1 Introduction

Traditional Project
2 Management

Traditional Project
3 Management

Project Management
4 Process Models

Automotive PLC
5 Introduction to Agile

Agile Manifesto
6 SCRUM Part 1

7 SCRUM Part 2

KANBAN
8 Lean PM

Project Management
LESSON 8 – KANBAN
LEAN PROJECT MGMT.

25.05.2023 1
 KANBAN
KANBAN (derived from the Japanese word かんばん (看板) that means CARD) originally is a scheduling system for
lean manufacturing invented originally by Toyota for improving production efficiency.
Kanban is described by four principles and six practices.
Kanban does not describe a concrete methodology like the Sprint cycle in SCRUM and does not specify specific
roles.
Kanban does promote self-organization of employees and teams. Like in the SCRUM Sprint Planning Meeting, Team
Members are expected to “pull” work packages from a backlog of open tasks.
As Kanban has no special roles defined, such as the Scrum Master / Product Owners projects are typically led by a
“traditional” project manager. But he lacks the tasks of assigning work packages to the team.

1) https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/6-scrum-dysfunktionen-die-die-wertschopfung-behindern
25.05.2023 2
 Kanban Principles

Start with what you are doing right now.

Aim for incremental, evolutionary change.

Respect current processes, roles, responsibilities, and

titles.

Promote leadership and accountability at all levels of

the organization.
25.05.2023 3
 Start with what you are doing right now.
This principle makes it clear that the introduction and application of Kanban can always start where one is at the
moment.
Building on this, the process and structural organization is then improved in the sense of the basic principles and
by applying the practices.
Basis for successful introduction is to know where exactly you are. This is the case, if the project was managed
properly, e.g. through traditional project management methodology.
Knowing where you are means that:
▪ Roles & Responsibilities
▪ Tools and Processes
▪ Schedule & Budget
▪ Resource utilization
▪ Technological advance in the project

are known in detail

25.05.2023 4
 Aim for incremental, evolutionary change.
Based on the known current status, improvements can be worked out. The lead time of the work in the project is a
very important criterion by which the success of Kanban is measured. Measures must be taken that allow you to
regularly record the lead time in order to make process improvements visible.
The background from lean production can be seen on this definition. Recording the lead time, the time from the
start of a work package until its complete successful closure and optimizing this process is generally a typical
measure from traditional efficiency driven project management.
The difference here is that this is not reached through maximizing planning and tight control, instead a continuous
incremental change process is in the focus.
Like in SCRUM the goal is not only to have a project lessons learned in the end and during the project minimize
definitions, but to also welcome change and improvement coming from it.
To keep the project still controllable and it suggests incremental step-by-step changes instead of a revolutionary
change or big change project as outcome of a lessons learned.
Küster et. al.1) mention that sometimes is coitized as a weakness, as only doing small evolutionary steps and local
optimization might lead to not reaching the global optimum.
Therefore, they suggest a experienced manager should always check in parallel if revolutionary global changes
become necessary.
1) Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p. 199
25.05.2023 5
 Respect current processes, roles, responsibilities and titles.
One consequence of the two basic principles already outlined is that current processes, roles, responsibilities and
titles must be respected.
Surely you can easily imagine what happens when changes are poorly initiated and communicated. Affected
employees will go into denial mode and block the planned changes wherever they can. There are always employees
who are satisfied with the status quo and will not miss a chance to torpedo your change.
Nevertheless, it may make sense or be necessary to change processes, roles, responsibilities and titles in order to
improve the organization and its operations.
However, follow the second basic principle and take an incremental and evolutionary approach to these changes.
Justify the change with solid facts, and involve all people affected by the change.
Changes in the organizational structure and processes usually fail not because they are too complex, but because
the people affected are not involved in the change process and consequently fight the change to the utmost.

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p. 200

25.05.2023 6
 Promote leadership and responsibility at all levels of the organization

As already shown in the chapter SCRUM, agile working always means to hand over responsibilities from the project
manager to the team.
There are two essential enablers for being able to do so:
▪ Being able to trust the team
▪ Have a team that accepts this responsibility
Kanban emphasizes this aspect in the fourth principle. In contrast to Scrum, Kanban does not concretize how this
should be implemented-

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p. 200

25.05.2023 7
 Kanban Practices

Make the work visible

Limit the amount of work started

Measure and manage the (work-)flow

Make process rules explicit.

