What is Kanban?

7/12/2020
Assignment # 4
Operations Management
(Dr. Muhammad Imad-ud-Din Akbar)

Muhammad Shoaib | 2019-EMBA(FALL)-004

IBM-UET, LAHORE
Operations Management Assignment # 4

Table of Contents

1. Definition.................................................................................................................... 4

2. Also Known As..........................................................................................................4

3. When Applicable........................................................................................................4

4. Values......................................................................................................................... 4

4.1. Transparency......................................................................................................4

4.2. Balance................................................................................................................ 4

4.3. Collaboration......................................................................................................4

4.4. Customer Focus.................................................................................................5

4.5. Flow..................................................................................................................... 5

4.6. Leadership.......................................................................................................... 5

4.7. Understanding....................................................................................................5

4.8. Agreement...........................................................................................................5

4.9. Respect............................................................................................................... 5

5. Principles................................................................................................................... 5

5.1. Change Management Principles........................................................................5

5.2. Service Delivery Principles................................................................................6

6. Practices.....................................................................................................................6

6.1. Visualize.............................................................................................................. 6

6.2. Limit work in progress.......................................................................................6

6.3. Manage flow........................................................................................................6

6.4. Make policies explicit.........................................................................................7

6.5. Implement feedback loops.................................................................................7

6.6. Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally...............................................7

7. Roles........................................................................................................................... 7

7.1. Service Request Manager..................................................................................7

Muhammad Shoaib [2019-EMBA(FALL)-004] Page 2 of 11

Operations Management Assignment # 4

7.2. Service Delivery Manager..................................................................................7

8. Lifecycle..................................................................................................................... 8

8.1. Strategy Review (Quarterly)...............................................................................8

8.2. Operations Review (Monthly)............................................................................8

8.3. Risk Review (Monthly)........................................................................................8

8.4. Service Delivery Review (Bi-Weekly)................................................................8

8.5. Replenishment Meeting (Weekly)......................................................................8

8.6. The Kanban Meeting (Daily)...............................................................................8

8.7. Delivery Planning Meeting (Per Delivery Cadence).........................................8

9. Origins........................................................................................................................ 9

10. Primary Contributions...........................................................................................9

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Operations Management Assignment # 4

What is KANBAN?
1. Definition

The Kanban Method is a means to design, manage, and improve flow systems for
knowledge work. The method also allows organizations to start with their existing
workflow and drive evolutionary change. They can do this by visualizing their flow of
work, limit work in progress (WIP), and stop starting and start finishing.

The Kanban Method gets its name from the use of Kanban – visual signaling
mechanisms to control work in progress for intangible work products.

2. Also Known As

A general term for systems using the Kanban Method is flow – reflecting that workflows
continuously through the system instead of being organized into distinct timeboxes.

3. When Applicable

Kanban can be used in any knowledge work setting and is particularly applicable in
situations where work arrives unpredictably and/or when you want to deploy work as
soon as it is ready, rather than waiting for other work items.

4. Values

Teams applying Kanban to improve the services they deliver embrace the following
values:

4.1. Transparency

Sharing information openly using clear and straightforward language improves the flow
of business value.

4.2. Balance 

different aspects, viewpoints, and capabilities must be balanced to achieve

effectiveness.

4.3. Collaboration 

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Kanban was created to improve the way people work together.

4.4. Customer Focus

Kanban systems aim to optimize the flow of value to customers that are external from
the system but may be internal or external to the organization in which the system
exists.

4.5. Flow

Work is a continuous or episodic flow of value.

4.6. Leadership

Leadership (the ability to inspire others to act via example, words, and reflection) is
needed at all levels to realize continuous improvement and deliver value.

4.7. Understanding

Individual and organizational self-knowledge of the starting point is necessary to move

forward and improve.

4.8. Agreement

Everyone involved with a system is committed to improvement and agree to jointly

move toward goals while respecting and accommodating differences of opinion and
approach.

4.9. Respect
Value, understand and show consideration for people.

5. Principles

5.1. Change Management Principles

Kanban is structured to address the human tendency to resist change.

 Start with what you do now - Understand current processes as they are
practiced and respect existing roles, responsibilities, and job titles.
 Agree to pursue improvement through evolutionary change

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 Encourage acts of leadership at every level

5.2. Service Delivery Principles

These principles acknowledge that organizations are a collection of interdependent

services, and to place the focus on the work, not the people doing the work.

