What is Kanban?

Kanban is a method for managing and visualizing work, originally developed in the manufacturing industry but now widely used in software development, project management, and other fields. The word "kanban" comes from Japanese, where it means "visual signal" or "card".

In a kanban system, work is represented as cards or sticky notes, which are placed on a board that is divided into columns representing different stages of the work process. The columns typically include stages such as "to-do", "in progress", and "done". The cards are moved between columns as the work progresses, providing a visual representation of the current status of each piece of work.

The goal of a kanban system is to limit work in progress (WIP) and to optimize the flow of work through the system. By limiting the amount of work that is in progress at any one time, a kanban system helps to reduce bottlenecks and improve efficiency. The system also provides transparency and helps to identify areas where improvements can be made.

Kanban is often used in conjunction with other agile development methodologies such as Scrum, and it can be adapted to a wide variety of different work processes and environments. Kanban boards can be physical, using a whiteboard and sticky notes, or digital, using software tools such as Trello or Jira.

Why it matters

It helps people see demand, capacity, waiting, and blocked work so they can make better decisions about what to start and finish.

Example

Consider a service team with a board full of active requests and frequent complaints about delays. It makes the workflow visible, defines when a request is ready to start and complete, and agrees on limits for work in progress. When review reaches its limit, people help resolve that queue before starting more work. The team watches aging requests, cycle time, and delivery quality, then adjusts policies when evidence shows a recurring obstacle. Kanban changes how work is selected and managed through the whole flow. Moving cards across a board alone would not address the overloaded system.

Common misunderstanding

A board makes work visible, but visibility alone does not control demand or improve flow. Teams can move cards diligently while starting too much work, leaving blocked items untouched, or accepting every urgent request without discussing the tradeoff.

Define the workflow, limits on work in progress, and policies for starting, finishing, and handling exceptions. Examine aging work and use feedback to adjust. A limit that is continually ignored is not managing capacity, while rigid enforcement without attention to context can create different problems.

Related terms

Flow Metrics · Lean · Working Agreements

To put this into practice, explore Getting Started With Kanban Journaling on nuAgility's learning platform.