Real-World Kanban: Do Less, Accomplish More with Lean Thinking

by Mattias Skarin

Learn a Lean approach by seeing how Kanban made a difference in four real-world situations. You’ll explore how four different teams used Kanban to make paradigm-changing improvements in software development. These teams were struggling with overwork, unclear priorities, and lack of direction. As you discover what worked for them, you’ll understand how to make significant changes in real situations.

The four case studies in this book explain how to:

Improve the full value chain by using Enterprise Kanban
Boost engagement, teamwork, and flow in change management and operations
Save a derailing project with Kanban
Help an office team outside IT keep up with growth using Kanban
What seems easy in theory can become tangled in practice. Discover why “improving IT” can make you miss your biggest improvement opportunities, and why you should focus on fixing quality and front-end operations before IT. Discover how to keep long-term focus and improve across department borders while dealing with everyday challenges. Find out what happened when using Kanban to find better ways to do work in a well-established company, including running multi-team development without a project office.

You’ll inspire your team and engage management to make it easier to develop better products.

Genres: Business, Management, Nonfiction, Programming, Leadership

123 pages, Paperback

First published June 23, 2015

Reviews

[Christophe Addinquy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a quick read. Its focus is almost exclusively on storytelling. There 4 case studies here. Unfortunatly, the author is almost out of the picture. Therefore, this not an opiniated text, one of the qualities I'm looking for in a book. As a consequence, the book is not also an in depth text on kanban. You will just enoy some time with good stories.
Ma note de lecture en français ici

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four case studies detail how, by adopting various Kanban approaches, an enterprise was able to improve time to market and cross-department collaboration; improve change management and deployments; recover a project that was in the weeds; and help a non-IT team.

Kanban, in manufacturing, is primarily about information management from downstream processes to upstream dependencies: "we're gonna need more widgets."

Kanban, in knowledge management, has several distinguishing features: collaborative implementation and experimental evolution, through feedback loops; making process policies explicit; managing constraints and measuring flow; limiting work in progress, and the most obvious, visualizing workflow through an appropriate Kanban board.

These practices help a team develop a deliberative practice of ongoing improvement, with an organizational goal of moving from resource efficiency, through flow efficiency, to optimizing for value.

The application of these ideas to specific challenges was interesting, as well as the measurement and outcomes.

[Jeroen Verbraak · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was okish. As a KANBAN practitioner, the concepts are well known to me, and therefore it was easy to follow. However, for a newcomer, more time should have been spent to explain the fundament of KANBAN (e.g. core principles etc.).

I could relate to some of the examples, and have learned a few new tricks to increase its effectiveness. However, I would not recommend this book to be introduced to KANBAN.

[Hendrick Mcdonald · Rating 5 out of 5]

interesting case studies

The book presents a series of 4 interesting case studies from the perspective of 1 person who experienced it. It goes thru “how it worked” “what we learned” and repeats these topics across each case study to learn from each different type of environment Kanban was tried in.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had some good tidbits but was a little light at 110 pgs. Worth a read (only took an hour or so) but not sure it was worth $22

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simple examples, business cases, make your day feel better. This is what I want to read for KANBAN. To practice a KANBAN in real-world, this book is useful.

[B Jansen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Was a quick read, liked the idea of Concept Owner and even has a recipe on how to define and elaborate on a concept. "You want it, you make it happen"

[Vít Kotačka · Rating 3 out of 5]

Surprisingly flat. Maybe I've read too many books about Kanban, maybe my own Kanban experience is too rich and long (it's not), that I couldn't be inspired by such book. I don't think so.

I think, I'm going to be allergic to case studies, especially agile ones. I want to learn from experience of someone else, to learn something new, to be inspired. Maybe next time.

Here are four case studies of Kanban application. The description of the context is usually good. But the description of Kanban implementation is so common and generic and maybe condensed, that I didn't took anything from it. It's a pity.

If you are interested to read about real-world Kanban experience, try Lean from the Trenches from Henrik Kniberg instead.

[Johnny · Rating 2 out of 5]

With all the good reviews on “Real-World Kanban” I had high expectations. Unfortunately, the book couldn’t deliver and left me partially puzzled and a bit disappointed.

The case studies are well written and show the biggest problems you probably will have as well when you introduce Kanban. The solutions explained by the authors are sound and will also help you to overcome those obstacles. Terms like “Enterprise Kanban” give me the shivers and when you look close, the only difference to “normal” Kanban is the number of people looking at the Kanban board.

I still prefer “Kanban” by David J. Anderson when it comes to Kanban and software projects. The different approaches for different goals are better explained.

[Alexei Zheglov · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm an Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) and Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) and I will be recommending this book to my clients. Mattias Skarin's case studies complement nicely the more foundational Kanban books by David J Anderson and Mike Burrows.

There are two of the Kanban concepts that real-world user continue to need guidance on. (As a trainer and coach, I meet many such customers and help them apply these concepts and unlearn any related misconceptions.) The concepts are: (1) organizational, customer-focused approach that Kanban is - it is not a team-centric methodology and (2) service orientation - you apply Kanban to connecting services within your organization, not to teams. I'm happy that these concepts are well preserved and illustrated in this book.

[Pete · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice. Not what you would expect from the title...
The book describes four different real-world cases where Kanban was used to help companies. The Appendix contains a helpful description on how to use "concepts".

[Wolfgang · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four nicely written case studies. Covers implementations on team level, in the backoffice and on enterprise level. Good to learn how Kanban can help and find some new ideas for your Kanban implementation.

[Kang Maman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lumayan.

[Kenny Parnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good set of case studies. We've already started to apply tips that we've picked up.