Most people and organizations want to have an impact. They don’t exert effort for no purpose; they want to accomplish something. Waste – spending time and energy on things that don’t contribute to an outcome you want to create – gets in the way of that. Wasteful activities reduce our personal and organizational effectiveness. Waste comes in many different forms, and one of the most pernicious is task switching.
The history of lean and kanban is a challenge to boil down, so inevitably, I know there are aspects that are missing here. The title says “short” because, while there is a lot of information here, it is short in terms of how more is out there! Additionally, there are often disagreements on certain aspects and points around the history, and we’ve sourced the various elements included in this outline. A key part of understanding kanban is going beyond the principles and practices, to understand what is behind it work. The history points us to a critical key.
The kanban principles we use and I mention in What is Kanban? are fairly straightforward, yet often ignored in organizations who say they are doing kanban. I want to dig into a bit more depth on each of the principles, for those are are less familiar with them (or perhaps even for some that are).
This is a common question, since Kanban can have several word uses and meanings in the agile space. The term gets thrown around a lot, making it even more confusing. In order to understand Kanban and where it comes from, let’s start with some basic definitions and the foundations. We start with the basics, because there is often confusion around what kanban is.
Simple definitions of kanban:
We hear a lot about best practices. We talk a lot about them. Many organizations are of the opinion that if they can identify the best practice, they are set. Of course, that thinking can be limiting in a number of ways. We need to be better, not best.
Googling “best practice definition” gives you “commercial or professional procedures that are accepted or prescribed as being correct or most effective.”
Wikipedia says : “A best practice is a method or technique that has consistently shown results superior to those achieved with other means, and that is used as a benchmark. In addition, a “best” practice can evolve to become better as improvements are discovered. Best practice is considered by some as a business buzzword, used to describe the process of developing and following a standard way of doing things that multiple organizations can use.”
Notice in the Wikipedia definition they add the idea that they can evolve to become better. This gets to the root of what we need to be doing.