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Kanban

A way of managing ongoing work by making it visible, capping how much runs at once, and improving steadily.

Source: Essential Kanban Condensed, 2016 edition (Anderson & Carmichael, Lean Kanban University).

Event

Kanban Meeting
A short daily meeting where the team looks at the board and plans its next step.
Crosswalk: Meetings

Running it well:

  • It stays short, stays focused on the board, and ends with clear next steps rather than open discussion.
  • It happens at the same time and place every day so it becomes a habit, not an event to schedule around.

Going wrong looks like:

  • It turns into a long status meeting where each person narrates their day instead of the team looking at the board together.
  • It gets skipped whenever the team feels busy, which is exactly when it would help most.
Replenishment Meeting
A regular meeting where new work is chosen and pulled onto the board.
Crosswalk: Meetings

Running it well:

  • It runs on its own cadence, separate from the daily meeting, and only pulls in work that is genuinely ready.
  • What gets pulled in is limited to what the board's own capacity can actually absorb next.

Going wrong looks like:

  • It gets skipped, so new work is added to the board ad hoc whenever someone thinks of it.
  • Items are pulled in before they are ready, so they stall on the board waiting for information that should have been settled first.
Delivery Planning Meeting
A regular meeting where the team plans the next delivery of finished work.
Crosswalk: Meetings
Service Delivery Review
A regular review of how well the service is meeting its delivery targets.
Crosswalk: 8.3
Operations Review
A regular review across teams of how the whole operation is performing.
Crosswalk: 4.5
Risk Review
A regular review of the risks facing the work and how they are being handled.
Crosswalk: 11.7
Strategy Review
A periodic review of whether the work still serves the organization's direction.
Crosswalk: 4.1

Artifact

Kanban Board
A shared board with a column for each stage of the workflow.
Crosswalk: Data Representation
Card
One card for one piece of work, moved across the board as its state changes.
Crosswalk: 5.4

Policy

Visualize the Workflow
A board that shows every piece of work and which stage it is in.
Crosswalk: Data Representation

Running it well:

  • The board's columns match the path work actually follows, not an idealized version of it.
  • Every piece of work in progress has a card on the board, with nothing moving through a side channel the board can't see.

Going wrong looks like:

  • Hidden work never gets a card, so the board stops reflecting what people are actually doing.
  • The board is updated in a weekly meeting instead of as work actually moves, so it is always stale.
Limit Work in Progress
A hard cap on how many items each stage of work may hold at once.
Crosswalk: Resource Optimization

Running it well:

  • Each column's limit is a hard cap that holds even when it would be convenient to start one more thing.
  • When a column is at its limit, the team helps clear it rather than starting new work elsewhere.

Going wrong looks like:

  • The limit gets raised whenever it becomes inconvenient, until it no longer limits anything.
  • Limits are set once and never revisited even as the team's capacity changes.
Manage Flow
Watching how smoothly items move through the stages to catch delays early.
Crosswalk: 6.6

Running it well:

  • Cycle time and where items stall are watched as a trend over many items, not judged from one anecdote.
  • A stall gets attention while the item is still on the board, not after it finally ships.

Going wrong looks like:

  • Flow metrics are collected and displayed but nobody acts on what they show.
  • Attention only goes to the newest or loudest item, not the one that has actually stalled longest.
Make Policies Explicit
Writing down the rules for moving work forward so everyone applies them the same way.
Crosswalk: 8.1

Running it well:

  • The rules for moving work forward are written down somewhere everyone can reach, not kept in one person's head.
  • A dispute about whether an item can move gets settled by pointing at the written policy.

Going wrong looks like:

  • The real rule for moving work only exists as one senior person's judgment, so decisions vary by who is asked.
  • Policies are written once and never checked against how work is actually moving.
Implement Feedback Loops
Holding the regular reviews below so the process itself keeps improving.
Crosswalk: Meetings
Improve Collaboratively
Changing the process one small, agreed step at a time, based on the evidence.
Crosswalk: 8.2
Start With What You Do Now
Begin with the way work happens today instead of redesigning it first.
Crosswalk: none — PMBOK-6 assumes a plan precedes execution; it carries no principle of starting from the current, unchanged process.
Pursue Incremental Change
Agree to make small, gradual improvements rather than one big overhaul.
Crosswalk: 8.2
Encourage Leadership at Every Level
Support anyone, not only managers, in acting to improve how work gets done.
Crosswalk: none — PMBOK-6 assigns improvement authority to named roles (sponsor, manager); it names no principle of leadership from any level.
Focus on Customer Needs
Understand and focus on what the customer actually expects.
Crosswalk: 5.2
Manage the Work, Not the People
Manage the work itself and let people decide how to organize around it.
Crosswalk: 9.4
Evolve Policies to Improve Outcomes
Regularly adjust the rules for how work moves to get better results.
Crosswalk: 8.2

Metric

Work in Progress
Counting how many items are actively being worked on right now.
Crosswalk: 6.6
Lead Time
How long an item takes from being requested to being delivered.
Crosswalk: 6.6
Cycle Time
How long an item takes once work on it actually starts.
Crosswalk: 6.6
Throughput
How many items finish in a given period of time.
Crosswalk: 6.6

Board Policy Template

  1. Name every column on the board and what 'done' means to leave it for the next one.
  2. Set an explicit work-in-progress limit for each column that needs one.
  3. State the pull rule: a column pulls from upstream only when it has spare capacity.
  4. Write down what makes an item eligible to enter the board at all.
  5. Record how blocked work is marked and who is responsible for unblocking it.
  6. Set the cadence for reviewing and changing these policies.