to reality quite a

good result (in the Kanban community people

report often about flow efficiency <10%).

Flow efficiency = Touch-time

Leadtime

10%

The facilitator may point out to the participants that

strictly speaking the boundary conditions for Little’s Law

may not hold for the simulation as the system is trending.

Calculations are not

applicable for quick play.

Calculations are not

applicable for quick play.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WHAT ARE THE ROOT CAUSES?

Command &

Control

Specialist

workers

Keep the

hands busy

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Ideas Ready

for Dev

Development Testing Ready

for UAT Done

ongoing done

Abandoned

EFFICIENCY MINDSET

Resource efficiency = Actual work time / Available work time

The large work-in-progress (WIP) is the result of the focus on

resource efficiency (keeping resources busy).

Traditional management often explicitly or implicitly

focuses on resource efficiency.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

CAUSAL LOOPS

For the standard and advanced play you should be able, as a Okaloa Flowlab facilitator,

to explain the causal loops shown on the next page and at the end of round 2 (p 106).

It is not a necessity that you use these slides but at least you need to address these

loops because providing that level of inside is key for running a successful Okaloa

Flowlab workshop. You can reach out to us in case you want to acquire a deeper

understanding about this.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Liquidity

Efficiency

WIP Blocked work

Starting work

Finishing work

Idle timeExpedited work

Joint

work Induced work

Lead time

predictability

Resource

efficiency

Liquidity is the ability to meet obligations

when they come due without incurring

unacceptable losses.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

NO FLOW

Started work

Finished work

W I P

Lead time

time

#work items

Delivery rate

Lead time

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

The OODA loop

REFLECTIVE OBSERVATION

Orient

Decide

Act

Observe

Unfolding

events

Implicit

guidance

Implicit

guidance

Habits, experiences and dispositions Rational choice

What would you like to see?

What options can you explore?

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ADDITIONAL DEBRIEFING TIPS

General observations coming from participants

Difference in performance in team

A lot of blocked items

Long leadtimes

Little collaboration to finish work

Urgent items jump the queue causing the WIP to increase

Hard to predict when something will be finished

Ask the participants if this resembles their reality

Some will say it does not sound realistic while others recognize their situation very well in this simulation

Blocking usually means that they are waiting for somebody else; or that they are called away so that their work is waiting

Explain that being called away means that extra effort is needed to restart your own work (which is the same as the effort

needed to unblock)

To explain this is important to give the audience the feeling that these simulations are realistic (in most cases people follow this

reasoning but keep in mind that you can always have exceptions in the audience so make sure that this does not distract you).

Have a discussion about rationale behind urgent items

Since it is hard to predicate when an item is going to be finished, we make items urgent because that gives us the comfort that it

will get the attention and hopefully will be delivered then

Ask them to predict the average leadtime (let them make a predication based on their experience with the current simulation)

Do the Little’s Law exercise (see next slide)

While resource efficiency is 100% (everybody was constantly busy –that is if the project manager did his planning well), the flow

efficiency is typically 10% during this simulation

See exercise on next slide

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EXAMPLE OF TYPICAL BOARD AFTER ROUND 1

LIMITING WIP

Flow efficiency - round 2

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

WIP LIMITS

State A (3) State B (3)

Limiting Work In

Progress (WIP) to 3

items in this column.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

RESPECTING WIP LIMITS

State A (3) State B (3)

✔

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

RESPECTING WIP LIMITS

State A (3) State B (3)

✖

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

RESPECTING WIP LIMITS

State A (3) State B (3)

✖

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

OR USE A CONWIP

State A State

Limiting Work In Progress to 4 items

total in State A and B together.

(4)

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

SPECIALIST WORKERS / HANDOVER COST

State A State B

If you work on an item that is not

owned by you, then halve your

die score and round up (e.g. 3

becomes (3+1)/2 = 2)

✔✔✔✔✔✔

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ADDITIONAL RULES

1. If you work on an item that is not owned by you, then halve your die score and round up

(e.g. 3 becomes (3+1)/2 = 2)

2. You can unblock someone else by throwing 3 or more

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

POLICIES

Try to finish work as soon as possible

Only start work when capacity allows it (respect the Work In Progress limits)

If you cannot do any work, then help someone else to unblock or perform work

If you throw 3 or more, unblock someone else if you can

Otherwise adjust your die score to (die score + 1)/2 and do work assigned to another person

Throughput (amount of items delivered per time period) is measured in periods of 5 days

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

THE PDCA loop

ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION

Check

Adjust

Plan

We believe that

Will achieve

Hypothesis

Experiment

Results

Learning

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

FORMULATE A HYPOTHESIS

Policy

Expectation

Why?

