The 10 Key Principles of Kanban for Project Management

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Kanban is often entwined with agile software development, but it has much broader applications. After all, software development isn’t the only process that benefits from Kanban’s insights. Here are the key principles of Kanban which can transform the way you approach your projects.

Table of Contents:

• What is Kanban?
• Kanban in Project Management
• Key Principles of Kanban
  • Basic Principles
  • Change Management Principles
  • Service Management Principles
• Closing Thoughts
• Frequently Asked Questions

What is Kanban?

Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer who pioneered lean manufacturing at Toyota Production System, devised the Kanban method. It is a visual method that makes use of cards or boards to make it easier to keep track of work items while also offering insights into how far along each stage of the project is. You can see the workflow and the (work in progress) WIP limitations using Kanban boards.

It is most effective when dealing with regular, comparable-sized work packages, but it is also readily adaptable to different Agile techniques. The fundamentals of the Kanban principles will be further discussed in this article.

Kanban in Project Management

Kanban is used in project management to provide an efficient way of monitoring the progress of multiple concurrent activities with minimal work in progress (WIP) and to ensure that the production line runs smoothly by constantly balancing work in progress and work done.

It also helps in keeping a DevOps culture by performing continuous delivery in a controlled manner. Kanban complements the Agile framework by helping teams to release frequently. Through Kanban, teams can also identify and remove bottlenecks in their Agile delivery. Kanban can be adopted and implemented efficiently in both IT and non-IT companies.

Handpicked Must Reads:

• Kanban Project Management – Easy Guide for Beginners in 2022
• Personal Kanban Board: A Guide to Help Boost Your Productivity
• How To Create A Kanban Board In Excel?

Key Principles of Kanban

The principles of Kanban are categorized into three namely basic principles, service delivery principles, and change management principles.

A set of principles are included in each of these sections and they are further explained below:

Basic Principles of Kanban

The four Kanban principles were created to ensure that you always utilize Kanban in a way that maximizes the advantages for your business process.

Better flow, a shorter cycle time, enhancing customer value, and creation of more deliverables are all examples of kanban improvements. Naturally, if a company wants to stay in business, these are essential goals.

1. Visualize Workflow

It is hardly unexpected that the first Kanban principle is about visualization given the word’s etymology. Kanban doesn’t prescribe a workflow, in contrast to certain business process techniques; it merely demands that work-in-progress be maintained in a fashion that can be easily visualized. Visually mapping the process as it is now is crucial before starting a Kanban upgrade. Opportunities for improvement won’t be apparent until then. Once Kanban is in place, visual communication of the status of projects, processes, and inventory continues.

2. Limit Work in Progress (WIP)

With as little waste and latency as possible, Kanban aims to move every piece of work efficiently from start to finish. This necessitates keeping the backlog of work to a manageable size at any one time. Similar to a grocery store, the product is only moved from the backroom to the shelves when there is room due to demand from customers. Only when “consumer” demand pulls work through to the next stage is it moved by the Kanban approach. Bottlenecks are prevented because the work is never pushed forward.

3. Focus on Flow

This is accomplished by emphasizing each of these respective job statuses and process stages. Either you’ll witness clear sailing or bottlenecks with work building up that affects your capacity. Naturally, how effectively the workflow has been specified and what WIP constraints you have established will determine this. How quickly your job progresses from the beginning to the end of your workflow is what you’re after in a broader sense. The kanban board’s visual design creates a level of transparency that enables the team to assess the system and make necessary improvements to enhance flow and shorten job completion times.

4. Continuous Improvement

It is the final tenet of Kanban. The majority of lean manufacturing techniques share this common theme. You need to keep becoming better if your efficiency isn’t at its peak. You will need to make adjustments as you begin adopting Kanban and lean manufacturing principles inside your operations to maintain this improvement.