Develop feedback mechanisms

Make collaborative improvements

25.05.2023 8
 Make the work visible
The first practice is sometimes called visualize the flow of work.
The most commonly know part of the Kanban methodology comes from a tool used for this practice: The Kanban
Board.
Unlike other progress boards such as the task board in Scrum, it is not about showing the completion status of a
work package, but its flow in the project.
As the flow continues, a card on the board is “flowing” from one state to the next. This shows in a visual way the
stations a work package has already roamed and what the next stations are.
The Kanban Board is an important tool to track the progress of work packages and to identify bottlenecks and
obstacles.
Remember that Kanban originates from lean production. In production processes the exact timing and similar
turnaround times of the production stations is important so parts do not start to pile up.
This can be applied to project work, where work packages can pile up because of resource conflicts, inefficient
working off of tasks or wrong estimation of necessary effort´s.

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p. 200

25.05.2023 9
 Make the work visible
Like Kanban a common definition of done for a work package is important, otherwise team members can have
differing sights on when this is met.
In Kanban, self-organizing teams often work as well, even if this is not required in this clarity.
Similar to Scrum, Kanban relies on the pull principle. This means that employees pull pending tasks to themselves
and then process.
A Kanban Board can be physical, but there are multiple web or software-based solutions available, such as Trello,
Kanboard, Jira,…

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p. 200

25.05.2023 10
 Kanban Board

Pool Clearance Specification Implementation Integration Testing Release

Nomen est
omen
Work in Work is Work in Work is Work in Work is
Nomen est
omen
progress done progress done progress done
Nomen est
omen

Finished work
Nomen est
omen
Nomen est
omen
Nomen est
omen
packages can be
Nomen est
omen
pulled by team
Nomen est
Nomen est
omen members of the next
omen
Nomen est
omen
working station
Nomen est
omen

Nomen est
omen Nomen est
Nomen est omen
omen
Nomen est
omen

Nomen est Nomen est

omen omen
Nomen est
omen
Nomen est
omen
Nomen est

Work packages with

omen

clearance can be
worked on

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p. 203

25.05.2023 11
 Limit the amount of work started
In traditional managed projects tasks are opened and started to be worked on by schedule not with focus on
resource availability. This leads to an overload with open tasks, team members drown In tasks, get bogged down or
mentally blocked. Switching from one work package to the next needs mental set-up time, and team members are
forced to this behavior through task-force meetings for the differing tasks.
Traditional project management tries to solve this issue mainly through prioritization by the project manager and
escalation chains.
Kanban emphasizes a value-added focus to do the right things at the right time.
The work package Pool, similarly to the Scrum Backlog acts as a storage for unstarted work, where the team
members can pull work packages from (sometime additionally steered by the project manager through a clearance
pool). The project manager here acts as a steering instance similar to the product owner in Scrum, supporting the
team that work packages are selected, that are at this time important for the project.
Workload limitation and steering can be done through markers by the team members that are assigned to the
cards on the Kanban Board. Every team member has a limited number of markers to assign, acting similar to Story
Points in Scrum.
A point is only unassigned if a work package is finished.

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019)

25.05.2023 12
 Kanban Board

Pool Clearance Specification Implementation Integration Testing Release

Nomen est
omen
Work in Work is Work in Work is Work in Work is
Nomen est
omen
progress done progress done progress done
Nomen est
omen

Nomen est
omen
Nomen est Nomen est
omen omen

Nomen est
omen
Nomen est
omen
Nomen est
omen
Nomen est
omen Nomen est
omen

Nomen est
omen Nomen est
Nomen est omen
omen
Nomen est
omen

Nomen est Nomen est

omen omen
Nomen est
omen

Employee Xavier Holzinger Justus Albert Max Mustermann Hermine Musterfrau

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p. 204

25.05.2023 13
 Measure and manage the (work-)flow
The central metric (control measure) in Kanban is the lead time of a work package until its completion. This must
be optimized.
Another important metric is the waiting time of a work package in the finished status of a processing station until it
is picked up by the next station and processed further.
The idea behind these considerations is that the faster a work package can be completed, the earlier risks to the
overall project can be eliminated. It is difficult for a project manager to identify true obstacles and bottlenecks
when work packages regularly have long waiting times due to dependencies on other work packages.
Depending on the task at hand, it may therefore make sense to break work packages down to the functional level
to be implemented. In other words, the Kanban board does not contain work packages, but individual functions of
the product to be specified, implemented and tested.
It is important that the lead time of the work packages (or functions, etc.) is measured regularly. Inexperienced
project managers and teams only start measuring when delays have already occurred. However, it is then difficult
to make a comparison with other lead times.