Limiting WIP to ?

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

INSTRUCTIONS - ROUND 2

1. Start from empty board; let the teams clear the board and work items.

2. Make sure that the set with blocker cards is shuffled very well.

3. As a facilitator collect all the special work items again.

4. Let the teams start with a new lab note sheet and ask to complete the estimates for

their new hypothesis.

5. Start again with event cards day 1 to 10.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ESTIMATION FOR ROUND 2

Estimate what the outcome of round 2 will be so that

at the end of round 2 you can validate your

hypothesis.

At day 7 you will be asked to give an

estimate for Request 1 –complete

your estimates here.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

CAPTURING LEAD TIME

System lead time

•Mark the start date when

you take ownership of a

work item

•Mark the end date when

you move a work item into

“complete”

Lead time = End –Start + 1

We are no longer interested in

touch-time so STOP tracking

work time!

Tracking of lead time can

be omitted in quick play.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EACH DAY COMPLETE THE CHARTS

ON THE LAB NOTES

Add a mark of the occurrence of the

lead time for each completed work item.

complete the CFD –use the 4-color pen

to draw the dots and lines.

Mark the

lead time on the control chart of the items

that have been finished that day.

Charts are not

applicable for quick play.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

FACILITATOR TIPS

It is good to have different teams choosing different WIP limits to be able to compare

We recommend for the purpose of the simulations to work with CONWIP (since we are

working lane and not column oriented)

When people are absolutely not familiar with pull systems, Kanban or anything alike you

might expect resistance and heavy discussion on the WIP number. Just let the team start

with a number and leave it open to change it during the round.

During the play you could have a discussion with each team individually about starting

dates of urgent items

At day 2, 5 urgent work items need to be started

What will be the starting date in this round with adjusted policies? Is it when it is requested by

the client, or when the team starts working on it?

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

PLAY DAY 1 TO 10

1. Standup meeting

Review the board

Every 2 days: Do not forget to replenish the “Selected” column

2. Perform work

Throw and process your dice

If needed pull in new work items from the “Selected” column

3. Close the day (team or project leader)

Draw an event card

Mark the day as done

Make sure that everybody has followed the rules and policies as agreed!

Every 5 days, note down the amount of work items that have been completed (= throughput)

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Play 2 cycles of 5 days (10 days in total)

Perform the following daily steps:

1. Throw and process your die (each team member)

Unblock one of your items (when you throw 4 or more),

or perform work,

or take ownership of a new item if WIP limits allow it (!!)

or if you have no other option

unblock another player’s item (when you throw 2 or more),

or perform work for another player (with adjusted die score)

Raise your hand (so that other team members know that your day is finished)

2. Close the day (team or project leader)

Draw an event card (team or project leader)

Mark the day as done

Make sure that everybody has followed the rules and policies as agreed!

Every 5 days, note down the amount of work items that have been completed (= delivery rate)

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

THE PDCA loop

ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION

Check

Adjust

Plan

Has your hypothesis been

validated or invalidated?

Hypothesis

Experiment

Results

Learning

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

OBSERVATIONS

What do you observe?

Does it validate or invalidate your hypothesis?

How do the causal relationships now compare with the previous round?

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DEBRIEFING TIPS

In case of the standard play, you should stress in the debriefing that limiting WIP is a step

by step process, but in the simulation it is done in one go!

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Liquidity

Efficiency

WIP Blocked work

Starting work

Finishing work

Idle timeExpedited work

Joint

work Induced work

Resource

efficiency

Flow efficiency

Lead time

predictability

Resource

efficiency

Liquidity is the ability to meet

obligations when they come due

without incurring unacceptable

losses.

