4. What is Kanban
Kanban in Japanese literally means “signboard” or “billboard”
• kan “visual”
• ban “card”
In manufacturing, a kanban is an “order card”
• Used to restock goods “just-in-time”
• Reduces inventory
• Improves production flow
Toyota Production System
Kanban or kanban?
5. History of Kanban
Taiichi Ohno likened the Toyota Production System to a supermarket
Production components are “pulled” by demand, rather than “pushed” by the
production rate of earlier processes
6. Why Kanban
Improved quality of work
Faster turnaround of work requests
Identification and elimination of bottlenecks
Reduction of time work spends in queues
Improved teamwork
Reduction of wasted effort
8. The Kanban Method
An incremental evolutionary change
management process geared towards changing
process
It’s about knowing what you do
Then committing to getting better at that
Doesn’t preach a systematic change
9. 5 Practices
1. Visualise your work
2. Limit WIP
3. Manage Flow
4. Explicit Policies
5. Improve Collaboratively
11. Why Visualise?
Allows you and others to see what you’re dealing with
Reduces stress
Reduces likelihood of forgetting important work items
Provides insight
Improves your ability to make good choices
• What should you work on right now?
• How much more can you commit to?
• When should you say “No” to new requests?
• What items are currently blocked?
• How long does it take new work to get done?
15. 3. Measure and Manage Flow
Don’t manage utilisation
Don’t manage how busy people are
Metrics
• Cumulative Flow Diagram
• Daily WIP
• Throughput
• Statistical Process Control Chart
16. Implementing Kanban
Don’t change anything!
1. Use your existing process, roles and responsibilities
2. Commit to change
Model your process
Identify types of work
Sketch or model the workflow
Create a card wall
Establish and visualise queues/buffers
30. Kanban Process Template
Planned In Progress Complete
Backlog Design Develop Test Closed
Active Done Active Done Active Done
Removed Work Item State
Fixed Kanban State (no queue)
Configurable Kanban State (with queue)
37. Recipe for Success
1. Focus on Quality
2. Reduce Work-in-Process
3. Deliver Often
4. Balance Demand Against Throughput
5. Prioritise
6. Attack sources of variability to improve predictability
38. Personal Kanban
2 Rules:
1. Visualise your work
2. Limit your Work in Process (WIP)
39. Setting up a Personal Kanban board
1. Gather materials
2. Establish your value stream
3. Make your backlog explicit
4. Establish a WIP Limit
5. Begin Pulling Tasks
6. Reflect
40. Personal Kanban gives us…
A Productivity Tool
• Limiting our WIP helps us accomplish more
An Efficiency Tool
• Focusing on our value stream encourages us to find ways to work smarter
while expending less effort
An Effectiveness Tool
• Making our options explicit helps us make informed decisions
41. Summary
Kanban is a lean agile system that can be used to enhance any software
development lifecycle including Scrum, XP, Waterfall and other methods.
Kanban brings the team together and helps teams collaborate
Team Foundation Server can support Kanban by modelling your process
and visualising the work
Digital Kanban brings automation and supports geo-distributed teams but
trades some flexibility
