Practical Kanban: From Team Focus to Creating Value

by Klaus Leopold

The title, Practical Kanban: From Team Focus to Creating Value, is a good indication of what you can expect from this book. It will give you practical answers to these questions: Are we using Kanban properly? How can we improve our Kanban? How can we scale our Kanban? How can our work become more predictable? How can we prioritize?

Genres: Management, Leadership, Nonfiction, Business, Computer Science, Software

337 pages, ebook

Published September 17, 2017

Reviews

[Alex Fürstenau · Rating 5 out of 5]

Der Titel sagt es schon. Es schlägt den Bogen von der Theorie zur Praxis. Es gibt viele Beispiele und viele Bilder, einige Geschichten. Hintergrundinformationen zur weiterführenden Theorie. Insgesamt ein gutes Buch wenn man ein eigenes Board hat und etwas daraus machen möchte.

[João Maia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mais do que kanban é um livro sobre organização do trabalho p/ entrega de mais resultados.

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you’re new to Kanban, David J. Andersen’s book may be a better place to start. Or read “Making Work Visible” by Degrandis. Get to Klaus Leopold’s book when you’re ready to go deeper. Really great framework to help zoom between the strategy level, portfolio level, and team level in an org. And nice ideas and advice on Cost of Delay and risk analysis.

[Pete · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how the author explains what Kanban is and how to use it in teams and companies. Best book about Kanban at the moment.

[Brigitte · Rating 5 out of 5]

Klaus Leopold is one of the pioneers of Kanban. This book shows perfectly how Kanban evolved over the last decade. From team-sport it evolved into a really powerful mindset. Creating value is key for a successful organisation and this book provides valuable insights. You find basic chapters like "Why do we use Kanban" and "Using and Improving Kanban" as well as advanced ones were he wrote about large-scale Kanban, forecasting and risk assessment. Although Klaus is an expert on this topic, he writes in a way, that everyone is able to follow and understand. In all his books I very much like the examples, which really stick in the mind. In this particular book I learnt what producing apple juice can tell us about forecasting :-)

From my point of view this book is essential to read for each manager of the 21st century. Things are changing... and this book helps you to perfectly deal with it.

[Toni Tassani · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the basics of Kanban to deep concepts like forecasting or risk assessment are covered in a rigorous and easy to read style. Some of the basics of Kanban, however, do not match what is shared in other books like the Essential Condensed Guide, but there are other interesting perspectives added.
I liked:
- The folding paper ships exercise
- The Kanban Flight Levels (for Layers of Design)
- The Sausage Formula (for Little's Law)
- The Spice Girls (for the ones who prioritise)
- Blocker clustering
- The interviews with Matt Philip, Dan Vacanti and Troy Magennis
- The High Speed Assessment
- All the explanation about Forecasting and Monte Carlo Simulation
- The reflection on quantifying risk and Cost of Delay

[Linz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first three chapters of the book where Dr. Klaus Leopold goes over the why, what and where of kanban and how to implement kanban on a large scale. Even though I was familiar with kanban, I got lot of new information from the book specifically around visualizing a workflow for a single team and on a large scale. Basic fundamental information about kanban can be learned from this book.

[Johan Dahlbäck · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good book on the Kanban Method. Useful examples with clear illustrations. Probably most suited for someone who has already been introduced to the subject and looking for the next level of depth. For someone already advanced into the subject the book is not bad, but you probably would get more out of reading a more specialized book (the ones referenced in the book are great choices).

[Damien · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is really interesting. Fluid reading, and well constructed, plus interesting bits to be experimented.

[Jose Rogerio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Must read for everyone who wants to understand how to really use kanban.

[Karl Jenkel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Klaus findet einen guten Mix aus Theorie, praktischen Erfahrungsberichten und Anleitungen für die Praxis.

Dabei stellt er dar, mit welchem Wissensstand und welchen Übungen man bereits mit Kanban starten kann, ohne alles Bekannte über Kanban zu wissen.

Zusätzlich gibt es weiterführende Aspekte, die man berücksichtigen kann, wenn man sich bzw. vielmehr das Arbeitssystem kontinuierlich über die initialen positiven Effekten hinaus weiter verbessern möchte.

[Gerritt Rosa · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my agile journey, Kanban flow is the one I keep finding the most practical framework and widely adaptable but still haven’t truly lived with a team. This book gave my a few great techniques that support the flight levels framework but also the phrase around optimizing for one team comes at the expense of the whole org which served us well this year.

[Torsten Helmich]

The perfect book, if you want to learn more about Kanban besides the regular books. Helped me a lot!

[Nathalie Karasek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Ich hab schon ein paar Bücher über kanban gelesen aber da hat ich interessanten Input und antworten auf offene Fragen gefunden. Empfehlenswert!