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019),

25.05.2023 14
 Measure and manage the (work-)flow
Possible metrics for a project could be:
▪ the throughput time of a work package-
the faster a work package can be processed across all processing stations, the faster the project can usually be
completed.
▪ the throughput, i.e. the number of work packages per time
the more work packages can be processed per unit of time, the faster the project can usually be completed.
▪ the waiting time of work packages before work is taken over by the next processing station
the shorter the waiting time, the fewer work packages are in expensive "storage," i.e., the more work packages
are productively worked on.
▪ the cumulative flow, i.e., the number of work packages in a given processing stage.

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019),

25.05.2023 15
 Measure and manage the (work-)flow

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019),

25.05.2023 16
 Make process rules explicit.
Make everybody in the team play according to the same rules:
▪ How Meetings are held (Punctuality, Camera off/on, signing out, laptop usage allowed…)
▪ Escalation cascade
▪ Project priorities
▪ Work pace
▪ Communication rules
▪ Documentation tasks
Rules are not to be set in stone, but also here changes to optimize the project are to be welcomed.
While rules are valid, they are to be known and accepted by the whole team and to be enforced.
Otherwise, discontent in the team will be the consequence if individuals do not follow the rules. In the long run,
motivation and team cohesion suffer.

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p. 200

25.05.2023 17
 Develop feedback mechanisms
As the project manager is still in the lead and responsibility in a Kanban project, he needs constant feedback the
team to measure progress, identify problems and solve issues.
For the team being able to work self-responsible, they also need to have as much feedback about the status as
possible as well.
Open feedback “push” here replaces tight control by the project manager “pull”.
Typical information needed can be displayed and discussed with help of the Kanban board:
▪ Status of work packages
▪ Throughput time of work packages
▪ Workload of team members
▪ Quality status of work packages and project
▪ Existing and upcoming obstacles
▪ Waiting time of work packages

Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p. 200

25.05.2023 18
 Make collaborative improvements
The results of the feedback must be processed and lead to improvements.
Anderson1) recommends using established models and theories such as the Theory of Constraints or Lean
approaches to avoid waste.
Project managers should constantly try to optimize processes in the team. The starting point for Kanban is the
current working methods, roles and responsibilities (first basic principle of Kanban).
The team should be included in this optimization process through feedback and creative imput.
For example, it makes sense to regularly evaluate the meeting structure, team communication or if the leadership
culture allows for agile working.
Project managers who are purely technical and work on technical work packages themselves often do not have
time (or believe they do not have time) for improvements. The consequences are borne by the entire team or the
company. Therefore, it is necessary for a project manager to plan time for this job and not just carry it as a title.

1) Anderson, David J. (2010): Kanban. Successful evolutionary change for your technology business. Sequim, WA: Blue Hole Press.
25.05.2023 19
Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019)
 Lean Project Management
Lean management combines principles and methods for efficient, waste-free design of the value chain.
Like Kanban, lean project management originates from optimization processes at Toyota / Japan.
Tough lean project management aims at optimizing traditional project management many ideas from lean project
management are carried over to agile project management.
The goal is to focus work on value generating tasks and avoid unnecessary planning, meeting and controlling.
Many established project management structures are unoptimized and just done “because”. Lean Management
tries to reduce unnecessary bloated processes and structures and refocus on the supporting ones.

25.05.2023 20
 Lean Project Management – Taiichi Ohno: “Toyota Production System”

Customer Focus
highest quality, lowest cost, shortest lead time

Just-in-time Kaizen
Jidoka
Make and use only… Develop flexible and
Detect and prevent
• …what is required motivated individuals
abnormalities immediately
• …when it is required and teams who
when they occur
• …where it is required seek for perfection

Standardized Work

Stability

Ohno, T. (1988): Toyota Production System: Beyond target scale production; Cambridge Productivity Press
25.05.2023 21
 Lean Project Management
Liker1) describes the 14 principles of lean management based on the Toyota production system and describes the
challenges Toyota encountered in optimizing its automobile manufacturing. These challenges included:
▪ Transportation - Moving products that are not necessary to the manufacturing process.
▪ Material inventory - Poor management of components, processes and the finished product
▪ Walking distances - Employees and materials are moved unnecessarily throughout a process
▪ Waiting times - Collaboration with the next production step leads to waiting times
▪ Overproduction - More components than currently needed are produced
▪ Inconvenient processing - More resources than the standard dictates are used
▪ Defects - Risk of defects due to lack of quality control.
▪ These risks are known as the seven mudas, or wastes, that Toyota sought to eliminate from automotive
production with its TPS.

