The Kanban Method Demystified

Kanban Demystified
Masa K Maeda, PhD
@masakmaeda masa@valueinnova.com
www.valueinnova.com
Photo by asoggetti on Unsplash

www.valueinnova.com ©Valueinnova LLC
Masa K. Maeda
Founder, CEO & Principal Coach
Creator of the Serious LeAP®
Enterprise Metamorphosis Model
Human AspectMindset
Frameworks & Methodologies
Lean Agile methods, frameworks
and techniques
Cognitive Psychology
Behavioral Economics
Organizational Behavior
Ecosystem thinking
1st & 2nd Generation Lean thinking
Agile thinking
High Collaboration Frameworks
®
Previous experience
Founding team
member at startups in
Silicon Valley
Electric
Communities
:
:
:
Experience at large
companies
R&D
R&D
9 Keynotes
61 Talks & Webinars
22 Publications
14 Certiﬁcations
3
Appearances & Achievements
Academic degrees
BE MS PhD
Steering Committee Member &
Coach
Steward & CoachCo-founderSenior Consultant
Co-founder
Coordinating
Committee member
15 Countries
50+ Customers
Other Current Activities

What is
Kanban?
看板
Photo by Amos Bar Zees on Unsplash
A way to improve
the organization
so that it delivers
better value.

What’s
Its
origin?
看板
Photo by Amos Bar Zees on Unsplash
Dragos Dimitriu and David
Anderson started it in Microsoft.
The name Kanban came later

Begin with
what you do
now
Photo by Alex Jones on Unsplash
No upfront disruption.
You determine improvements and
changes fromthe reality made
evident through Kanban

Agree to
pursue
evolutionary
Change
Photo by Ovidiu Creanga on Unsplash

Encourage
acts of
leadership
Photo by Ovidiu Creanga on Unsplash

Service
orientation
Photo by Tyler Nix on Unsplash
Is your
organization
fit for
purpose?

The 6 practices of Kanban

visualization
High

Ready 6
Design 2 Development 3 Testing 4 UAT 3
Deploy
doing done doing done doing done doing done
Expedite +1
Classes of
service
WIP Limits
Call to
Attention

The Kanban board is a ﬁngerprint
of your current process

Requests Ready In Progress Wait
Customer
Veriﬁcation
Done 
:-)
Project A
Project B
Sales
Financial
Customer X
Customer Y
Expedite
2
2
2
2
+1
3
5
3
3
2
3
1
External wait 2
1
1
1
1
1
1
= dependency
= blocked
1 1 1 1
Who
(avatars)
Gamiﬁcation

One project
with 5 teams
Notice they
are unique
yet still share
a common
aspect
important to
the project

WIP
Limit
visualization
High

Processing Time
# Batches# Coins/batch
Team 1
time
Team 2
time
Team 3
time
Team 4
time
1 12 4m 20s 5m 45s 5m 36s 4m 14s
2 6 3m 15s 3m 13s 2m 49s 2m 50s
3 4 2m 27s 3m 14s 2m 5s 2m 17s
6 2 2m 24s 1m 54s 1m 38s 1m 56s
12 1 1m 23s 1m 50s 1m 28s 1m 29s
Team 1
time
Team 2
time
Team 3
time
Team 4
time
0m 0s 1m 26.25s 2m 52.5s 4m 18.75s 5m 45s
1 2 3 6 12
Smaller batch sizes improve ﬂow and quality,
increase customer satisfaction, reduce stress,
and reduces time to market,

flowManage
WIP
Limit
visualization
High

New Manager
(command & ctrl
micromanager)
New team
on new project
w/lean-agile coach
Team had 4 months
of lean-agile
experience
Coach the
Manager
😃
Team
😖
Team
🙂
Team
Flow eﬃciency
©Masa K. Maeda

Cycle Time
Spikes of work
Some spikes are due to blockage
😐
Customer
😖Customer
😖
Customer
๏WIP limit management (reduction, on this case)
๏~85% capacity utilization
๏Team 🙂
©Masa K. Maeda

Waiting for another ticket
Waiting for another agile cell
Waiting for external customer response
Internal wait
Waiting for DevOps
Waiting for internal customer
Waiting for Design
Waiting for DBA
Waiting for admin
Not categorized
Recommendation: start with the high economic impact ones AND with the easier ones
©Masa K. Maeda
Waiting is a waste

policies
Make
explicit
flowManage
WIP
Limit
visualization
High

Explicit policies help use the Kanban board
properly and avoid ambiguity. They also help
improve communication beyond the conﬁnes
of the Kanban board (the system). They can
be applied to the classes of service, the steps
on the board and any other element of the
system

Feedback loops
policies
Make
explicit
flowManage
WIP
Limit
visualization
High

Medium
Long
Day to day value added improvement Short
Project & process improvement
Organizational improvement
Note that improvements at any level can be identiﬁed at any time

Improve evolve&
Feedback loops
policies
Make
explicit
flowManage
WIP
Limit
visualization
High

Using scientific method and models
Consider for example Dave Snowden’s Cynefin model (left)
and Donald Reinertsen’s flow model (right)

More examples
aaaand
some improvements

Kanban board for a 44 PMs PMO. Day one of Kanban . One stickie = one project.
There are 42 projects blocked (stickies with red tag)

Same board a bit less than 3 months later.
Only 9 projects blocked. Daily meeting average time = 8 minutes

Time to Market
[days]
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
Before Month 2.5 Month 3 Month 3.5
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Before Month 3
Blockage
Management
Requirements
Refinement
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Before Month 3.5
6%
15%
25%
34%
44%
53%
62%
72%
81%
91%
100%
Before Month 12
Defect ratio
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
90%
100%
Before Month 12
Time Dedicated
to Bug Fixing

0%
25%
50%
75%
100%
Communication
Userstories
Enthusiasm
Empoderamiento
Transparency
Conflictidentification
ConflictResolution
Facilitation
Servantleadership
Assertiveness
Challenging
Continuousimprovement
Knowledgeofthebusiness
Techskills
Projected growth
from 23 to 80 agile cells
in the Business Center
and the Innovation Center
Human Aspect

The Kanban Method Demystified

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