Kanban has been used for years in manufacturing to help organizations become more efficient, deliver products faster and to increase quality. However, the concepts and philosophies of Kanban can be used by anyone to improve whatever they are doing from software development to patient management to sandwich making. Kanban is an incremental approach to improvement. Here is a short presentation on why Kanban is great and why you should learn more about it.

1. WHY YOU SHOULD CARE ABOUT
KANBAN
JP Patil
Director, Strategic Initiatives - Digite, Inc.

2. Some Questions to Ask Yourself
 Is your team constantly improving? Do you wish it would?
 Is it hard to agree on what to change? Is it even harder to
implement change?
 Do you find your team is constantly task switching? Is your
team getting burned out?
 Are you playing the guessing game and missing deadlines?
 Are you delivering the value you know you are capable of?

3. What Can Help?
KANBAN!

4. History
 Kanban was created by Taiichi Ohno for Toyota
 Kanban is a driver of Just In Time and Lean in the Toyota
Production System
 Kanban has been widely used in manufacturing for more
than 50 years
 Applying Kanban to Knowledge Work? The Kanban
Method
 Combines aspects of the Theory of Constraints and Lean
and other production techniques with Kanban
Taiichi Ohno W. Edward Deming Eli Goldratt David J. Anderson

5. What is Kanban?
Kanban – Japanese term for
“signboard” or “Billboard” that
indicates “available capacity (to
work)” or a visual cue to begin
work.
Kanban System - A visual system for
managing work moving through a
process – the “value stream”

6. Thirsty? Hungry?
You have been exposed to Kanban all the time but you just didn’t realize it.

7. So Why Should you Care?
 Kanban will Help you Get Lean!
 Visualize and Map your Value Stream
 Continuous Flow
 Incremental Change, Continuous Improvement
 Be Data Driven

8. Visualize

9. So Why Is Everything Text Based?

10. A Kanban Board – What’s Going On in my Value
Stream?
What is in Development or Testing? What is blocked? Who is
overloaded? Are we heading for problems? Who can help? What is
ready to ship?
Testing is a
bottleneck.
Going to have
issues.
TFS Integration
is held up.
WIP violation Critical defect
still being tested
Ready to
be
released!

11. The Importance of Continuous Flow
 Prevent the
Bullwhip Effect
 Variations in flow
have a greater
impact in
downstream activities

12. An Experiment
© Digite, Inc.
12
 Get out a stopwatch
 Time yourself counting from 1 to 26 as fast as you can
 Time yourself saying the alphabet A – Z as fast as you can
 Add up the times
 Now time yourself counting from 1 – 26 and saying the alphabet
from A – Z as fast as you can
 But…
 Alternate between numbers and letters  1, A, 2, B, 3, C
 Which were you faster at?

13. Multitasking is Bad
“It’s unequivocally the case that workers who are doing multiple things
at one time are doing them poorly,” said Clifford Nass, director of the
Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab at
Stanford University.
Companies that demand multitasking may be damaging productivity.
“It would be a total tragedy if when we have so much potential to make
the work force more intelligent, we are actually making the work force
dumber,” Nass said. “Companies that are demanding that workers
multitask might not only be hurting their productivity, but may be
making the workforce worse thinkers.”
*Ruth Mantell, Wall Street Journal Market Watch, July 12, 2011,
“Multitasking: More work, less productivity”

14. Stop Starting and Start Finishing
 Pull
 Work can be started when there is capacity
 Team members “buy in” when pulling a task
 Unplanned tasks do not disrupt the system
 Limit WIP
 Balance demand with throughput
 Establish Cadence – Continuous Even Flow
 Reduce task switching and multitasking
 One Piece Flow/ Minimum Marketable Features
 Transfer of one piece of work at a time rather than batches
 Reduce partially done work and overload
 Deliver more often with higher value

15. Revolutions are Bloody
 Kanban is Not
 Prescriptive
 Revolutionary
 Top Down Change
 Kanban is
 Evolutionary
 Transparency
 Team Based Change
 Scientific Experimentation

16. If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Fix It
 Measure Quality and System Performance
 Implement Feedback Loops
 Focus on the Right Metrics
 Cycle Time and Lead Time
 Cumulative Flow Diagram
 Control Charts
 Electronic Kanban Tools Capture Data Automatically

17. Why Guesstimate, Predict!
 Historical data available
 Statistics applied to Cycle Time
 Use Class of Service for greater
granularity
 Don’t guess, you can predict
within defined standard
deviations of when a task will be
completed

18. What is Lean?
 Preserve and deliver value
 Eliminate waste
 Any resources not being used to drive value are being
wasted
 Continuously reflect and improve

19.  The 5 Pillars of Lean
1) Map the Value Stream
2) Pull
3) Continuous Flow
4) Continuous Improvement
5) Deliver Value
How Do you Become Lean?

20. Kanban to Lean
Kanban Applied The 5 Pillars of Lean
Value Stream Mapping ✔
Pull ✔
Continuous Flow ✔
Continuous Improvement ✔
Deliver Value ✔

21. Am I Lean Now?

22. We Improved 300%

23. Kanban Knows No Boundaries
 Internally We Also Use Kanban for
• HR
• Finance
• Sales
• Marketing
 People use Swift-Kanban for
 All of the above plus
 Legal Transaction Management
 Book Publishing
 Video Game Development
 Personal Kanban
 And more

24. Kanban for Kids
https://micknelson.wordpress.com/2012/10/03/kanban-for-kids/

25. Tackle Those Questions with Kanban
 Constantly Improve
 Incremental Change
 Less Task Switching, Smooth Out Flow
 Deliver on Time for Higher Value
 Be Lean

26. Want to Learn More?
© Digite, Inc.
26
 Contact Information
 jpatil@digite.com
 @jpatil
 Learn more at
 www.swift-kanban.com
 www.digite.com
 Connect with us
 Twitter - @swiftkanban/
@digite
 Facebook –
www.facebook.com/digite
 Our Blog, http://swift-
kanban.com/blog.html
 The Yahoo Group kanbandev
 David J. Anderson’s Book,
Successful Evolutionary
Change for Your Technology
Business
 Al Shalloway’s Blog,
http://www.netobjectives.com/
blog
 Jim Benson’s Blog,
http://www.personalkanban.c
om/pk/blog
About us About Kanban