Lean methods emerged from manufacturing, where conventional wisdom was that the goal is to produce as many goods as possible, as quickly as possible. When Taiichi Ohno introduced the Andon cord at Toyota, authorizing every employee on the assembly line to immediately halt production when they noticed a problem or defect, even people in his […]
In all too many organizations, “manager” is nothing more than a different job description and pay scale. Managers go to more and different meetings, and complete more and different paperwork, but aren’t fundamentally different from other employees. They don’t require more of a person as a mentor or as a leader, and they don’t require […]
One of the main properties of Kanban is limiting work in progress (WIP). This allows you to match any team’s development (or your personal) capacity. The most widely-adopted practice is to set WIP limits per column (workflow stage). However, it is also acceptable to establish limits per person or team. In my experience, WIP limits […]
High-quality project outcomes completed within a manageable time-frame – isn’t that what most businesses ultimately want to achieve? Of course that we all want projects to be completed on time and within initial budget. However, statistics are not so promising. We recently found some eye-opening data that caught our attention. According to PMI.org, for every […]
So, what is it that makes a Kanban implementation successful? There is not a definitive answer to that question, but I will attempt to “prescribe” my own rules that have helped us so far.
Today’s business pace and dynamic workflows that push teams to their limits require a new way of managing work. Therefore, it is no surprise that methods such as Kanban that rely heavily on workflow visualization are gaining serious popularity in a growing number of industries such as software development, IT operations, product development, etc. In […]
This article is part of our lean product development case study with Somabe. You can download the full case study from the corresponding form on your screen. Lean can be a powerful asset for running your product development team and even a whole company. A perfect example for that is Somabe (Soraluze Makina Bereziak SLL), […]
Marketing is transforming. It’s becoming more and more important, more tech-oriented, unfolds in more and more fields and it is more integrated than ever with other departments. Daily work in marketing is so diverse (pretty much why we love it) and dynamic, it depends on external parties – agencies, partners, consultants – that it is […]
What is flow efficiency? What do you need to account for when calculating it? What is the average efficiency of teams across the globe? How can you measure it on a Kanban board with precision? What you are about to read will answer all of these questions and more, so that you can find out […]
Editor’s note: The article was updated in February 2018. Originally published in July 2017. Continuous improvement is a widely discussed topic, especially in the Lean and Agile communities. You can find plenty of articles that cover how continuous improvement can benefit your business, however, most of the information covers the theory with very little practical […]