Lean and Kanban Collection

For those of you interested in Lean and Kanban, but not much knowledge yet, it can be tough filter the noise and find information explaining what they are and how they might be different from what you’re already doing (agile, Scrum, etc.). Since top 10 lists are rather passé, I’ve gone the whole nine yards and scoured the blogosphere to come up with the best nine posts I could find that capture the essence of Lean and Kanban.

The list is in no particular order, and there’s no doubt that I’ve missed some great posts that offer insight. The blogosphere is a pretty big place, after all. Naturally, I’ve cheated a bit by pointing to related posts from within the top nine. Enjoy!

• The Essence of Lean and Kanban - Post by @alshalloway that talks about Flow.
  
• Patterns and Practices of Lean Software Development - Post by @corey_ladas discussing principles such as One Piece Flow, Real Options, and Build Quality In.
• Noodling on Kanban - The first of a four-part series written by @mcottmeyer. Also be sure to check out Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.
• How Is Kanban Different From Other Approaches - Post by Karl Scotland that examines Kanban’s primary practices. Also check out his follow-up post where he adds The Fifth Primary Practice of Kanban. And his posts on Kanban, Flow, and Cadence and XP as a Kanban System are great, as well.
• Kanban Applied to Software Development: From Agile to Lean - A detailed article on InfoQ that begins by exploring the origins of Kanban in the Toyota Production System, before launching into a discussion on Kanban in software development.
• Kanban in Action - An early post by @agilemanager (David Anderson) where he describes his initial forays into Kanban.
• I Have Heard of Kanban - A response to the critical post, Have you heard of Kanban, by Matthew Huesser. There were actually a few posts that were part of this conversation. It started with @chris_mcmahon calling into question Kanban with his post, against kanban. That led to Matthew’s post, and ultimately the response. Matthew has since posted a Kanban Redux and Chris has posted a couple of responses in against kanban part 2 and against kanban part 3.
• Bumping into Scrum’s Boundaries - Part 1 of @damonpoole’s Transitioning from Scrum to Kanban Series. Part 2 can be found in his post on One Piece Flow.
• The Poppendieck’s on Lean - An interview with Mary and Tom Poppendieck on Lean.

If you’re interested in learning more about Kanban, consider joining the Kanban Development Yahoo Group. Additionally, the Limited WIP Society is the home of Kanban Development, and contains some good definitions of what Kanban means within software development. And of course, the best place to learn more about Lean is to start with the Poppendiecks.

Note: Graphic courtesy of InfoQ. Used without permission.

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