1) Liker, Jeffrey K (2006).: Der Toyota Weg: Erfolgsfaktor Qualitätsmanagement; FinanzBuch Verlag
25.05.2023 22
 Lean Project Management – What to avoid
Factors for failure in US-american software projects

The Standish Group International ed. (2009): CHAOS Summary 2009 report; West Yarmouth, The Standish Group.
25.05.2023 23
 Lean Project Management – What to avoid
The German Association for Project Management (GPM) publishes its own suggestions for the application of lean
management in projects on its website (Erne 2010) emphasizing the reduction of inefficiency during the project life
cycle, including inefficiency caused by
▪ sloppy requirements gathering
▪ missed or unnecessarily complex solutions
▪ frequent task switching (harmful multitasking)
▪ unnecessary interfaces in the project and between the project and other stakeholders
▪ unnecessary waiting times
▪ project bureaucracy
▪ unnecessary revisions of the project object.

1) Liker, Jeffrey K (2006).: Der Toyota Weg: Erfolgsfaktor Qualitätsmanagement; FinanzBuch Verlag
25.05.2023 24
 Lean Project Management
Lean Management principles are defined different throughout literature, presented are the principles presented by

Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019)1): Womack, James P. et. al. (2013)2):

▪ Focusing on the customer

▪ Identifying the value stream
▪ Implementing the flow principle
▪ Using the pull principle
▪ Aiming for perfection

1) Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019)

25.05.2023 25
2) Womack, James P. et. al. (2013): Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation; Free Press
 Focusing on the customer
Taiichi Ohno1) defines the principle “Focusing on the customer as trying to
▪ obtain the highest quality
▪ lowest cost
▪ shortest lead time.
So, finding an optimum of the contradicting goals of the magic triangle of project management.

So how to find out what the customers priority is?

The initial step is to understand the customer and who he is.
Different customer have different backgrounds and different needs. Understanding this background helps to
identify, if the customer focusses on highest quality, cooperative and creative work, quick inspiring results or
low and controlled expenses.

Ohno, T. (1988): Toyota Production System: Beyond target scale production; Cambridge Productivity Press
25.05.2023 26
 Focusing on the customer
The next step is to systematically and as completely as possible determine the customer requirements.
We have seen in Scrum the Product Backlog as an exemplary tool for that purpose and the Product Owner as
responsible role.
Literature tells us, as shown before in two exemplary study results, that incomplete, sloppy or misunderstood
customer requirements are the main issue for project failure – not too high requirements.
Try to avoid both:
▪ missing requirements,
as these make the customer unhappy about the project results
▪ Unnecessary requirements,
as these generate efforts and costs, that the customer will not value

Ohno, T. (1988): Toyota Production System: Beyond target scale production; Cambridge Productivity Press
25.05.2023 27
 Identifying the value stream
In project management, the value stream refers to all value-adding and non-value-adding processes and work that
are necessary to develop the project object. As soon as you know these processes and activities, you can start to
separate value-adding activities from non-value-adding activities and reduce the latter.
It is important that you eliminate waste as much as possible. This occurs in projects in the following form, for
example:
▪ bureaucratic processes
▪ too many meetings
▪ stockpiling of work packages that have been started but not completed
▪ the use of inefficient tools
▪ the use of unqualified employees
▪ a lack of specific and unspecific objectives for tasks
▪ unnecessarily high documentation effort
▪ a lack of knowledge management that leads to similar mistakes over and over again.

1) Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p.

25.05.2023 28
 Identifying the value stream
Traditional project management processes do not focus on value-adding activities:

“Project processes” according to DIN 69901

Superordinate processes for the project management, e.g.

Management
assignments, phase releases, decisions of the multi-project
processes
management

Project Management Processes that serve the management of individual projects:

Processes initiation, definition, planning, realization, closure

Processes that are not directly related to project

Supporting Processes management but support project work, e.g. purchasing,
human resources, contract management
Processes that serve the fulfillment of the technical-content-
Value-added
related task, e.g. industry standards, individual company
processes
processes
DIN 69901 (2013) Projectmanagement-Projektmanagementsysteme-Teil 2: Prozesse, Prozessmodell; GPM Deutsche Gesellschaft für Projektmanagement
25.05.2023 29
 Identifying the value stream

DIN 69901 (2013) Projectmanagement-Projektmanagementsysteme-Teil 2: Prozesse, Prozessmodell; GPM Deutsche Gesellschaft für Projektmanagement
25.05.2023 30
projektimpulse GmbH
 Implementing the flow principle
The flow principle was discussed before as a core principle of Kanban.
Implementing the flow means to focus on the critical chain of work packages in a project to avoid it getting stuck a
these points. In Kanban this would be visualized by too many work packages stuck in waiting position, because a
critical topic necessary to be closed before is still under work.
Kuster et. al1) recommend to use the base ideas of Critical Chain Project Management:
▪ Avoid harmful multitasking.
▪ Reduce personal safety buffers that are spread out over the entire project according to the watering can
principle and instead place sufficient buffers at the neuralgic points of the project.
This means important milestones or the handover of results from non-critical resources to critical bottleneck
resources.
▪ Decouple projects as much as possible. This is especially true for intertwined projects via employees who
represent a bottleneck in several projects at the same time. Otherwise, your entire project portfolio will
eventually come to a standstill.
▪ Observe whether bottlenecks occur repeatedly among the same employees and take countermeasures

1) Modernes Projektmanagement; Kuster, Jürg et. al. (2019), p.

