The document introduces the Kanban method for process and systems change. It describes Kanban as a way to organize workflow by prioritizing work and uncovering problems. Kanban involves four principles - start with the current process, pursue incremental changes, respect existing roles and responsibilities, and encourage leadership at all levels. It also involves five properties - visualize the workflow, limit work-in-progress, manage the flow of work, make policies explicit, and improve collaboratively. The overall goal of Kanban is continuous improvement of workflow through small, evolutionary changes agreed upon by consensus.

1. INTRODUCTION
TO KANBAN

2. What is Kanban?
The Kanban Method is an approach to incremental,
evolutionary process and systems change for
organizations
● A way to organize the chaos that surrounds so many
delivery teams by making the need for prioritization and
focus clear.
● A way to uncover workflow and process problems so you
may solve them in order to deliver more consistently to
your customer

3. Why is Kanban Right for Us?
Stop Starting and Start Finishing!
● Kanban has 9 things you need to know.
● They are broken down into four basic
principles (how you need to think) and five
properties (what you need to do)
Source: http://www.everydaykanban.com/what-is-kanban/

4. Kanban Principles: How You Should Think
Start with what
you do now
Agree to pursue
incremental,
evolutionary change
Respect the current
process, roles,
responsibilities
Encourage acts
of leadership at
all levels

5. Kanban Principles: How You Should Think
Start with what
you do now
The Kanban method does not
prescribe a certain setup or
procedure. You can overlay
Kanban properties on top of
your existing workflow. This
makes it very easy to begin as
you do not have to make
sweeping changes.

6. Kanban Principles: How You Should Think
Start with what
you do now
The Kanban method does not
prescribe a certain setup or
procedure. You can overlay
Kanban properties on top of
your existing workflow. This
makes it very easy to begin as
you do not have to make
sweeping changes.
Agree to pursue
incremental,
evolutionary change
The Kanban method is an approach to
change management that is designed
to meet minimal resistance.
Therefore it encourages continuous
small incremental and evolutionary
changes to your current system.

7. Kanban Principles: How You Should Think
Start with what
you do now
The Kanban method does not
prescribe a certain setup or
procedure. You can overlay
Kanban properties on top of
your existing workflow. This
makes it very easy to begin as
you do not have to make
sweeping changes.
Agree to pursue
incremental,
evolutionary change
The Kanban method is an approach to
change management that is designed
to meet minimal resistance.
Therefore it encourages continuous
small incremental and evolutionary
changes to your current system.
Respect the current
process, roles,
responsibilities
Kanban recognizes that there may
be value in the existing process,
roles, responsibilities, & titles. You
have existing pieces in the way you
do what you do that are working
properly and worth preserving.

8. Kanban Principles: How You Should Think
Start with what
you do now
The Kanban method does not
prescribe a certain setup or
procedure. You can overlay
Kanban properties on top of
your existing workflow. This
makes it very easy to begin as
you do not have to make
sweeping changes.
Agree to pursue
incremental,
evolutionary change
The Kanban method is an approach to
change management that is designed
to meet minimal resistance.
Therefore it encourages continuous
small incremental and evolutionary
changes to your current system.
Respect the current
process, roles,
responsibilities
Kanban recognizes that there may
be value in the existing process,
roles, responsibilities, & titles. You
have existing pieces in the way you
do what you do that are working
properly and worth preserving.
Encourage acts
of leadership at
all levels
You don’t need to be a team
lead or an executive to be a
leader. Some of the best
leadership comes from
everyday acts from people on
the front line of their
respective teams.

9. Kanban Properties: What You Need to Do
Visualize the
Workflow
Limit your Work in
Progress (WIP)
Manage the Flow
Make Process
Policies Explicit
Improve
Collaboratively

10. Kanban Properties: What You Need to Do
Visualize the Workflow
You have to understand what it takes to get an item from request
to completion. The goal of Kanban is to make positive change to
optimize the flow of work through the system. Only after
understanding how the workflow currently functions can you
aspire to improve it by making the correct adjustments.

11. Kanban: Core Properties
Limit Work in Progress
Limiting work-in-progress implies that a pull system is
implemented on parts or all of the workflow. The critical elements
are that work-in-progress at each state in the workflow is limited
and that new work is “pulled” into the next step when there is
available capacity within the local WIP limit. These constraints will
quickly illuminate problem areas in your flow so you can identify
and resolve them.

12. Kanban: Core Properties
Make Process Policies Explicit
As I noted in “Visualize your workflow” above, you can’t improve
something you don’t understand. The process needs to be defined,
published and socialized — explicitly and succinctly. When everyone
really understands what you are doing now and what your goals are, then
you can begin to make decisions regarding change that will move you in a
positive direction. The choices will be more rational, empirical, objective
discussion of issues. This is more likely to facilitate consensus around
improvement suggestions.

13. Kanban: Core Properties
Manage Flow
The whole point of implementing a Kanban system is to create positive
change. Before you can create that change you have to know what to
change. You figure that out by looking at how value is currently flowing
through the system, analyzing problem areas in which value flow is stalled
and defining, then implementing, changes. Then, you repeat the cycle to
see what effect your changes had on the system because you need to
know if the change you made had a positive or negative impact on the
things you were attempting to change.

14. Kanban: Core Properties
Improve Collaboratively
The Kanban method encourages small continuous, incremental and
evolutionary changes that stick. You may hear the word Kaizen when you
read about Kanban. Kaizen is a word generally meaning continuous
improvement. Kaizen is a key part of using Kanban effectively.
When teams have a shared understanding of theories about work,
workflow, process, and risk, they are more likely to be able to build a
shared comprehension of a problem and suggest improvement actions
which can be agreed by consensus.

15. “The strength of the team is each individual member.
The strength of each member is the team.”
― Phil Jackson
“