John Wooden, perhaps one of the greatest coaches of all time in any sport, had a strange yet effective approach to coaching. He rarely talked to his team about winning, and instead focused them on the fundamentals, like the proper way to lace up your shoes. With that in mind, I thought we would hit the fundamentals of Kanban in 2022’s initial Tuesday Tidbit.
At its core, The Kanban Method has a set of three principles. They are:
Start with what you do now
Commit to incremental, evolutionary change
Encourage acts of leadership at all levels
We can dive deeper into each of those over the next few weeks.
From there, Kanban has six practices:
Visualize - write down your work and workflow and make it visible for everyone.
Limit Work in Progress (WIP) - stop starting so much work, and finish what’s in flight.
Manage Flow - just like a water faucet, get the right amount of flow.
Make Process Explicit - write down your policies and hold to them...or change them.
Implement Feedback Loops - hold conversations to get clear and make changes.
Improve Collaboratively, Evolve Experimentally (using models & the scientific method)
Now, that may seem like a lot. It’s not. As a matter of fact that first principle, “start with what you do now,” will unlock how incredibly simple and realistic this method is. What’s more, you’re probably already doing this. “Tristan, are you telling me I already use Kanban?” Read this next story and decide for yourself.
In a recent Starting Kanban class I had a student tell me, “just to be clear, we can’t do Kanban.” They made it clear that their leadership had already spoken to the powers that be and informed them “our department just cannot do Kanban.” I put on my best Socratic Method hat and challenged this with a set of strategic questions. Here is what the conversation sounded like. (I’ve tweaked the names slightly, but I still play the part of ‘Me’ in the story.)
Bob: Tristan, we can’t use Kanban. Our department just works differently.
Me: Ah, completely understood. Do you guys have a way of visualizing your work now? How does anyone know what work is underway?
Bob: Of course we do. We use a service desk app that shows all our requests.
Me: Perfect! But you have no way of limiting the amount of work you guys are doing, so everyone just does whatever comes in and you assign it directly to them?
Bob: Of course we have a way. We have a system where each person can go in and grab the work and we try to keep it balanced so that no one person is overwhelmed.
Me: Okay, but you guys probably don’t have that written down anywhere.
Bob: Well, now that you mention it, we do. We use a Word doc. That way new hires can see how we work as well.
Me: Do you guys take a look at that doc and the way you work and find ways to improve it?
Bob: Well, not as much as we should, but yeah we talk about it. I mean, we don’t do real retrospectives, but we have stand-ups and meetings.
Me: Don’t worry about that just yet, I am just trying to understand where you are now. Based on what you just said though, you guys do the following:
Visualize your work using a service desk
Manage the work in progress and flow by making sure the work is balanced and setting proper SLAs
You have a Word doc where you make this process explicit
You have feedback loops, like stand-up and other meetings, to discuss the work. Does that all sound right?
Bob: Well, yeah...that sounds right. What’s your point?
Me: Well, unless I’m missing something, while you guys have room to improve, you not only CAN use the Kanban Method, you ALREADY use the Kanban Method.
Some of you may be saying “but Tristan, all you did was take what they do now and mash the Kanban Method on top of it.” You are exactly correct. Because Kanban is not a Project Management Method or Process. It’s simply a set of Principles and Practices. The way you define the activities within those Principles and Practices should and must be based on what’s best for your team and your customer.
There is zero excuse for anyone reading this to think they can’t do what was listed above in the Principles and Practices. The effort to do the work isn’t easy, but nothing worth anything is ever easy. No matter your industry, you can take how you work today, commit to pursue incremental change, and start encouraging acts of leadership in yourself and others. And maybe today you simply ask, “how could I visualize my work?” Try a whiteboard. Try a spreadsheet. If you love your smartphone, download Trello and make a board. Try all three and see what sticks. The only right answer is whatever works for you and your team.
With that, I hope you are having a delightful new year. Get out there, be great, and tie those shoes…