Back to p 79

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

OUTCOME

Lead time

time

Collaboration to finish work

Fast feedback with short

lead times

#work items

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EXAMPLE OF TYPICAL BOARD AFTER ROUND 2

THE TEAM FLOW

ADVANCED PLAY

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

INSTRUCTIONS

An advanced play exists out of 3 rounds of simulation:

•Start round 1 as in the standard play –only difference you could introduce here is asking people to enter

‘Start’ day so that you can collect lead time metrics starting in Day 20.

•Rather than immediately go to the improvements suggested by round 2 of the standard play (i.e. WIP

limits), the approach for this advanced play is to do a range of experiments that should lead to more

realistic improvements. We will do the experiments “starting from where we are now” (so boards will not

be cleared like in the standard play but we continue from the current situation).

•As an intermediate step we will first experiment with changing policies like pulling work, cadences etc.

(round 2 of advanced play) and gradually move towards more collaboration and limiting WIP (round 3 of

advanced play, see round 2 of the standard play).

•For this version of the simulation you play 30 days (continue with the event cards):

•Round 1: play day 1 to 10

•Round 2: play day 11 to 20

•Round 3: play day 21 to 30

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

IMPORTANT NOTES

•The lab notes contain placeholders to complete 30 days so let the participants continue to

complete their findings on the same lab note sheet.

•Since we continue the play starting form the existing board, tell people to focus on collaboration

to make sure that they achieve their target WIP a.s.a.p. (and while they are doing this they will

already start to finish work).

•In some cases people will already suggest to collaborate and/or limit WIP for round 2; since it is

the goal to demonstrate a more realistic, evolutionary approach with this advanced play, you

should challenge whether it is really realistic to jump immediately from no collaboration to

collaboration and limiting WIP just like that. You could instruct - before the start of round 2 - one or

more persons in the teams to “refuse” to collaborate (role play style).

LET`S PLAY

Cadence –round 2 of advanced play

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

INPUT QUEUE

State A State B

Items that are ready to be worked

on by the team.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

PULL

State A State B

In a pull system, work is

not assigned; but

workers pull work when

they have capacity.

PULL PULL

Work is not assigned; but workers

pull work when they have capacity.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

DEFERRED COMMITMENT

State A State B

After the commitment point, we are

committed to finish the work without

delay.

Commitment point

All work remains optional before the

commitment point.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

REPLENISHMENT

State A State B

The input queue is replenished

from a pool of non-committed

work items (aka options)

Replenishment

All other work items (that are not yet

selected) remain in a queue outside the

board.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

CADENCE

State A State B

Replenishment can be on-demand (very agile) or

with a regular cadence (e.g. weekly).

Replenishment

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

CLASSES OF SERVICE

State A State B

Pull decisions are guided by “classes of service”.

PULL

FIXED DATE

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EXAMPLE

Cost of delay

will be pulled immediately by a

qualified resource

will be pulled based on risk

assessment (delivering on time)

will use first in, first out (FIFO)

queuing approach to prioritize pull

will be pulled through the system

in an ad hoc fashion

Urgent

Important

INTANGIBLE

STANDARD

FIXED DATE

EXPEDITE

cost of delay may be significant

but is not incurred until much

later

cost of delay is shallow but

accelerates before leveling out

cost of delay goes up significantly

after deadline

critical and immediate cost of

delay

Cost of delay Policy

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

POLICIES

Try to finish work as soon as possible

Workers pull work when they have free capacity

Work is pulled according to their class of service and the associated policies that have

been agreed with the customer

The “Selected” column is replenished every 2 days

Specific classes of service may lead to immediate replenishment when agreed with the customer

and the team

Throughput (amount of items delivered per time period) is measured in cycles of 5 days

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

TRACKING SYSTEM LEAD TIME

System lead time

We can now start tracking

system lead time

•Mark the start date when

you select a work item

•Mark the end date when

you move a work item into

“complete”

Lead time = End –Start + 1

Selected

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

STOP TRACKING WORK TIME

State A State B

✔✔✔✔✔✔✔✔

✔✔

STOP tracking work time!

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EACH DAY COMPLETE THE CHARTS

ON THE LAB NOTES

Add a mark of the occurrence of the

lead time for each completed work item.

complete the CFD –use the 4-color pen

to draw the dots and lines.

