The mygyaan practical guide · Delivery & flow
Stop starting.
Start finishing.
Kanban helps you see work, control how much is underway and improve the flow of useful outcomes. The board is the beginning—not the whole method.
See how it worksA way to manage work.
Not another status report.
When delivery slows, starting more work often feels productive. But each new item competes for attention, review and decisions. Work accumulates; completion does not necessarily follow.
Kanban makes that system visible. Start with your current process, agree how work enters and leaves it, limit the amount underway and use evidence to improve delivery. It can support service operations, marketing, purchasing, recruitment and software work.
A board without shared policies, controlled work in progress and regular improvement is primarily a visual task list. Useful—but only part of a Kanban system.
01 / Map the real journey
Make the work and the waiting visible
To do → In progress → Done is a useful starting view. Add meaningful stages if they reveal a real queue or handoff. Do not force your process into three columns when review, inspection or approval is where work waits.
Illustrative board: preparing customer quotations
Ready
Information complete; waiting to start
Service quote — scope confirmed
Preparing
Cost and commercial details underway
Replacement parts quotation
Review
Checking accuracy and approval
Annual maintenance offer — blocked: approval needed
Sent
Approved quotation delivered to customer
Installation quotation — sent
This is a teaching illustration, not a live task board. For this workflow, work starts when preparation begins and finishes when the approved quotation is sent. Winning the order is a separate outcome to track.
A useful card carries context
Give it a clear deliverable, an accountable owner, relevant dates, acceptance criteria and any blocker. Keep work items at a useful, reasonably consistent level of detail.
“Done” needs an agreement
For the quotation example, a draft is not done. It must be checked, approved and sent. Define the finish point before interpreting delivery metrics.
02 / Go beyond the sticky notes
Six practices that make the system useful
An original explanation of the six general practices described by Kanban University.
Make the work visible
Map how work actually moves today. Show the steps, handoffs and waiting points—not an ideal process that nobody follows.
Limit work in progress
Agree how much started work the system can carry. When the limit is reached, help finish or unblock work before pulling more into it.
Manage flow
Watch how work moves from start to finish. Long queues, ageing items and repeated interruptions deserve attention even when everybody looks busy.
Make policies explicit
Write down what qualifies an item to start, move and finish. Agree how to handle blockers, urgent work and acceptance.
Use feedback
Review active work regularly and examine delivery patterns with the team and stakeholders. Let the discussion lead to action.
Improve together
Change the system based on what you learn. Try a clear improvement, examine its effect and retain or adjust it rather than reorganising everything at once.
03 / Protect capacity
A free person is not always a free system.
Limit work in progress
Agree limits for the workflow or its stages using your team’s capacity and observed flow. There is no universal “three tasks per person” rule. Start with a reasoned limit, observe what happens and adjust deliberately.
Blocked work is still started work. Keep it visible and counted within the agreed workflow boundary rather than moving it aside to make the numbers look better.
Pull when capacity exists
Suppose the team sets a review limit of two quotations and two are waiting there. That illustrative limit signals a need to help clear review—not to keep pushing more drafts into the queue.
If something genuinely urgent must interrupt, use an explicit exception policy. Make the effect on other commitments visible. Raising limits every time they hurt hides the constraint.
04 / Replace impressions with evidence
Measure the flow, not the busyness
The Kanban Guide identifies four core flow metrics. Define your start and finish points first, then use the measures to understand the system—not to rank individuals.
Work in progress
How many items have started but have not finished?
Count waiting and blocked items inside the agreed start-to-finish boundary, not just items receiving attention right now.
Throughput
How many items finished in a chosen period?
Count completed items, not hours worked. Compare similar work types; a tiny edit and a major installation are not interchangeable units of value.
Work item age
How long has an unfinished item been in progress?
Use age to spot items that need help before they become late. Do not reset the clock when an item changes hands.
Cycle time
How long did a finished item take from start to finish?
Use consistent boundaries and elapsed time. Look at variation as well as typical performance. Waiting is part of the elapsed time.
05 / Start small, learn honestly
Your first working agreement
- 1
Choose a service
Start with one recognisable flow: customer quotations, purchase approvals, campaigns or support requests. Define the customer and the desired outcome.
- 2
Map it with the people doing the work
Show the actual stages and waiting points. Agree what an item is and exactly when it starts and finishes.
- 3
Make the rules visible
Write entry and exit criteria, WIP controls, ownership, blocker handling and any urgent-work exception. Keep the agreement beside the board.
- 4
Review work, not people
Regularly ask which item is closest to delivery, which is ageing and what can be unblocked. A daily review is a useful starting cadence, not a compulsory ceremony.
- 5
Collect evidence and improve
Track flow metrics and customer outcomes. Try an improvement such as clearer intake information or a review handoff, then inspect whether it helps.
Common traps—and the better question
Our board is updated, so we are doing Kanban.
Are there explicit policies, controlled WIP and evidence-led improvements, or just a picture of the workload?
Everyone must always have a new task.
Could helping finish or unblock existing work create more value than starting another item?
Everything is urgent.
Who approves an urgent exception, and which existing commitment is affected?
Moving a card means the customer received value.
Has the agreed outcome actually been accepted or delivered, or did we only finish an internal step?