Lesson 2: Where Kanban Came From and Your First Board

Why This Level Matters

In Level 1 you saw what agile values look like in plain words: deliver value often, respond to change and learn from feedback. Kanban is one of the most widely used ways to put those values into daily practice. In this level you will learn:

1. Where Kanban came from.
2. The two main sources people mean when they say "Kanban".
3. How Kanban differs from a simple to-do board.
4. How to set up your first practice board and record a starting measurement.

Step 1: Trace Kanban From the Factory to the Office

Kanban did not start in software. It moved through four stages.

1. The word. Kanban is Japanese for "signboard" or "card".
2. The factory. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota, used kanban cards to control production between stages of the line. This was part of just-in-time manufacturing: make only what is needed, when it is needed.
3. The supermarket idea. Ohno took inspiration from supermarkets, where staff restock a shelf only after customers have taken items from it. A later stage pulls work, and a card signals that the earlier stage should make more. The earlier stage does not push parts forward regardless of need.
4. Knowledge work. In the mid-2000s, David J. Anderson applied these ideas to a software team at Microsoft. He went on to develop the Kanban Method and published Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business in 2010. Teams in operations, marketing, HR and service work now use the same approach.

Key shift: in a factory, the cards stand for physical parts. In knowledge work the work itself is invisible: emails, designs, tickets, requests. So the board and its cards make that invisible work visible.

Step 2: Tell the Two Main Sources Apart

When people say "Kanban" today, they usually mean one of two sources. Read both yourself rather than relying on summaries.

The Kanban Guide (kanbanguides.org, latest version May 2025)

• A short, focused guide.
• It defines Kanban as a strategy for optimising the flow of value through a process.
• It centres on three practices: defining and visualising a workflow, actively managing items in the workflow, and improving the workflow.
• It names a small set of flow measures, which you will study in later levels.
• Emphasis: flow, meaning how smoothly and predictably work moves from start to finish.

The Kanban Method (David J. Anderson and Kanban University)

• A broader management method for improving how services are delivered and for changing an organisation step by step.
• It includes principles such as "start with what you do now" and "agree to pursue evolutionary change", plus practices such as visualise, limit work in progress and make policies explicit.
• Emphasis: gradual, low-resistance change across people, services and the organisation.

In short: the Guide is narrower and centred on flow. The Method is wider and centred on evolutionary change. They overlap a lot, and many teams use ideas from both.

Step 3: Define Kanban in Plain Words

Here is a working definition you can use with your team:

Kanban is a way to visualise your work, limit how much is in progress at once, and keep improving how work flows to completion.

This is how it differs from a simple to-do board:

An analogy: a to-do board is a shopping list. A Kanban board is closer to air traffic control. It shows what is moving, where, and whether the runway is overloaded.

In this level you start with visualising. Limits and improvement build on it in later levels.

Step 4: Build Your First Practice Board

Use a whiteboard with sticky notes, or any digital tool your team already has, such as Trello, Jira, Azure Boards or Planner. The tool does not matter at this stage.

1. Create three columns: To Do, Doing, Done.
2. Write one card per piece of current work. Use a short verb-noun title, for example "Draft Q3 newsletter" or "Fix login timeout". Include work that is waiting or half-finished.
3. Place each card honestly. If someone has started the work, it goes in Doing, even if nobody has touched it for a week.
4. Add the owner's initials to each card in Doing.
5. Add the date it started to each card in Doing, as best you know it.

Tip: include hidden work, such as ad-hoc requests, support questions and "quick favours". Leaving these out makes the board look calmer than reality.

Step 5: Record Your Baseline

Before you change anything, measure where you start.

1. Count the cards in Doing. This is your work-in-progress baseline.
2. Write the number and today's date in a corner of the board, for example "WIP = 14 (18 Oct)".
3. Count the people on the team and note it next to the baseline. For example, 14 items across 5 people is almost 3 items each.
4. Do not set any limits yet. Just observe.

Your Board Change and How to Check It

• Change: set up the To Do / Doing / Done board with all current work, including hidden work.
• Check: recount the Doing column at the same time every day for one week and write down each count. Ask yourself: Did the number grow, shrink or stay flat? Which cards stayed in Doing all week? You will use these notes when you map your real workflow in the next level.

Key Takeaways

• Kanban means "signboard" or "card". It began at Toyota as a pull signal in just-in-time manufacturing.
• David J. Anderson brought Kanban into knowledge work in the mid-2000s, and it became the Kanban Method.
• The Kanban Guide focuses narrowly on flow and three practices. The Kanban Method is broader and focuses on evolutionary change.
• Kanban means visualising work, limiting work in progress and improving flow. A to-do list only does the first.
• Count your Doing column before changing anything. That number is your baseline.