Mark the

lead time on the control chart of the items

that have been finished that day.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

THE PDCA loop

ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION

We believe that

Will achieve

Check

Adjust

Plan Hypothesis

Experiment

Results

Learning

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

FORMULATE A HYPOTHESIS

Class of service

Policy

Expectation

Why?

Expedite

Fixed date

Urgent

Standard

Policy

Expectation

Why?

Pull work

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

PLAY DAY 11 TO 15

1. Standup meeting

Review the board

Every 2 days: Do not forget to replenish the “Selected” column

2. Perform work

Throw and process your dice

If needed pull in new work items from the “Selected” column

3. Close the day (team or project leader)

Draw an event card

Mark the day as done

Make sure that everybody has followed the rules and policies as agreed!

Every 5 days, note down the amount of work items that have been completed (= throughput)

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

THE PDCA loop

ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION

Check

Adjust

Plan

Has your hypothesis

been validated or

invalidated?

Hypothesis

Experiment

Results

Learning

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

FACILITATOR TIPS

Note that in some cases the WIP will decrease in this round while for other teams it might

even increase

In reality, when teams are taking baby steps towards improvement, but notice the opposite

effect, they might jump to the conclusion the agile isn’t working

The real reason for this are the long queues that sustain themselves; that issue is often not

addressed as is this case in this first cycle of 5 days of this round; addressed in the next 5 days

Tell the participants to move all the items that are not worked on or that are not urgent back to

the ready or input column (i.e. all blocked and other items already in the active state for a longer

time but with no activity at the moment); let them clear all the work on those items;

This one-off intervention will now improve the situation

Let’s continue with the next 5 days

Participants should as of now start seeing progress

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

PLAY DAY 16 TO 20

1. Standup meeting

Review the board

Every 2 days: Do not forget to replenish the “Selected” column

2. Perform work

Throw and process your dice

If needed pull in new work items from the “Selected” column

3. Close the day (team or project leader)

Draw an event card

Mark the day as done

Make sure that everybody has followed the rules and policies as agreed!

Every 5 days, note down the amount of work items that have been completed (= throughput)

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

THE PDCA loop

ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION

Check

Adjust

Plan

Has your hypothesis been

validated or invalidated?

Hypothesis

Experiment

Results

Learning

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

MAKING OBSERVATIONS

What do you observe?

Does it validate or invalidate your hypothesis?

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

CONVERGING TOWARDS FLOW

Lead time

time

#work items

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EXAMPLE

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

THE PDCA loop

ACTIVE EXPERIMENTATION

Check

Adjust

Plan

How do you suggest to further

adjust? What new options can

we explore?

Hypothesis

Experiment

Results

Learning

LIMITING WIP

Flow efficiency - round 3 of advanced play

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

INSTRUCTIONS - ROUND 3

Go to round 2 of the standard play for further instructions

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ESTIMATION FOR ROUND 3

Estimate what the outcome of round 3 will be so that

at the end of round 3 you can validate your

hypothesis.

At day 22 you will be asked to give an

estimate for Request 2 –complete

your estimates here.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 1

•Q: How many hours should I plan for a Team Flow simulation?

•A:The introductory simulation with round 1 (resource efficiency) and round 2 of the

standard play (flow efficiency) can be done in 90 minutes if you stick to the bare minimum.

It can take up to 3 hours if you do an elaborate debriefing. In case of the advanced play you

should make it a full day workshop including elaborate debriefing interchanging with some

theory.

Example of what other partners experienced:

•Round1 of Team Flow: 1 hour = explanation of the simulation + doing the

simulation with 3 teams + 10-12 min debrief; Round2 (standard): 25 min = doing

the simulation + 5 min debrief

•The team flow simulation took about 2 hours for two teams of 4 and 5

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 2

Q: I start with 4 people; the project leader assigns 1 ticket to each player and puts the tickets in

State A, then, immediately selects another 4 tickets, assigns 1 ticket to each player and puts

them in Ready state. Is that correct?

A: Partially correct and partially not correct. Once a ticket is assigned, it is put into State A; the

rest of the work items is put in the Ready column (the Ready column contains the entire

backlog). In the first round there is no notion of “deferred commitment” yet as work is

assigned by the project leader. It is up to the project leader to decide how many items to

assign. Strictly speaking, for the first day he only needs to assign one work item per person as

there is no risk of idle time yet.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 3

Q:As of day 2, the project leader can select at the beginning of the day, whatever he wants

only from the stack with standard tickets and not from the stack with the special work items

such as urgent, expedite and fixed date because those ticket can only be added through the

event cards. Is that correct?