25.05.2023 31
 Using the pull principle
In traditionally conducted projects, the project manager assigns tasks to the employees, which corresponds to the
push principle.
In agile projects and especially in lean project management, employees pull tasks to be completed to themselves.
For example, if several tasks are pending on the task board, employees who have finished one task independently
pick up the next task and start working on it.
It is important that the right work packages are selected so that the project is conducted efficiently.
Basis for the pull principle is motivated and independently acting employees that can be trusted.
Basis for this is:
▪ Delegation of authority
▪ Delegation of responsibilities
▪ Qualified employees and upgrading the existing qualifications
▪ Working communication and feedback culture
▪ Appreciation of positive results and employees

25.05.2023 32
 Aiming for perfection
▪ Continuous improvement of the employee qualification
▪ Continuous improvement of processes
▪ Learning from errors and avoiding them in future
▪ Good knowledge management
▪ Transporting of knowledge and improvements in-between projects
▪ Delivery of high-quality results and products
▪ Fulfilling the customers expectations
▪ Reduction of wastefulness

25.05.2023 33
 Literature
Project Management Institue (2013): A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide)
Wohland, Gerhard & Huther-Fries, Judith & Wiemeyer, Matthias & Wilmes, Jörg (2004): Vom Wissen zum Können.
Merkmale dynamikrobuster Höchstleistung. Eine empirische Untersuchung auf systemtheoretischer Basis.
Eschborn: Detecon & Diebold Consultants
Pflaeging, Niels & Hermann, Silke. (2015). Komplexithoden. Clevere Wege zur (Wieder)Belebung von Unternehmen
und Arbeit in Komplexität. München: Redline
Kuster, Jürg; Bachmann, Christian; Huber, Eugen; Hubmann, Mike; Lippmann, Robert; Schneider, Emil; Schneider,
Patrick; Witschi, Urs; Wüst, Roger. Handbuch Projektmanagement (German Edition) Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
Kindle-Version.
Axelos (2016): PRINCE2 Certifications. Online verfügbar unter http://www.axelos.com.
Wysocki, Robert K. (2014): Effective project management. Traditional, agile, extreme. 7th ed. Indianapolis, Indiana:
Wiley.

25.05.2023 34
 Literature
VDI/VDE 2206 (2021): Development of mechatronic and cyber-physical systems, VDI/VDE-Gesellschaft Mess- und
Automatisierungstechnik
ISO 26262 (2018): Road vehicles – Functional safety, ISO
Automotive SPICE® Process Reference and Assessment Model (2017), Automotive Special Interest Group and the
Quality Management Center in the German Association of Automotive Industry (VDA QMC)
agilemanifesto.org (2022) - Manifesto for Agile Software Development
scrum.org (2022) – The SCRUM Framework
Cohn, Mike (2013): User-Stories applied. For agile software development. 18. print. Boston, Mass.: Addison-Wesley
(Addison-Wesley signature series).
Simon Flossmann (2022); 6 Scrum-Dysfunktionen, die die Wertschöpfung behindern;
https://www.scrum.org/resources/blog/6-scrum-dysfunktionen-die-die-wertschopfung-behindern
Anderson, David J. (2010): Kanban. Successful evolutionary change for your technology business. Sequim, WA: Blue
Hole Press.

25.05.2023
 Literature
Ohno, T. (1988): Toyota Production System: Beyond target scale production; Cambridge Productivity Press
Liker, Jeffrey K (2006).: Der Toyota Weg: Erfolgsfaktor Qualitätsmanagement; FinanzBuch Verlag
The Standish Group International ed. (2009): CHAOS Summary 2009 report; West Yarmouth, The Standish Group.
Womack, James P. et. al. (2013): Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation; Free Press
DIN 69901 (2013) Projectmanagement; GPM Deutsche Gesellschaft für Projektmanagement
DIN EN ISO 9001:2015-11 Qualitätsmanagementsysteme.

25.05.2023 36