What Is Kanban? Ten Things You Need to Know

# Translation: Lin Weidan (Wand), Proofreading: Yao Dong

# This excerpt and translation are from LeanKanban.com, for personal learning and exchange only.

What is Kanban?

Kanban is a method for organizing and managing professional service work, applying lean concepts such as limiting work in progress to improve outcomes.

The Kanban system signals when to start new work when capacity is available, acting as a pull system.

For intangible outputs produced by knowledge workers, a Kanban board visualizes the system, work items, workflow, and associated risks, enabling effective control of workload.

Kanban helps you understand how your work actually operates.

What is the Kanban method?

The Kanban method is a set of principles and practices observed from successful global practitioners, developed by David J. Anderson and the community, first published in 2010.

Ten things you need to know about Kanban

1) Every Kanban system is unique – Organizations differ, so Kanban does not prescribe a one‑size‑fits‑all approach; it encourages honest assessment of demand, delivery, rules, constraints, dependencies, and satisfaction.

2) Kanban is about focus and flow – Predictability requires stable, continuous behavior; Kanban limits work‑in‑progress to sustain pace, prioritize important work, and deliver more without extra staff or budget.

3) Kanban drives incremental change, not revolution – It starts by mapping current work, identifying pain points, and implementing small, progressive improvements for large results.

4) Kanban enhances agility – While it can run in time‑boxed iterations, Kanban is fundamentally flow‑based, optimizing coordination and communication to keep work moving smoothly and adapt quickly to market changes.

5) Kanban is grounded in reality – It emphasizes measurement, verification, and factual performance, using scientific methods and experiments to address problems without blame.

6) Kanban is a living system – The method is extensible; the global community continuously expands its knowledge base covering product validation, portfolio management, capacity allocation, motivation models, and more.

7) Kanban is a risk‑management approach – By visualizing work, organizations can map risks to work types, enabling rapid validation and informed decision‑making across all levels.

8) Kanban balances demand and capacity – It manages work requests through demand‑filtration, reducing delays and productivity erosion, and addresses the high variability of professional services.

9) Kanban is not limited to software or IT – It applies to any professional service, from education and law to finance, research, government, and many other fields.

10) Kanban supports scaling – Large enterprises use Kanban at enterprise scale via Enterprise Services Planning, connecting multiple boards rather than a single massive master board.

LeansoftX.com is continuously recruiting DevOps engineers.

Recruitment details (Beijing, DevOps implementation engineer):

Proficient in C#, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, PowerShell, T‑SQL

Experienced with at least one IDE (e.g., Visual Studio, Eclipse, IntelliJ)

Familiar with Microsoft VSTS/TFS (preferred)

Knowledge of Agile, Scrum/Kanban and related certifications (preferred)

Strong communication, curiosity, and ability to handle pressure

No work experience or degree requirements; successful interview candidates are welcomed.

Interested applicants should follow the DevOps public account and send a direct message.