Kanban 101: Learn the Essential Basics for Success

Welcome to Kanban 101!

Whether you're new to the topic or looking to strengthen your understanding, this introduction will help you learn the Kanban basics and gain the confidence to effectively implement Kanban in your organization. Dive in to discover how Kanban can transform your workflow and boost productivity.

Kanban Basics

Initially developed for manufacturing, Kanban has evolved into the premier workflow management method for defining, managing, and enhancing services in the knowledge work sector. The method was first widely adopted by Agile software development teams at the dawn of the 21st century. Over the years, its popularity and adoption have spread across numerous industries.

The Kanban method is implemented through 6 principles and 6 simple practices.

Change Management Principles

• Start With What You Do Now.
• Agree to Pursue Incremental, Evolutionary Change.
• Encourage Acts of Leadership at All Levels.

Service Delivery Principles

• Focus on Customers' Needs and Expectations.
• Manage the Work, Not the Workers.
• Regularly Review the Network of Services.

Kanban Practices

1. Visualizing the workflow.
2. Limiting work in progress.
3. Managing flow.
4. Making process policies explicit.
5. Implementing feedback loops.
6. Improving collaboratively.

The method employs physical or digital boards to visualize a team or organization's unique workflow.

Key Kanban Board Elements

The essential elements you'll see on a kanban board include:

Kanban Cards

The kanban cards are visual representations of work items or tasks. Card details may include the task status, deadline, assignee, or description.

Kanban WIP Limits

WIP limits indicate the maximum number of work items a team or individual is currently working on or the amount of work allowed in each stage of your workflow.

Kanban Board Columns

The typical kanban board has three columns: To Do, Doing, and Done or Requested, In Progress, and Done. These columns divide the board vertically, with each representing a distinct stage of the workflow.

Kanban Swimlanes

Swimlanes in Kanban represent horizontal lanes that split the kanban board into sections used to organize work. Some use the Kanban swimlanes to differentiate between teams, functional areas, or entire business units.

Commitment Point

A commitment in Kanban indicates a point in the work process when a work item is ready to be actively worked on.

Delivery Point

The delivery point on a board indicates a point in the workflow where work items are considered completed.

Visualizing the essential kanban elements, including columns, cards, swimlanes and wip limits

How To Measure Success in Kanban?

Measuring matters in Kanban. The method's evolutionary nature is rooted in continuous improvement, inspired by Lean management practices. To derive improvements, Kanban relies on robust data insights derived from examining two essential kanban metrics: cycle time and throughput.

1. Cycle Time

The cycle time metric measures the time required to complete a specific work item or task. It helps us better understand how long work stays in a workflow and patterns in the work process.

2. Throughput

Throughput is the number of completed work items per unit time. Understanding how much work your team processes per day, for instance, can inform business decisions such as expanding team capacity.

What Are the Benefits of Using Kanban?

Whether it's only you, your team, or your organization, the Kanban principles and practices are meant to nurture a culture of continuous improvement and help you become more efficient than ever.

Kanban helps you:

• See work as a flow. Think of your work as a flow of value toward the customer. This puts the customer front and center, no matter if they are inside or outside of your organization.
• See knowledge work as a service. Our instinct is to manage the visible things. This way, we end up managing people rather than work. Instead, consider your work as a service and manage it accordingly.
• See organizations as a network of services. Each service is interdependent within an organization, so think about the end-to-end process.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to explore Kanban's full potential, we welcome you to continue your journey with us. We've worked hard over the years to create the most comprehensive Kanban guide.

You will also find Kanban tutorials that will help you put this method into practice using Businessmap.

So, keep on reading! You are in good hands!