Slides of the presentation I gave at Yahoo! Headquarters in Sunnyvale California as a meeting of the Silicon Valley Agile Leadership Network

1. Demystifying Kanban
L e a n
V a l u e
I n n o v a t i v e
M a n a g e m e n t
Masa K Maeda
masa@valueinnova.com @masakmaeda

2. Mas a K M aeda, Ph D
With 25 years of international experience, Masa is the creator Lean Value
Innovation and is currently writing a book about it. He is a leading figure in in the
Lean and Agile communities. He is known for bringing highly successful Kanban
and Agile adoptions internationally inside and outside the software and IT
industries; and is considered by many to be the person to go to for lean and
agile transformation in Ibero-America. He is one of just a few Kanban Trainer-
Coaches accredited by the Lean-Kanban University worldwide.
Masa is also a Senior Consultant with the Cutter Consortium, where he specializes in Kanban, Lean-Agile
Management, and Lean Value Innovation. He teaches Lean Value Innovation at the University of
California at Berkeley Extension. He is also an accredited Kanban trainer with the Lean Kanban University
(Valueinnova is a charter member), a PMI Agile Certified Professional, a Certified Scrum Product Owner
and a Certified Scrum Master.
Previously, Masa was an associate at David J Anderson & Associates. He did R&D at Apple Inc. and in
Japan at Justsystems Corporation. He also worked at Netscape/AOL and was founding team member
of 4 startups in Silicon Valley: Electric Communities, When.com, Ingenuity systems, and Vuze Inc.; those
companies pioneered in virtual environments, online socialization, proteomics, and online
entertainment. Masa also worked at Akimbo systems.
Masa holds a PhD and a M.S. degrees from the University of Tokushima in Japan; a BE with honors from
the National Autonomous University of Mexico. He has also done studies in psychology, management,
nlp, co-active coaching and cybernetics.
Endorsement by Tom Poppendieck (one of the fathers of Lean for Knowledge Work:
Applying lean ideas to innovation is one of the major advances to expect in the next decade. […] lean
innovation may be as important as the Agile Manifesto when we look back 10 years from now

3. Coaching Consulting Training
Headquarters
Valueinnova offices
Valueinnova par tner locations
Valueinnova associates

4. What Kanban isn’t
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an a ge m e
nt
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5. What Kanban is
看板 A method for
managing positive
change in the
organization

6. Lean Thinking
Improve the whole
El imi na te waste
Muri Mura Muda (3 M’s)
Most issues are due to the system and not to people
Ad-hoc is not acceptable
The does knows better how to do the improvement

7. Let ’s get dirty...
H a n d s - o n d y n a m ic s
to discuss some
Kanban practices

8. H ig h v is u a liz a t io n Kanban
Limit work in progress Practices
Make process policies explicit
U s e m o d e l s to Improve collaboratively

9. H ig h v is u a liz a t io n Kanban
Limit work in progress Practices
Make process policies explicit
U s e m o d e l s to Improve collaboratively
Manage workflow

10. H ig h v is u a liz a t io n Kanban
Limit work in progress Practices
Make process policies explicit
Improve collaboratively
Manage workflow
Fee db a c k loop s a nd me c h a n i s m s

11. Kanban
Principles
Start with what you do now
Agree to pursue incremental,
evolutionary change
Initially, respect current roles,
responsibilities and job titles

12. When not to use Kanban
D e m a n d < C a p a b ilit y
Sm oo t h v a l ue fl o w
Capability
Demand
Kanban
system
Note: You can still use Kanban on those situations to enhance visibility,
d o ro o t c a u s e a n a l y s i s , a n d i d e n t i f y o p p o r t u n i t i e s f o r i m p ro v e m e n t

13. Kanban
and iterative process
Althoug h Ka nb a n in itera tionless you ca n still use it on p rocesses tha t req uire
itera tions b eca use (a ) Ka nb a n d oes not rep la ce your current p rocess, it sits
on top of it, and (b) You can use Kanban’s cadences to determine
customized delivery periods that deliver value in a very effective way.

14. “Which is better, Kanban or Scrum?” …this is not a valid question
since they are two methods of different nature and for different purposes.

15. Done !

16. Thanks!
masa@valueinnova.com @ ma sakmaeda
L e a n
V a l u e
I n n o v a t i v e
M a n a g e m e n t
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