Exploring Agility

An Introduction to Kanban (2 days)

Kanban is a method used to evolve an existing process to a leaner way of working through such practices as visualisation, limiting work in progress, managing flow, making policies explicit, implementing feedback mechanisms and continuous improvement. This training course will help attendees understand the principles and practices of Kanban and give them experience of applying them.

Day 1

Through a series of exercises and discussions, attendees will have a base understanding of Kanban and the principles on which it is based. By the end of the day attendees can expect to:

• Have a definition of what Kanban is
• Understand how Kanban is underpinned by Lean and Agile principles
• Understand the differences between batch and flow thinking
• Be aware of a number of visualisation techniques
• Be able to describe why limiting work in progress is a useful practice
• Understand the science and the metrics in order to manage flow
• Have an understanding of typical Kanban feedback mechanisms

Day 2

The second day is organised around a real business scenario, where attendees can apply the concepts of the first day and learn how to model and evolve a process. By the end of the day attendees can expect to have:

• Practiced value stream mapping in order to visualise a process
• Experienced common Kanban concepts such as Classes of Service, Work Item types, Managing demand vs capacity, Column exit criteria (Defining Done), and Service Level Agreements
• Experienced the effects of limiting WIP in a process
• Experience how to collaboratively evolve a process

Finally with coaching support, attendees will apply Kanban concepts to their own real world context

• Modelled your teams process
• Discussed how your process could limit WIP
• Explored what feedback mechanism’s to implement
• Discussed what policies to make explicit

Who is this for
This course is for anybody who is going to be involved in using a Kanban System to visualise their process and apply the practices of the Kanban method. Both the team and its management should receive this training.