Finally Finished the Kanban Book Summary!

Yes! Finally finished the seven-part summary of "Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business by David Andersen. Part one starts here.

Of all the summaries so far, this is one of my favorites. The summaries are written as study guides or review materials.

The Kanban book fills in the blanks regarding why Scrum and XP work the way they do and how to improve their processes in a way that minimizes resistance to change and maximizes value delivered.

Kanban is not a methodology for software delivery. It is a change management system for improving the implementation of any delivery framework or process. It is reasonable to say that using the system to improve a waterfall process would lead to Scrum/XP/Lean Start Up like processes. This may explain why some think Kanban is a delivery methodology - applying its principles will suggest process improvements that likely converge towards the processes that are taken to define today's "Agile."

But that too is perhaps misleading. Agile is a mindset growing from of a set of principles and values we apply to improving our ability to deliver value through software delivery. Is is not a process or a framework - despite industry marketing machine claims to the contrary. It uses processes and frameworks and it is our job to improve them. If you agree then you'll enjoy getting involved with Modern Agile.

David Andersen's application of Lean principles to software delivery and their synthesis with the Agile mindset makes Kanban a valuable tool. Here are the summaries:

• Kanban Summary 1 of 7: Intro, Benefits, Kaizen
• Kanban Summary 2 of 7: Value Stream and Basic System Cadences
• Kanban Summary 3 of 7: WIP Limits and Classes of Service
• Kanban Summary 4 of 7: Metrics, Projects, and Operational Reviews
• Kanban Summary 5 of 7: Goals, 12 Steps, and Striking a New Bargain
• Kanban Summary 6 of 7: Improve - Bottlenecks and Waste
• Kanban Summary 7 of 7: Improve - Reduce Variability, Resolve Issues