The Kanban Method

Introduction

Kanban Method is an evolutionary approach to change and change management that starts with what you do now. Developed and refined over more than twenty years, it’s a proven, change management method that significantly derisks complex change programs, dramatically increasing their success.

Why adopt the Kanban Method?

Kanban Method starts with what you do now. It’s an evolutionary approach to change and change management that respects current roles, responsibilities and job titles, and encourages acts of leadership at all levels. By agreeing to pursue incremental, evolutionary change that evolves business processes, the risks associated with complex change programs are significantly reduced, and success rates are dramatically increased.

What are the main concepts

The Kanban Method offers a pragmatic, evolutionary approach to managing change. It begins with your current ways of working, respecting existing roles, responsibilities, and structures, and promotes leadership at all levels of the organisation. By encouraging continuous, incremental improvements (Kaizen), Kanban reduces the risks typically associated with large-scale transformation programmes.

Enhancing Organisational Agility

Agility is your ability to respond effectively to market shifts and operational demands. The faster your environment changes, the more agile your organisation needs to be. The Kanban Method improves agility by shaping how work is started, accelerated, and delivered, enabling faster, more consistent, and more frequent outcomes.

Achieving Predictable Flow

Unseen delays, caused by dependencies, rework, unclear requirements, or bottlenecks, undermine service reliability. Kanban provides proven techniques to visualise and manage flow, address blockers, and bring delivery risks under control. This creates the conditions for dependable, repeatable performance.

Reliable and Responsible Delivery

With Kanban, you gain control over your service commitments. It enables teams to match capability to demand, make informed delivery promises, and confidently forecast outcomes using real operational data. This empowers organisations to deliver value with greater confidence and accountability.

Making Work Visible

In knowledge-based environments, much of the work remains invisible. Kanban makes work explicit through visual models such as boards, service metrics, and flow indicators. This clarity fosters a shared understanding, enhances collaboration, and provides a unified, transparent view of progress and priorities.

Building a Culture of Continuous Improvement

Kanban reveals systemic issues that limit performance and hinder people’s potential. By increasing visibility and encouraging engagement across all levels, the method supports a more adaptive, participatory culture, where teams are equipped and empowered to lead meaningful change.

The benefits of adopting the Kanban Method

The Kanban Method consistently delivers value across a wide range of business functions. Our clients have successfully applied Kanban in various areas, including marketing, human resources, media and design services, customer support, product development, software engineering, education, and legal operations, demonstrating its flexibility and impact far beyond traditional IT or delivery teams.

Accelerated Delivery

In today’s fast-paced environment, speed is a strategic advantage. By improving the flow of work and reducing time to value, our clients are achieving faster delivery cycles, enhancing product and service profitability across the board.

Increased Organisational Capacity

Through more intelligent workflows and the elimination of inefficiencies, Kanban helps uncover hidden capacity. Teams gain the ability to handle more work with the same resources, supporting sustainable growth, boosting output, and driving up customer value.

Enhanced Operational Effectiveness

Clients report improvements across key indicators: better decision-making, shorter onboarding periods for new staff, reduced regulatory friction, and more consistent delivery outcomes. These gains lead to more substantial internal alignment and greater organisational resilience.

Higher Quality Outcomes

Quality issues erode both trust and efficiency. By addressing the root causes of rework and inconsistency, Kanban enables teams to improve first-time-right performance, leading to better experiences for customers and a more satisfying environment for staff.

Greater Profitability

With more efficient internal processes and faster time to market, clients using Kanban consistently see measurable improvements in profitability. It’s a method that pays for itself, quickly and repeatedly.

Improved Satisfaction for Customers and Employees

Employee engagement and customer satisfaction are closely linked. The clarity, autonomy, and flow enabled by Kanban lead to more motivated teams and more consistent, reliable service for end users. Our clients consistently report significant improvements in both workforce morale and customer loyalty.

Kanban courses and accreditation

MilUX provide courses accredited by Kanban University, whose credentials are recognised worldwide.

Courses are structured around a learning pathway aligned to the Kanban Maturity Model; a model of process-level organisational maturity designed to improve business outcomes. By following a structured syllabus, candidates learn the requisite skills to guide their organisations on the journey to superior, lasting, agility.

Below is a short explanation of each of Kanban Credetials and their associated courses with a link to the relevant training page to find out more.

Team Kanban Practitioner (TKP)

The Kanban Method is a knowledge work management method for teams and organisations that want a humane way of improving their products and services. Learn how to understand, visualise, and measure systems of work to continually improve and consistentlydeliver effective results. The Team Kanban Practitioner course is the best first step for getting the work organised by teams and leaders like you. By understanding the core concepts of the Kanban Method and teaching contributors to be “good Kanban citizens,” you will improve visibility, communication, and collaboration within your team.

Scrum Kanban Practitioner (SKP)

Improve your Scrum by adding the practices and evolutionary change approach from the Kanban Method. The Scrum Better with Kanban course can help you improve your Scrum through the introduction of proven Kanban practices, principles, and application of evolutionary change management. This course captures the lessons learned from Scrum Teams that successfully evolved their way of working through evolutionary change using the Kanban Method. Our hands-on training will ensure that you walk away with a proven approach to introducing changes that will deliver results for your team and organisation.

Flow Manager

The NEW Flow Manager course is ideal for agile professionals, team leads, and managers who want to move beyond team-level agility to improve end-to-end flow and overall business performance. There are no prerequisites to attend, and upon completion, you will receive the Flow Manager Credential from Kanban University.

Kanban Management Professional (KMP)

This credential is granted upon the completion of two classes. The Kanban System Design course, which teaches the basics of Kanban, flow, and how to design a Kanban system.

You then have two KMP options to fit your needs, KMP for Service Delivery or KMP for Product Delivery. For service delivery, the Kanban Systems Improvement course will teach you how to evolve, improve, and scale a Kanban system. For product delivery, the Kanban for Design and Innovation course teaches you how to establish an upstream Kanban system.

Kanban is the truly effective path to agility.
Kanban’s practices, principles, and the application of evolutionary change management are just the skills that today’s professionals need! Learn more about the Kanban University Development Path.