Kanban Style
at
The NET-A-PORTER Group
David Lowe
THE NET-A-PORTER GROUP
"the leading fashion, media and
commerce group whose aim is to
make the world a more stylish
place through entrepreneurship,
innovation, creative thinking,
pioneering technology and
challenging the norm."
Over 500 leading designers
Ship to over 170 countries
9m visitors/month
… all 3 brands 100% online
“A tech company that sells fashion”
“For me, the even flow, the less
worrying about how long things
were going to take, and the more
attention to actually getting things
done PROPERLY, were the main
reasons to try Kanban.”
Developer
“It has revolutionised the way our
stream works: enabling us to ship
more, quicker, and give the team a
higher level of energy and purpose
around each story they tackle.”
Product Owner
“I’ve have found it far easier to get
buy in from development teams …
They like the flexibility it brings and
particularly like the focus on getting
things to done.””
“Kanban boards are better at
highlighting pain points in a team’s
processes””
“The process has been liberating.
We’re no longer bound by iteration
commitments, and so it’s easier to
be realistic about moving priorities
and delivery. If only as an exercise
for the team to redesign the way
they work, it has been worthwhile.”
“Most POs will, when asked to
prioritise work for an upcoming
sprint, reserve the right to change
anything that hasn’t been started
after planning by the team. With
Kanban, we don’t have to worry
about that affecting the team’s
ability to deliver on their sprint
commitment.”
“The flexibility of the format works
as long as you keep other measures
and check-ins in place. For example,
monitoring lead times, managing
blockers, and have regular
sizing/planning/retros in place.””
“Limited knowledge and experience
of Kanban causes nervousness … We
found it hard to get buy-in from our
PO”
“… difficult to communicate
timescales for a feature set or story,
or to build any real confidence in
the team’s ability to deliver””
“It can be tricky. Getting the team to
keep within WIP limits, swarm on
stories to get them complete, and
keep to the backlog priority can be
challenging.”
“How can we keep track of progress
for all roles?”
“How can we report progress back
to the various teams/departments?”
“How can we make sure team
members aren’t being overloaded?”
“It is a refreshing, potentially
revolutionary, way of working to
recruit more effectively”
HR