Work in Flow and Evolutionary Change with Kanban

Almost everyone knows Kanban boards today and has already worked with one.
However, the Kanban method is much more than just a board with colourful cards on it.

Kanban relies on visualisation. The well-known Kanban board is at the centre of this. However, visualisation primarily includes the following points:

• The workflow of different types of work
• All work currently in the system (WIP = work-in-progress)
• Blockers, dependencies or long runners

Another key objective is to keep the work flowing, i.e. to achieve steady, continuous and therefore predictable processing. The work in the system is limited in order to consistently focus on completion. Overloading is avoided by only ever having a deliberately limited amount of work on the board at any one time.

"Stop starting. Start finishing"

The consistent application of the various Kanban principles and practices provides regular feedback on where things are still stuck in the system. Analysing blockers or long-runners leads to improvements in the system. Kanban therefore also promotes an agile working culture in which improvements are implemented proactively and in small steps. So-called feedback loops are deliberately and regularly offered by the Kanban method. For this reason, the Kanban method is also referred to as an alternative path to agility. Consistent, controlled evolutionary change gradually leads teams and organisations towards a Kaizen culture.

How do you start with Kanban?

One of the basic principles of Kanban change management is:

"Start where you are"

In order to avoid resistance during the introduction, we therefore start exactly where we are today and how we work today. Existing structures and roles are initially adopted unchanged. A few criteria are used to develop a Kanban system, which is then immediately used to visualise and control the work. From then on, the system continues to evolve.

With each training course, the focus expands, from the first Kanban system at team level to working in more complex Kanban systems throughout the organisation.