From the course: Learning Lean IT

What is pull? - ITIL Tutorial

From the course: Learning Lean IT

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What is pull?

- Here we see the definition of a pull system. Let's have a look at how they differ from push systems, what the benefits of pull systems are, and the two key concepts related to the pull system, Heijunka and Kanban. Take a look at the differences between push and pull systems. You should see a good number of parallels between the characteristics of pull systems and how DevOps teams and Cloud technologies operate. Scrum is a push system. In sprint planning, Devs push stories into the sprint queue, from a demand forecast based on consumer need, and the estimated Dev team capacity expressed in story points or available hours. Here we see the definition of Kanban. Kanban boards and cards have two functions in operations. First they instruct people to make products or to move products. The former use to is called Production Kanban, or Make Kanban. The latter use is called Withdrawal Kanban, or Move Kanban. In this example, see the pull system, Kanban, compared to Scrum. Kanban reduces the need for sprint planning since there is no queue to push into. Developers pull in stories to be worked on based on actual demand and the actually capacity of the team. That is, when a developer finishes a story, he or she pulls in the next story. Some of the many benefits to a pull system are shown here. These are some of the benefits that agile practitioners and DevOps teams aim for, and that Cloud technologies enable in IT. Here we see the definitions of Heijunka, which helps production to meet customer demands while avoiding batching, lowering inventories, capital costs, human resources, and production lead times through the value stream. An IT example is resource leveling on service desks to match staffing levels to demand levels.

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