Kanban, you build a map of your work. The landscape depicted is your value stream. A value stream visually represents the flow of your work from its beginning through to its completion.

―Jim Benson, Personal Kanban: Mapping Work Navigating Life

Applying Kanban in SAFe

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Note: This article is part of Extended SAFe Guidance and represents official SAFe content that cannot be accessed directly from the Big Picture.

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Kanban is a Lean workflow management method that Agile teams use to define, manage, and continuously improve the products and services they build for customers. This method helps teams visualize and understand their workflow, optimize efficiency, and improve relentlessly.

“Kanban is a flow-based system. As most workflows exist to optimize value, the strategy of Kanban is to optimize value by optimizing flow. Optimization does not necessarily imply maximization. Rather, value optimization means finding the right balance of effectiveness, efficiency, and predictability in how work gets done” [1].

Kanban’s unprecedented level of visibility is causing it to spread to different parts of the organization. Today, many organizations adopt Kanban to help embrace Lean-Agile principles across all aspects of business, from marketing to finance, human resources to legal, security to compliance, operations to Agile Teams, and more.

Details

In SAFe, Kanban systems manage the backlog and flow of work at every level of the Framework. Each reflects a team’s unique process for delivering value and its current workflow and capacity.

Kanban System

A Kanban system is generally characterized by a ‘Kanban board’ that includes or references the elements shown in Figure 1.