Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business [Paperback]

David J. Anderson (Author), Donald G Reinertsen (Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 2010

Kanban is becoming a popular way to visualize and limit work-in-progress in software development and information technology work. Teams around the world are adding kanban around their existing processes to catalyze cultural change and deliver better business agility. This book answers the questions: What is Kanban? Why would I want to use Kanban? How do I go about implementing Kanban? How do I recognize improvement opportunities and what should I do about them?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

David J. Anderson leads a management consulting firm focused on improving performance of technology companies. He has been in software development nearly 30 years and has managed teams on agile software development projects at Sprint, Motorola, Microsoft, and Corbis. David is credited with the first implementation of a kanban process for software development, in 2005. David was a founder of the Agile movement through his involvement in the creation of Feature Driven Development. He was also a founder of the Agile Project Leadership Network (APLN), a founding signatory of the Declaration of Interdependence, and a founding member of the Lean Software and Systems Consortium. He moderates several online communities for lean/agile development. He is the author of Agile Management for Software Engineering: Applying the Theory of Constraints for Business Results. Most recently, David has been focused on creating a synergy of the CMMI model for organizational maturity with Agile and Lean methods through projects with Microsoft and the SEI. He is a co-author of the SEI’s Technical Note “CMMI and Agile: Why not Embrace Both!” He is based in Sequim, Washington, USA.

Product Details

• Paperback: 278 pages
• Publisher: Blue Hole Press (April 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0984521402
• ISBN-13: 978-0984521401
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #44,995 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #16 in Books > Computers & Technology > Programming > Software Design, Testing & Engineering > Testing
  • #53 in Books > Computers & Technology > Project Management > PMP Exam
  • #56 in Books > Business & Investing > Management & Leadership > Project Management

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is not just for technology people, and it's great, July 12, 2010

By 

Ric Merrifield "Eric S. Merrifield, Jr." (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business (Paperback)

I don't do technology development, most of the work that I do is on the business side of the organization, understanding requirements through business process and business architecture (as described in the pages of the book Rethink).

Starting as early as the foreword, there are great takeaways in every section of this book which is a very quick read. I will admit that I skimmed some of the software development segments because that's not what I do, but here's a breakout by some of the early chapters:

FOREWORD - the notion of the importance of batch size is vital when looking at organizational constraints. It's something Goldratt never addressed in the initial Theory of Constraints, but it's a great point. There's a lot more about that as the book moves along, but it's a great first point.

CHAPTER ONE - Context is vital when identifying organizational constraints. If someone goes into a meeting and points out that something is constraining the organization, even if they may be right, the other people in the room may have a different context and dismiss the newly identified constraint. Chapter one also goes into good depth about seeing that no two projects or teams are the same, and that there are specific, quantifiable risks in how you compare them.

CHAPTER TWO - Here is one of two chapters where Anderson does a great job of stepping outside of the work environment to explain that the notion of kanban, which literally means signal cards to indicate when it's OK to proceed with work, applies to lots of situations in the outside world, and his example of the cards they hand out to entrants to a park in Japan, and then collect when they leave, as a very simple and low cost way of managing the attendance capacity of the park. With such a clear example, the core idea of kanban, Anderson ensures that the reader understands one of the most basic ideas of the book.

CHAPTER THREE - This is where the book starts to get really quantitative about measuring and optimizing the throughput of work, and here's where Anderson gets into one of the other core ideas of the book which is to limit and manage the amount of work in progress (WIP). As he points out (graphically) there is a linear relationship between WIP and average lead time, which he explains very clearly. The other big point he makes in this chapter is that there is a non-linear relationship between defects and the quantity of WIP, which means the more WIP, the higher the defect rate.

CHAPTER 11 - After several chapters about continuous improvement, how you go about limiting WIP, and more software development related cycles (which broadly still apply to non-tech people as well in terms of managing efficiency), Anderson then gets into a subject that I think is vital, which is identifying the Class-of-Service definitions for objects of work, which include Expedite, Fixed Delivery Date, Standard Class, and Intangible (which he admits is probably not the best word for it), and in my experience it is so important to have those sorts of definitions attached to blocks of work, I am confident that I will use them as he defines them. While he does talk about process definition and how you need to make processes strict and policy based, I happen to think those belong more in the realm of business architecture because business capabilities as artifacts are so much more durable than processes (as defined in the classic Hammer & Champy model).

There's a lot more in this book, but it's so clear and so well written I think a lot of business people, as well as technology people can learn a lot from this book and start applying it to their work immediately.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Authoritative guide to Kanban, April 24, 2010

By 

Yuval Yeret "Kanban/Agile Coach at Agilesparks" (Tel Aviv, Israel) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business (Paperback)

David provides a comprehensive guide to implementing Kanban in a software development/maintenance environment.
Covering the mechanics, dynamics, principles and rationale behind why Kanban is a so promising framework for managing the work of a variety of teams and groups and being an evolutionary-based change management driver.

Kanban is the practical approach to implement Lean Software Development, and this book is the practical guide for how to start using Kanban, and how to adapt the system for advanced needs.

The book is clear and flowing, even though it covers some quite technical material. I would recommend it to Development managers, Project/Program managers, Agile Coaches/Consultants. It addresses concerns/needs of Novice as well as those already familiar with Kanban and looking for advanced answers.

Even if you don't intend to implement a kanban system, there are a lot of techniques and ideas that are easily applicable to any product development/maintenance environment, agile or not.

Bottom line, highly recommended.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kindle version quality, October 11, 2011

By 

adam p - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business (Paperback)

I am new to this field of knowledge and yet, the style and the contents of this book was digestible. As a daily practitioner of different levels of support, defect resolving - a self managing all-in-one team - I've got hints from this book to implement my Kanban system. There were substantial amount of links to pieces of literature in the book, including personal Kanban.

I've read the paperback version of the book first than decided to buy the Kindle version. The picture quality was not daunting in the paper version either, but in the Kindle book the pictures are useless. The picture format is jpeg and it has color information too, which adds up to space required and has no added value on the grayscale display. The text is unreadable on the pictures as jpeg is the worst lossy format for this purpose.

The books contents is superb. The practical advice in the book helps in implementing your own Kanban. The theoretical background is strong and empowers the reader to dive in the cited literature on the field of SPC (statistical process control) and on other highlighted topics in the body of knowledge of management.
The only problem I've found is the poor quality of pictures in the Kindle version. Hope it will get fixed!