A: Yes that is correct. To make sure that the project leader does not assign those special work

items randomly it is advised that you as facilitator keep them aside.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 4

Q:The project leader should be proactive and assign more (enough) items to people to avoid

that die points are lost, he should be in the mindset "What if all the players throw a 6, what are

the options then? I don't want to lose points of the dice”, is that correct? With that thinking I

usually finish first 5 days with a WIP of 18.

A: That is correct, and yes it is possible that after 5 days you have such large WIP.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 5

•Q:At the end of day 2, I should pickup blocked cards, should I pick cards for the 4 new

urgent items that I are added at the end of the day?

•A: Yes indeed; we on purpose added the new urgent items to the board before the blocker

cards are drawn .

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 6

•Q:Is it correct that we are tracking the "work time” every day to calculate the Flow

Efficiency at the end of the simulation?

•A: Yes indeed if you play the standard or advanced play.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 7

Q:If I try to unblock a ticket, and I throw only a 2 with my die, then I can use that score on

another ticket (assigned to me and unblocked of course). Is that correct ?

A: Yes that is correct.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 8

Q:If I throw a 6 with my die, and I have an URGENT ticket in State A that needs only 3, can I

mark those, and use the other 3 points on another item that is assigned to me, even if that

item is not URGENT, and in State B?

A: Yes.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 9

Q: The Blue worker has one standard ticket blocked, one ticket urgent and one ticket with a

fixed date. This worker now throws a 6, what should the Blue worker do first: work on fixed

date or unblock the standard one? If I prioritize fixed date over a standard blocked one, then at

the end of day 15 there will be many tickets blocked since the end of day 1...

A: That is exactly the point here in this round.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 10

Q:In the second round, we mark start date when the ticket is on State A. Is that correct?

A: That is correct. In the second round work is pulled by team members. When a team

member pulls a work item in State A, the start date is marked on the work item.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 11

•Q: Why do we track working time in round1 and why do we stop tracking it in round 2?

•A:We use the working time to calculate flow efficiency to show that, although we work

100%, we have a low flow efficiency; in round 2 we stop tracking because we realise that

this is not an interesting measurement; we want people to realise that lead time is more

important.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 12

•Q: Why don’t we use the Histogram and Control chart in the first round , why don’t we

already use leadtime in the first round?

•A: Although you may decide differently for your own simulations, there are multiple

reasons why we recommend not to track lead time in the first round:

•it is a bit easier for the participants to get started;

•it gives you as a facilitator the opportunity to show how you can calculate the lead

time using Little’s law –see calculation touch vs. lead time (slide 75);

•It is more in line with the background of round 1: a resource efficiency focussed

organisation would typically track effort but not lead times

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 13

Q: In the first round I worked with 4 people (4 dice), now that the limit is only 3 on the first

day, we still work with 4 people, so I assume that one ticket is being worked on by 2 people,

but only one of them takes ownership so that the second person can only apply half of the

points, is that correct?

A: That is correct but note that the CONWIP of 3is just an example; teams can choose what

they feel up to.In a more advanced play you can encourage participants to come up with their

own rules for collaboration that better represent the type of collaboration that would be

possible in their own work environment.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 14

Q: If I have a ticket in state A that has only one point left, and I throw a 6, can I use those 6

points as follows: mark the one point left on the ticket in State A, then I move the ticket to

state B and mark 5 points of state B on the same ticket?

A:In the second round you can do that because we are now in a pull system; in round one

participant cannot do this since it is a push system whereby the project leader had to decide at

the daily standup who will work on what item meaning that items finished in State A first need

to go to a wait state (=the done column of State A) before they can move to the next state the

next day if the project leader would decide during the standup meeting that you should work

on it.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 15

•Q: Are participants allowed in round 2 of the standard play to share their points with others

although they could work on their own items? Common observation: some just start

looking for most effective ways to distribute the point of everybody during the daily. In

terms of simulation, it's a policy right? So they could change it?

