According to a recent study by Cutter Consortium, 70% of respondents who have used Kanban on projects report an improvement in the quality of their work environment for those projects. The study results are reported in Cutter Benchmark Review.
Has there been an improvement in the quality of the work environment in those projects using Kanban?
Kanban is a lean manufacturing methodology used as an efficient way to control production by satisfying actual demand. Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Masa Maeda, an expert on Kanban and a contributor to Cutter Benchmark Review, says that Kanban is highly attractive to agile organizations as well as those who have been reluctant to adopt agile, because it doesn't require a "start anew" approach. Rather, Kanban evolves from the current process, and improvements focus on:
Lean thinking
Limiting the amount of work-in-process (WIP)
Making workflow highly visible to measure and manage efficiently
Making the process policies explicit to improve communication
Using all of the above to identify opportunities for improvement and act on them
Says Maeda, "Kanban helps organizations mature more rapidly and be more effective. It can take agile principles to another level and, as such, is considered to be a second-generation agile methodology."
Benefits of Kanban cited by survey respondents included:
Team involvement in the process
Improved communication between management and development, resulting in fewer emergencies
Better collaboration
Less pressure to complete tasks
Appropriate usage of solutions teams, even in startups where time is of the essence
Better decision making, thanks to understanding of throughput metrics by teams outside development, such as sales
Concludes Maeda, "The degree of improvement on quality, satisfaction, and performance reported by those using Kanban strongly suggests it's a valuable methodology to adopt."
Masa Maeda is a Senior Consultant for Cutter Consortium's Agile Product & Project Management practice. (See his full bio.)
For more information on the study, or to request an interview with Masa Maeda, please contact Laura St. Clair at lstclair@cutter.com or 781-641-5118.