 Understand and focus on your customers’ needs and expectations

 Manage the work; let people self-organize around it
 Evolve policies to improve customer and business outcomes

6. Practices

The following practices are activities essential to manage a Kanban system.

6.1. Visualize

Kanban systems use mechanisms such as a Kanban board to visualize work and the
process it goes through.  For the visualization to be the most effective, it should show

 wherein the process a team working on a service agrees to do a specific work

item (commitment point)
 Where the team delivers the work item to a customer (delivery point)
 Policies that determine what work should exist in a particular stage
 WIP Limits

6.2. Limit work in progress

When you establish limits to the amount of work you have in progress in a system and
use those limits to guide when to start new items, you can smooth out the flow of work
and reduce lead times, improve quality, and deliver more frequently.

6.3. Manage flow

The flow of work in service should maximize value delivery, minimize lead times, and be
as predictable as possible.  Teams use empirical control through transparency,

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inspection, and adaption to balance these potentially conflicting goals.  A key aspect of
managing flow is identifying and addressing bottlenecks and blockers.

6.4. Make policies explicit

Explicit policies help explain a process beyond just the listing of different stages in the
workflow.  Policies should be sparse, simple, well-defined, visible, always applied, and
readily changeable by the people working on the service.  Examples of policies include
WIP Limits, capacity allocation, the definition of done, and other rules for work items
existing various stages in the process.

6.5. Implement feedback loops

Feedback loops are an essential element in any system looking to provide evolutionary
change.  The Feedback loops used in Kanban are described in the Lifecycle section.

6.6. Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally

Kanban starts with the process as it currently exists and applies continuous and
incremental improvement instead of trying to reach a predefined finished goal.

7. Roles

Given Kanban’s approach to start with your existing process and evolve it, there are no
roles explicitly called for when adopting Kanban.  Use the roles you currently have on
your team.

Two roles have emerged in practice that serves particular purposes.  It’s highly likely
that these functions are filled by someone in an existing role as mentioned below.

7.1. Service Request Manager

Understands the needs and expectations of customers and facilitates the selection and
ordering of work items at the Replenishment Meeting.  This function is often filled by a
product manager, product owner, or service manager.

7.2. Service Delivery Manager

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Operations Management Assignment # 4

Responsible for the flow of work to deliver select items to customers.  Facilitates the
Kanban Meeting and Delivery Planning.  Other names for this function include flow
manager, delivery manager, or flow master.

8. Lifecycle

Because work items tend to flow through a Kanban system in single piece flow, and
each system is different for stages in its workflow, the best way to describe the lifecycle
of the Kanban method is via the feedback loops involved.

Those feedback loops (cadences) are:

8.1. Strategy Review (Quarterly)

Select the services to provide and the context in which those services are appropriate.

8.2. Operations Review (Monthly)

Understand the balance between and across services, including deploying people and
resources to maximize value delivery

8.3. Risk Review (Monthly)

Understand and respond to delivery risks in services

8.4. Service Delivery Review (Bi-Weekly)

Examine and improve the effectiveness of a service.  This is similar to a retrospective

that is focused on improving the Kanban system.

8.5. Replenishment Meeting (Weekly)

Identify items that the team will work on and determine which work items may be
selected next.  This is analogous to a planning meeting for a sprint or iteration.

8.6. The Kanban Meeting (Daily)

A team working on a service coordinates their activities for the day.  This is analogous
to a daily stand-up.

8.7. Delivery Planning Meeting (Per Delivery Cadence)

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Monitor and plan deliveries to customers.

9. Origins

 2004 David J. Anderson applies a theory of constraints approaches

incorporating a Kanban pull system on a project in Microsoft’s IT
department.
 2006 – 2007 David J. Anderson identifies the Kanban Method by applying it
to a project at Corbis.
 2009 Donald Reinert Sen discuss the adoption of Kanban systems and the
use of data collection and an economic model for management decision-
making in his book The Principles of Product Development Flow
 2009 Corey Ladas suggested that Kanban could improve upon Scrum and
suggested Scrumban as the transition from Scrum to Kanban in his
book Scrumban – Essays on Kanban Systems for Lean Software
Development.
 2010 David J. Anderson publishes Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change
for Your Technology Business as the first description of the method.

10. Primary Contributions

The Kanban Method formalized the flow approach to knowledge work and offered a
means for organizations to improve their software development processes and adopt
agile values and principles without first having to undergo substantial cultural change.

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