Kanban (development)

Kanban is a method for visualizing the flow of work, in order to balance demand with available capacity and spot bottlenecks. Work items are visualized to give participants a view of progress and process, from start to finish. Team members pull work as capacity permits, rather than work being pushed into the process when requested.

In knowledge work and software development, this provides a visual process management system which aids decision-making about what, when and how much to produce. Although the underlying Kanban method originated in lean manufacturing (inspired by the Toyota Production System) it is used in many software development and technical support frameworks, and may be applied to any type of service.

David Anderson's 2010 book, Kanban, describes the method's evolution from a 2004 project at Microsoft using a theory of constraints approach and incorporating a drum-buffer-rope (which is comparable to the kanban pull system), to a 2006-2007 project at Corbis in which the kanban method was identified. In 2009, Don Reinertsen's published a book on second-generation lean product development which describes the adoption of the kanban system and the use of data collection and an economic model for management decision-making. Another early contribution came from Corey Ladas, whose 2009 book Scrumban suggested that kanban could improve Scrum for software development. Ladas saw Scrumban as the transition from Scrum to Kanban. Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry published Personal Kanban, applying Kanban to individuals and small teams, in 2011. In Kanban from the Inside (2014), Mike Burrows explained kanban's principles, practices and underlying values and related them to earlier theories and models. Kanban Change Leadership (2015), by Klaus Leopold and Siegfried Kaltenecker, explained the method from the perspective of change management and provided guidance to change initiatives. A condensed guide to the method was published in 2016, incorporating improvements and extensions from the early kanban projects.

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