•A: When we do a standard simulation, we allow to do this. It gives the maximum result, but

then it may not represent reality. Especially the fact that people would go from no

collaboration to almost swarming in one big evolutionary step. We deliberately designed

the advanced version (30 days) to have something that is more realistic. We suggest to

participant to come up with their own rules for collaboration that better represent the type

of collaboration that would be possible in their own work environment.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 16

•Q:The confusing bit happened when my team who knows Kanban, got themselves all tied

into a knot when during the WIP simulation they were asked to take ownership of a

number of cards as instructed on day 2 or 11.The WIP limits did not allow for it , and we

went round in circles until we read the instructions again that showed that the start date

gets filled in when ownership is "assigned". We did this and left the cards in the left most

column until there was capacity to pull it in.The clock therefore started ticking (a

commitment was made by the assignment), but the card had to wait for capacity to free up

in the "in progress" side. How to handle this situation correctly?

•A:The card says indeed that you need to assign cards. In round 1, this is in line with the

mindset of command and control. In round 2 (3), most people get a bit confused. That is

intentional. It is an opportunity for discussion. Of course, when you have WIP limits, these

new cards cannot be assigned. They get prioritised in the “Ready” column. This is a good

opportunity to discuss why prioritisation needs to happen before the commitment point.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 17

•Q: Looking at the event cards, it seems that 5 is the optimal number of players? e.g. day 11

introducing 5 urgent ones is really tough for just 3 players?

•A: If there are less than 5 players in a team there is discussion on who will pick up what but

that us just perfect during the simulation.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

QUESTION 18

•Q:In round 1 it says:”Track the work time: put a mark on the work item(s) that you worked

on during that day”. Does this mean on any active cards at that day, or only on those that

you have been using die points or have unblocked?

•A:The latter; only those that really have been worked on.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

FEEDBACK FROM BETA TESTER

•In this guide we introduced prioritization rules but some other facilitator like the ‘surprise’

factor of what to do with the urgent request. Here’s a quote of one of the beta testers: “It is

a kind of surprise that is commonly used in training session in which participants think they

need to ‘do something’, but in fact this is a trigger for behaviour that is the actual focus

point of training. So in this case it is the realization that simple rules (policies) can replace

lengthy team discussions.”

•Tracking the waste really was a valuable addition; we asked the team lead to keep track of

the dice value that could not be used and thus was wasted. This happens when the team

lead isn't proactive enough to ensure every team member has something to do.

Advantages of the experiment: Waste/Slack points are easy to track, Motivates team leads

in round 1 to make sure energy does not get wasted, Learning of value of Slack time

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

FEEDBACK FROM BETA TESTER CONT.

•“Using causal loop diagram on WIP, TP, LT, collaboration and blockages, and which

parameters is the one that can be controlled best works really great when briefing

the learnings!!”

•Team flow simulation with a team of process managers that pretend to work

already for 1,5 years in an agile way. Timeframe was 2,5h - in this case just enough

time for participants to reflect on learnings, although definitely too less time to

give some background or further elaborate on questions or concepts?

General feedback: great simulation! Nice material and nice way to guide

participants through a journey to get insights ... Participants (senior profiles & lean

six sigma blank belts) got an 'aha' effect that for me shows again the strengths of

the Flowlab.

WHAT’S NEXT

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

EXAMPLES OF EXTENSIONS AND

ADDITIONAL SIMULATIONS

The Team flow set contains a basic simulation that can be played in 2or 3 rounds (standard or

advanced play). On top of this, we and some of our partners, have developed extensions or

additional simulations. These simulations will be made available to you soon (some through online

platform, for others additional physical material need to be acquired –more information will be

communicated to you after summer 2017).

•Overview of current set of extensions

1. Quality simulation: showing the effect of limiting WIP on quality of work.

2. Bottleneck simulation: showing how to address the issue of a bottleneck worker in a

team.

3. Extended set of event cards created by Susanne Bartel to be used for LKU KMPI training

4. Extended set of event cards created by Andreas Bartel to address the topic of capacity

allocation (LKU KMPI training)

Other beta testers are also experimenting with other extensions, so more to follow

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

CUSTOM DEVELOPED SIMULATIONS

For some of our corporate clients we have developed specific simulations to address specific

issues they are facing, e.g. simulation to show the impact of feature versus component teams.

