Teams around the world are adding kanban around their existing processes to deliver greater business agility. This book answers the questions: What is the Kanban Method? Why would I want to use Kanban? How do I go about implementing Kanban?
"With Kanban, every minute you spend on a software project can add value for customers. One book can help you achieve this goal: Agile Project Management with Kanban. Author Eric Brechner pioneered Kanban within the Xbox engineering team at Microsoft. Now he shows you exactly how to make it work for your team. Think of this book as {28}Kanban in a box.
Kanban is a method of organizing and managing professional services work. It uses Lean concepts such as limiting work in progress to improve results. A Kanban system is a means of balancing the demand for work to be done with the available capacity to start new work. This book provides a distillation of Kanban: the "essence" of what it is and how it can be used. This brief overview introduces all the principal concepts and guidelines in Kanban and points you to where you can find out more. Essential Kanban Condensed is a great resource to get started or continue exploring ideas for evolutionary change and improvement in business agility.
Your team is stressed; priorities are unclear. You're not sure what your teammates are working on, and management isn't helping. If your team is struggling with any of these symptoms, these four case studies will guide you to project success. See how Kanban was used to significantly improve time to market and to create a shared focus across marketing, IT, and operations. Each case study comes with illustrations of the Kanban board and diagrams and graphs to help you see behind the scenes. Learn a Lean approach by seeing how Kanban made a difference in four real-world situations. You'll explore how four different teams used Kanban to make paradigm-changing improvements in software development. These teams were struggling with overwork, unclear priorities, and lack of direction. As you discover what worked for them, you'll understand how to make significant changes in real situations. The four case studies in this book explain how to: Improve the full value chain by using Enterprise Kanban Boost engagement, teamwork, and flow in change management and operations Save a derailing project with Kanban Help an office team outside IT keep up with growth using Kanban What seems easy in theory can become tangled in practice. Discover why "improving IT" can make you miss your biggest improvement opportunities, and why you should focus on fixing quality and front-end operations before IT. Discover how to keep long-term focus and improve across department borders while dealing with everyday challenges. Find out what happened when using Kanban to find better ways to do work in a well-established company, including running multi-team development without a project office. You'll inspire your team and engage management to make it easier to develop better products. What You Need: This is a case study book, so there are no software requirements. The book covers the relevant bits of theory before presenting the case studies.
Summary Kanban in Action is a down-to-earth, no-frills, get-to-know-the-ropes introduction to kanban. It's based on the real-world experience and observations from two kanban coaches who have introduced this process to dozens of teams. You'll learn the principles of why kanban works, as well as nitty-gritty details like how to use different color stickies on a kanban board to help you organize and track your work items. About the Book Too much work and too little time? If this is daily life for your team, you need kanban, a lean knowledge-management method designed to involve all team members in continuous improvement of your process. Kanban in Action is a practical introduction to kanban. Written by two kanban coaches who have taught the method to dozens of teams, the book covers techniques for planning and forecasting, establishing meaningful metrics, visualizing queues and bottlenecks, and constructing and using a kanban board. Written for all members of the development team, including leaders, coders, and business stakeholders. No experience with kanban is required. Purchase of the print book includes a free eBook in PDF, Kindle, and ePub formats from Manning Publications. What's Inside How to focus on work in process and finish faster Examples of successful implementations How team members can make informed decisions About the Authors Marcus Hammarberg is a kanban coach and software developer with experience in BDD, TDD, Specification by Example, Scrum, and XP. Joakim Sundén is an agile coach at Spotify who cofounded the first kanban user groups in Europe. Table of Contents PART 1 LEARNING KANBAN Team Kanbaneros gets startedPART 2 UNDERSTANDING KANBAN Kanban principles Visualizing your work Work items Work in process Limiting work in process Managing flow PART 3 ADVANCED KANBAN Classes of service Planning and estimating Process improvement Using metrics to guide improvements Kanban pitfalls Teaching kanban through games
"Productivity books focus on doing more. Jim and Tonianne want you to focus on doing better ... Personal Kanban takes the same Lean principles from manufacturing that led the Japanese auto industry to become a global leader in quality, and applies them to individual and team work. Personal Kanban asks only that we visualize our work, and limit our work-in-progress."--Back cover.
Toyota's world-renowned success proves that just-in-time (JIT) makes other manufacturing practices obsolete. This simple but powerful book is based on the seminars given by Taiichi Ohno and other senior production staff to introduce Toyota's own supplier companies to JIT. It teaches the philosophy and implementation of what many call the most efficient production system in the world. Provides a clear structure for an introductory JIT training program. Explains every aspect of the JIT system, including how to set it up and how to refine it once it's in place. Shows how to use a simple visual system to control the production process. Every day more American companies are learning that JIT works outside Japan. Now you can get started with this step-by-step book which guides you through the implementation process. Every engineer, manager, supervisor, and worker should read this book to get the clearest, simplest, and most complete introduction to JIT available in English. Results at American companies after reading this book: Lead-time on one product was reduced from 12 weeks to 4 days. Setup time on a large blanking press was reduced from eight hours to one minute and four seconds. Work-in-process has been reduced 50 percent plant-wide. Factory floor space was opened up 30 to 40 percent in every on of their plants.
Kanban is a revolutionary "just in time" manufacturing theory originally developed at Toyota to ensure that parts and supplies are ordered as needed. This text leads the reader through the entire Kanban process.
Scrum and Kanban are two flavours of Agile software development - two deceptively simple but surprisingly powerful approaches to software development. So how do they relate to each other? The purpose of this book is to clear up the fog, so you can figure out how Kanban and Scrum might be useful in your environment. Part I illustrates the similarities and differences between Kanban and Scrum, comparing for understanding, not for judgement. There is no such thing as a good or bad tool - just good or bad decisions about when and how to use which tool. This book includes: - Kanban and Scrum in a nutshell - Comparison of Kanban and Scrum and other Agile methods - Practical examples and pitfalls - Cartoons and diagrams illustrating day-to-day work - Detailed case study of a Kanban implementation within a Scrum organization Part II is a case study illustrating how a Scrum-based development organization implemented Kanban in their operations and support teams.
Kanban is a simple and elegant Agile framework that helps to control and improve development processes. Originating in traditional 20th century manufacturing in Japan, Kanban has a renewed relevance today, being a crucial methodology in the world of software development. This book explores the key features of Kanban, and demonstrates how to put it into practice through exercises that will help you make the most of this unique approach to managing collaboration and production. Designed as a 30 day action plan, this book will help you understand and implement Kanban – and start seeing results – in a month. Analyze your current situation and define your goals and wider strategic aims, and begin developing a plan to help you and your team confidently work towards achieving them. Involve your team to drive cultural change, learn how to prioritize and organize tasks and projects to efficiently use your time and resources. Create your own value stream map to better understand your processes and identify improvement areas, and adapt and use the features tips and examples to overcome challenges you may face when implementing Kanban. Pick up this book and experience the full results of this vital Agile methodology – fast.