Change Management Principles of Kanban

1. Start With What You Do Now 

Kanban provides the freedom to deploy the methodology on top of already-in-place workflows, systems, and processes without interfering with them. The approach acknowledges that current procedures, positions, duties, and titles have importance and are generally worthwhile for preservation. Naturally, it will draw attention to problems that need to be fixed and aid in planning and assessing modifications to ensure minimal disruption during implementation.

2. Agree to Pursue Through Evolutionary Change

The Kanban approach is made to encounter less opposition. Implementing collaboration and feedback forms encourages constant modest incremental and evolutionary modifications to the current process. Large-scale changes should generally be avoided since people tend to resist them out of uncertainty or fear.

3. Encourage Acts of Leadership at All Levels

People’s everyday observations and actions serve as the basis for leadership at all levels. As unimportant as you may believe it is, every shared observation encourages the continuous improvement attitude (Kaizen), which is necessary to achieve the best performance possible for a team, department, or company. This can’t be anything that management would do.

Service Management Principles of Kanban

1. Focus on Customer’s Needs and Expectations 

This idea comes from the Lean philosophy. Understanding the needs of the clients should come first. What do they anticipate in terms of experience, pricing, timeliness, quality, and predictability?

Kanban’s evolutionary improvement is intended to increase customer happiness. Put the customer, the service, and the degree of fulfillment to satisfy their expectations front and center. Efficiency is useless while performing improper actions.

2. Manage the Work, Not the Workers

This idea also has a lean heritage. It is intended for managers. Allow individuals to organize themselves around the necessary work. Give workers the necessary tools and training so they can work at their highest potential and recognize and take advantage of development opportunities.

After confirming that we are doing this morally, we must proceed with caution. This idea emphasizes work. To complete it, people must organize themselves. It is simpler for the stakeholders to understand what is being worked on, how the work is being done, who is doing it, what the priorities are, which areas of the process we have bottlenecks, etc., by making the work that is being done public.

3. Regularly Review the Network of Services 

Kanban’s strategy is comparable to Lean’s, in contrast to Agile’s, which advocates interdisciplinary teams. Value streams are discussed in Lean, and it suggests three core value streams for any firm. Kanban talks about connected services instead. One person, a Frontend team, a product team, or an end-to-end value stream can all be considered a service.

The sharing of the criteria that aid decision-making throughout the process is part of our ongoing effort to enhance how we manage work and how we carry out work. Once more, the emphasis should be on enhancing company outcomes and raising customer happiness by exceeding their expectations. Make policies clear; change, enhance, and evolve them; and make them apparent to all parties involved.

Closing Thoughts

In this article, we discussed the key principles of Kanban and how these principles help organizations to adapt to change. This is a must-read for those who wish to have deep insight into the Kanban method and the benefits associated with it. With this new method, organizations can now stop trying to maintain the status quo and come together to collaborate.

Adopting a new way of working is easy; staying on top of it, however, is difficult. The key is to start small, learn, adapt and continually review your processes and methods for improvement. These are some of the key principles that make up the Kanban methodology.

For more information on project management software and methodologies read our blogs.

For courses on project management and tools please check our course list.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What is Kanban?

Lean and Agile are the roots of the systematic work approach known as Kanban. It guarantees that teams pull tasks—Kanban cards—through a procedure to achieve continuous delivery. To improve flow, Kanban advises limiting the quantity of work that is in process.

2. What are the Key Principles of Kanban?

1. Visualize Workflow
2. Limit Work in Progress (WIP)
3. Focus on Flow
4. Continuous Improvement
5. Start With What You Do Now 
6. Agree to Pursue Through Evolutionary Change
7. Encourage Acts of Leadership at All Levels
8. Focus on Customer’s Needs and Expectations 
9. Manage the Work, Not the Workers
10. Regularly Review the Network of Services 

Simon Calder

Chris “Simon” Calder was working as a Project Manager in IT for one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious cultural institutions, LACMA.He taught himself to use Microsoft Project from a giant textbook and hated every moment of it. Online learning was in its infancy then, but he spotted an opportunity and made an online MS Project course - the rest, as they say, is history!