Feel free to contact us to see if we can help you with your (client) challenges and co-

customize a workshop with you.

Back to intro

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Creating value through meaningful work

FOCUS ON ENTERPRISE FLOW

DELIVERY

DEMAND

The additional set of simulations to

experience enterprise flow will become

available Q4 2017.

ENTERPRISE VERSION - EXTENDED SET OF OKALOA FLOWLAB SIMULATIONS

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

testimonials

FACILITATOR WORKSHOP

“Just finished a 2 days coach the coach session

about flowlab coaching and facilitation with

Patrick and some peers. It was exciting every

second of the 2 days. Gained so many deep

insights that I will need some time to digest it. A

must for everyone!”

Wim Bollen

“Still digesting the vast amount of

insights and knowledge gained during

the first Okaloa Flowlab facilitator

workshop ! “

Vincent Pattyn

“Intense two days indeed! And that was because it was so much more

than just a FlowLab facilitators training. We didn't just learn some

new simulations, we actually deepened our understanding of the

intricate underlying models that go way beyond the basic simulations.

Personally I think these kind of workshops (and even more than one)

should be mandatory in order to be allowed to use the FlowLabs

quality mark in your trainings/workshops. A very big thanks to Arlette

and Patrick for creating the right context in the past 2 days for us to

learn and grow. “

Kris Philippaerts

“The more I digest, the more I realize just how much I learned about,

flow, options and system causal loop diagrams in agile

transformations. Best learning: which aspects can you directly

influence? Or what actions in the causal loop you can directly

manipulate in order to have a leverage? “

Arno Korpershoek

Back to Intro

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

OKALOA FLOWLAB NETWORK

To maintain high quality of Okaloa Flowlab workshop facilitation and further development of

Okaloa Flowlab it is the intention to create an Okaloa Flowlab network that could connect through

an online dedicated platform to stimulate collaboration (future plan).

Registered

Okaloa

Flowlab

workshop

participant

Okaloa Flowlab

Partner

Okaloa Flowlab

Facilitator

Okaloa Flowlab

Contributor

The core of the network; participants

that value the experience and learning

by doing the simulations are invited to

connect to the network (modalities to

be discussed).

Facilitator that is endorsed by the

network*:

•proven experience with successfully

facilitating Okaloa Flowlab workshops

(as witnessed by the number of

registered participants connected in

the network), and

•co-facilitation with Okaloa Flowlab

founder + other Okaloa Flowlab

facilitator or participation in an Okaloa

Flowlab facilitation workshop.

Everybody who purchased Team flow

and uses the material to facilitate their

own workshops.

Substantial contribution to the

development of Okaloa Flowlab

through development of additional

simulations based on existing material;

additional material; or contributions

that further develop the Okaloa Flowlab

network (modalities to be discussed).

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

We like to thank our beta testers and partners for their valuable feedback,

support and active contributions:

•Rob Maher (NZ)

•Karl Fuchs (ZA)

•Brad Hughes (US)

•Vincent Pattijn (BE)

•Gabe Abella (US)

•Adam Hsu (US)

•Arno Korpershoek (NL)

•Vincent Vanderheeren (BE)

•Kris Philippaerts (BE)

•Jeronimo Palacios (ES)

•Steve McGee (US)

•Teodora Bozheva (ES)

•Infosys (IN)

•Jan Dirk Hogendoorn (NL)

•Wim Bollen (BE)

•Susanne and Andreas Bartel (DE)

•Scrumtrek (RU)

•IT-Agile (DE)

•Koen De Keersmaecker (BE)

•Jerzy Stawicki (PL)

•Florian Eisenberg (DE)

•Ivan Gonzales (PE)

Special thanks to Adam Hsu and Gabe Abella for reviewing this guide and contribution to the

network, Wim Bollen for contributing to the network, and Susanne and Andreas Bartel for their

work on creating extended sets of event cards for LKU KPMI training courses.

Facilitator’s Guide – Team Flow v1.0

Thank you

Stay in touch!

@okaloaflowlab

A tweet about Okaloa Flowlab would be

much appreciated.

patrick.steyaert@okaloa.com

arlette.vercammen@okaloa.com

Oka_Flow Team_Flow Facilitator_Guide V1.0 2b. Oka Flow Team Facilitator Guide V1.01 20170808

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