The Evolution of Kanban
At its core, Kanban is a management method designed to improve customer satisfaction by creating fast and reliable workflows capable of delivering products and services of superior quality.
Kanban originated in the automotive industry of Japan and was originally developed as a method for improving manufacturing efficiency at Toyota. However, at the beginning of the 21st Century, key players within the software industry realized that Kanban could be used to positively change the ways in which products and services were delivered.
The result is astonishing. In less than a decade, Kanban has become the most popular tool for software development and IT teams, surpassing the Scrum framework, which has been the de-facto standard until recently. According to the State of Scrum survey, 60% of Scrum teams utilize the Kanban method, which is a testament to the benefit it brings.
Kanban left the realm of the automotive industry and conquered the IT world, but now, with an increased focus on flow and by harnessing advances in computing technology, it is about to expand its reach to the entire business. Leaders all over the world have realized that Kanban has the most flexible architecture that allows it to scale across the enterprise in a natural and human-centric way. More and more companies are embracing the Kanban “start with what you do now” principle and are on their way to true business agility. But, how do you go about that exactly?
A Bit of Expectations Management
Managing an enterprise Kanban implementation starts with expectation management. Senior leaders that sign off on multi-million dollar budgets for agile transformations should be informed that business agility is a strategic choice and not a one-off project. No company in the world has ever managed to become agile overnight. There’s no shortcut to that, nor is there a recipe to follow.
Even if your company is doing well, unless you push hard to improve, sooner or later your competitors will catch up. So, in terms of expectations, people should know that there is no “we’re done” state. The constant, never-ending process called continuous improvement is what makes you resilient in the long run.
If there’s one area where Kanban really shines, it is continuous process improvement, which will almost always lead to qualitative and quantitative overall improvements. Applying Kanban to a process will typically drive up to 2000% improvement—and that’s not a typo. Scale that on a company level and let the numbers speak for themselves.
Start with What You Do Now
Once an organization has made the decision to implement Kanban, it can be tempting to jump quickly into building the system itself without conducting a thorough analysis of enterprise operations and processes. As a first step, it is vital that organizations assess their current situation to understand where concrete improvements can and need to be made. This includes aspects such as:
- Processes: Is production stable and predictable? Answering no to this question doesn’t mean you can’t properly create and scale Kanban in your organization, but it does mean that you need to put some extra buffer and flexibility into your planning.
- Involvement and Investment: This is where the notion of scale is important. A company-wide Kanban would be immensely more effective than local implementations, but it will require involvement from senior leadership and a significant budget. It is often a good idea to start small, learn fast and then go full speed.
Kanban’s flexibility allows it to be overlaid onto existing workflows, systems and processes without disrupting what is already successfully being done. It will, naturally, highlight issues that need to be addressed and help to assess and plan changes so their implementation is as non-disruptive as possible.
Kanban’s versatility allows it to be introduced incrementally, and sympathetically, to all types of organizations without fear of over-commitment or culture shock. This makes Kanban easy to implement in any type of organization as there is no need to make sweeping changes right from the start.
If you are starting on a smaller scale with a goal of growth, once the Kanban mentality is put in practice and successfully functioning, it is important to set goals for future scale—six months, one year and three years down the road. If you conduct a pilot where Kanban is embraced and productive, don’t lose time and momentum waiting to deploy it across the rest of your business or enterprise.
Training
Training is an aspect of Kanban implementation that is often overlooked. It is important for the team designing and implementing the system to consider every level of user across the organization. What seems logical, obvious and understandable in the context of a planning meeting may not prove to be so on the shop floor.
While a well-designed Kanban system may appear visual and obvious, end users who don’t understand the theory behind it, will not always trust it. This is especially true for mature employees who are accustomed to doing things a certain way based on learned habits. When introducing Kanban, put yourself in the shoes of someone who does not know anything about it and may not initially embrace the idea of change. As straightforward as Kanban should be, if the end-user is not on board, it won’t work.
Training resources such as Kanban University offer certified Kanban courses and a global network of resources for organizations to help onboard employees and users at every level, build awareness and assure quality in Kanban implementations. Upfront and ongoing investment in such training teaches organizations how to fully maximize the value of Kanban, and train them to understand and visualize systems of work to continually improve and deliver effective results.
Past the Team Kanban Phase
If you do Kanban right, many tough questions will have to be answered, including, “How do you connect the high-level strategy with the goals on a team level?” and “How do you bridge the gap between planning and execution?” The good news is that Kanban has an answer for these questions, too.
Kanban integrates naturally with strategy deployment frameworks such as Hoshin Kanri or OKR. All you have to do is use Kanban across every level of the organization. Practice shows that companies would typically use three flight levels. The lowest level is the team level, where work gets done. The second is the coordination level, and the third is the strategic level. All levels are connected to one-another, so that strategic initiatives (level 3) are broken down into projects (level 2), which are then broken into work items for the teams to work on (level 1).
When you “Kanbanize” all three levels and connect them into a single whole, then you get an extremely powerful management tool with the following benefits:
- All work is visible, starting from the very top to the very bottom.
- Impediments across all levels are explicit.
- There is bidirectional feedback loop between all flight levels.
- The senior leaders can quickly change the course of the whole company.
- Much more accurate and reliable status reports that are based on real data.
- Through the usage of proper Kanban tools, the data gathered on the team level can be used for forecasting on the project level. This helps leaders take informed decisions.
Driving Enterprise Agility with Kanban
The demands of businesses, customers and markets will always change. And in response, businesses must be able to quickly pivot and adapt to meet shifts in expectations and requirements. Successfully implementing Kanban across an enterprise requires a deep understanding of the theory that stands behind it and upfront investment to determine the best approach to make it work within the context of unique organizational challenges and objectives. When implemented and designed appropriately–with buy in and support at every level–Kanban enables enterprises to be agile amidst change, continually improve vital processes and the ability to scale to meet the demands that tomorrow can bring at a moment’s notice.
