The motivation and use of kanban in software engineering is often being misunderstood. It isn’t a prescriptive method or process template. Kanban offers us a set of guidelines and principles for implementing a pull system. When followed appropriately these principles will lead every kanban process implementation to different and uniquely tailored to its environment, value stream and risk profile of the work being undertaken. Kanban offers us a new way to think about change within software development organizations. It offers an incremental approach to change. Kanban allows us to implement my Recipe for Success: focus on quality; reduce work-in-progress and release often; balance demand against throughput; and prioritize. It also offers us a visual and transparent mechanism to see opportunities for improvement and change: bottlenecks; waste; and variability.
