Kanban from the Inside: 10. Patterns and Agendas

The tenth in a roughly weekly series of short excerpts from my book, Kanban from the Inside. Chapter 10 wraps up Part I, Kanban through its values.

Kanban-from-the-inside

Does Kanban in some neutral way just create the conditions for change, or does it come with its own biases? Do the method, its practitioners, and their host organizations need direction—in the form, perhaps, of an external true north (Chapter 14, Lean)—or will they steer themselves? As a community, we’ve considered these questions several times.

By now you’ve seen enough of Kanban that you won’t be surprised to find that the answers turn out to be rather inclusive:

  • Yes, Kanban creates the conditions for change—in fact, developing the organization’s capability for change is one of its main objectives.
  • Yes, whether expressed as a “true north” or an evolutionary “fitness function,” it’s important to have measures of success.
  • Yes, not only does Kanban have some built-in biases, it’s helpful to make them explicit.

There is one “no” implied by that list of yeses: No, Kanban is not neutral. Today this seems obvious: How could something so intertwined with values—where, for the most part, “more is better”—ever be described as neutral?