← Agile and Scrum: Flexible Project Management
Lesson
Lesson 6.1 — Kanban: visualize flow, limit WIP, pull
Explain the core Kanban practices: visualizing the flow, limiting work in progress, and pulling work.
Kanban: the three core practices
Kanban: the three core practices
Kanban is a method for managing and improving the flow of work. It rests on three foundational practices: visualize the workflow, limit work in progress (WIP), and use a pull system.
Visualization means mapping each stage of your workflow as a column on a board, then placing each work item as a card in the column that reflects its current state. A minimal board might look like this:
| To Do | In Progress (WIP ≤ 3) | Review (WIP ≤ 2) | Done |
|-------|----------------------|------------------|------|
| Task D | Task A, Task B, Task C | Task E, Task F | Task G |
WIP limits cap the number of items allowed in each in-progress column at any one time. In the example above, "In Progress" is capped at 3. When a column is full, the team must finish existing items before pulling new ones — this exposes bottlenecks (stages where work piles up) and forces collaborative resolution.
The pull principle means a downstream stage signals that it has capacity, then takes the next item from the upstream stage. Work is never pushed onto a team member without regard for their current load. The result is a smoother, more predictable flow.
Kanban differs from Scrum in a key structural way: Scrum organises work into fixed-length Sprints (timeboxes), while Kanban uses a continuous flow — there are no mandatory iterations. Items are released or reviewed whenever they are ready, not at a Sprint boundary. Both methods are Agile-compatible and can even be combined (sometimes called Scrumban).
Lesson notes
Kanban: the three core practices
Kanban is a method for managing and improving the flow of work. It rests on three foundational practices: visualize the workflow, limit work in progress (WIP), and use a pull system.
Visualization means mapping each stage of your workflow as a column on a board, then placing each work item as a card in the column that reflects its current state. A minimal board might look like this:
| To Do | In Progress (WIP ≤ 3) | Review (WIP ≤ 2) | Done |
|-------|----------------------|------------------|------|
| Task D | Task A, Task B, Task C | Task E, Task F | Task G |
WIP limits cap the number of items allowed in each in-progress column at any one time. In the example above, "In Progress" is capped at 3. When a column is full, the team must finish existing items before pulling new ones — this exposes bottlenecks (stages where work piles up) and forces collaborative resolution.
The pull principle means a downstream stage signals that it has capacity, then takes the next item from the upstream stage. Work is never pushed onto a team member without regard for their current load. The result is a smoother, more predictable flow.
Kanban differs from Scrum in a key structural way: Scrum organises work into fixed-length Sprints (timeboxes), while Kanban uses a continuous flow — there are no mandatory iterations. Items are released or reviewed whenever they are ready, not at a Sprint boundary. Both methods are Agile-compatible and can even be combined (sometimes called Scrumban).