8 Most Widely Held Kanban Myths
Kanban is a vast concept and it comes with many Kanban Myths. These myths often tend to hold back on unleashing the full potential of Kanban. In this blog, we will be going over the 8 Most Widely Held Kanban Myths and clearing up the misconceptions.
The most popular Kanban myths are:
- Kanban is just a board
- Kanban is only for support or operations teams
- Kanban is only for software/IT teams
- You have to choose between Kanban and Scrum
- Kanban is just for co-located teams
- Kanban requires disruptive changes
- Kanban is the WIP limit
- You need to implement Kanban across the organizations
What is Kanban?
In the 1940s, Toyota used Kanban to improve the efficiency of its production system. It developed a Kanban system to improve the flow of its materials and products from suppliers, all the way to customers.
David Anderson built upon the Kanban applied in Toyota and developed the Kanban method for the knowledge work industry.
Kanban for the knowledge work industry is a visual workflow management method. For an organization to deliver a service to its customer, it would need to take the work through a number of activities before it is delivered to a customer. Kanban method helps visualize, manage and improve this invisible process, as well as the invisible work that goes through the process. The goal of Kanban is to identify and remove bottlenecks and improve the flow of work.
While Kanban is widely adopted in the knowledge work industry, specifically software development, there are many myths about Kanban that stops people from reaping its full benefit.
In this blog, we will de-myth 8 most pervasive myths about Kanban
8 Most Widely Held Kanban Myths Infographic
1. Kanban is just a board:
This is one of the most popular kanban myths. Kanban is not just a board. Kanban method uses a board to visualize and manage the work, as it flows through the processes. Kanban method has its principles and practices that help develop a full-fledged kanban system to manage the flow of value to customers.
2. Kanban is only for support or operations teams:
This is another of the popularly held myths of Kanban. Kanban is not just for support or operations teams, Kanban works great for product development as well. This myth became popular because of the dynamic nature of support and operations. The iterative timeboxed agile frameworks do not work for such a fast-changing environment and Kanban works great for such situations. Organizations leveraging Kanban for product development, see improved lead time and feedback loop.
3. Kanban only for software/IT teams:
Kanban Method for knowledge work is only for the software industry is one of the biggest myths! Kanban was first applied by Toyota in the manufacturing production system, to improve efficiency in product delivery to its customers. Kanban method in knowledge work was pioneered by David Anderson. Since then, Kanban has been applied in a variety of industries. This doesn’t only include marketing, finance, HR, etc, but also includes software development teams.
4. You have to choose between Kanban and Scrum:
One of the famous Kanban myths is that you have to choose between Kanban and Scrum. Kanban and Scrum are actually not mutually exclusive. If your team is using Scrum, you can very well apply Kanban principles and practices, without having to let go of Scrum. One of the change principles of Kanban is “start with what you do now”, which means if you are using Scrum, you do not have to move away from Scrum and still be able to apply Kanban practices. Kanban helps improve the flow of work for Scrum teams.
5. Kanban is just for co-located teams:
This is one of the Kanban myths probably prevalent due to the usage of the board. Physical boards work great for co-located teams however Kanban method is not limited to a location. In fact when teams are spread across locations and when they are working together to provide a service to customers, the Kanban system helps them work together and deliver much more effectively and efficiently. Explicit policies and pull-based systems in Kanban help bring transparency and empower teams to work from distributed locations and deliver value to customers.
6. Kanban requires disruptive change:
Kanban is based on change principles of “start with what you do now” and pursuing evolutionary change. This is very different from other agile frameworks, which insist on replacing existing processes. With Kanban, one is not replacing existing processes or the roles and responsibilities, instead, you pursue small changes with a focus on improving the flow of work to customers. Kanban practices enable continuous improvement of flow.
7. Kanban is just the wip limit:
In Japanese, the word “kanban” means “signal”. WIP limit when applied in a workflow, works as a pull signal and hence it is usually referred to as kanban. WIP limit enables pull in the value stream however Kanban as a method is more than WIP limits. It has practices (including WIP limit) and principles that empower the whole system to manage and improve its delivery. Pull and flow are concepts that are at the heart of the Kanban method.
8. You need to implement Kanban across the organization at once:
When an organization adopts an Agile framework like SAFe or Scrum, a good number of times, these adoptions are driven from the top-down and there is usually a push to adopt a big bang approach, at the organizational level. Some of the frameworks do require one to make changes at the organizational level.
With Kanban, there is no such requirement. In fact, per Kanban scaling principles, an organization consists of a network of interconnected services and you scale one service at a time. Every service will be different, with different kinds of workflow and pain points, hence every Kanban system will also be unique.
Kanban is deeper than what the Kanban myths perceive it to be.
To learn more about Kanban, join our certification-based training programs –
