What is kanban?

Kanban is a way of working that provides insight into how you currently work. This does not only come down to the steps you take when developing software, but also which processes, roles and responsibilities exist within the organization. If you write this down and visualize it on a kanban board, a good picture of the process emerges.

The following 6 principles characterize kanban:

1. Visualize
2. Limit
3. Optimize workflow
4. Make agreements
5. Use feedback loops
6. Summarize and evolve

Important in the kanban method is visualizing the work process. You visualize the workflow on a kanban board and walk through it with the team. This can be a physical board with characteristic sticky notes or a digital board.

Limiting the amount of work you take on at a time is one of the principles of kanban. Employees often take on new work first, which usually results in them working on multiple tasks at the same time. By taking on fewer things at a time, you complete specific tasks faster. This reduces delivery and throughput time. In addition, you increase agility – something you need when priorities change. After all, you are not working on many things at the same time that are all unfinished.

It is important to optimize your workflow. Your workflow becomes optimal as the delivery or lead time becomes shorter. In other words: you are going to manage the flow of work.

Making clear agreements about the way you work together is almost never done in teams. For an effective kanban approach, it is important to record (a few simple) agreements. Make agreements that are visible, that you always apply and can adjust when necessary.

Repetitive or iterative improvement is valuable within kanban. You do this by introducing feedback loops with a certain frequency. This can be daily, weekly and/or monthly. In these recurring meetings, such as a strategy review and replenishment meeting, you discuss fixed topics.

Strategy review

A strategy review is planned to see how the outside world changes in relation to your processes. Do you need to make different choices based on this?

Operations review

An operations review is there to discuss the balance between processes.

Risk review

In a risk review you ask the question what is blocking you as a team, or what is reducing productivity.

Service delivery review

In a service delivery review you assess and improve the effectiveness of your service.

Replenishment meeting

The purpose of the replenishment meeting is to select the right tasks within the project and put them on a shortlist. You agree on what you want to work on. This meeting is similar to the Sprint Planning of Scrum.

Kanban meeting

The kanban meeting ensures daily coordination, which makes self-management and organization possible. This meeting is similar to the Daily Scrum, but only asks the question whether there is something that is blocking someone.

Delivery planning

And last but not least: the delivery planning. You keep this for monitoring and planning deliveries.

You summarize the current knowledge of the team. Where are you? What can you do? This is necessary to then be able to develop, evolve and experiment.

The kanban method focuses on visualization. It is an agile method that allows you to gain insight into, manage and improve processes. This is successfully applied in production environments and software development, among other things. You also see it in service organizations, for example for handling complaints more efficiently.

If you apply kanban properly, the insights and agreements ensure improved productivity and shorter lead times.

Curious about the working method we use within SST? Check here or contact me without obligation via [email protected] or via the contact form below.

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