Which change-management approach is required to implement Kanban?

Well, there's the thing: the way I understand it, the Kanban method is not an end in itself – it is quite the other way round. Kanban is the change-management approach.

As lined out in the book that defined the method «I [David] subtitled this book, “Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business.” I did this to underscore the point that the main reason for adopting Kanban is change management. Everything else is secondary.» (emphasis added)

Over time the Kanban Method has evolved, and with the current material there are quite a few additional actionable tools available which hugely extend the original book. But for me, the core is still the same. You use the Kanban method to enable change – simultaneously giving people control over the processes (the process control or service delivery part) and enabling evolutionary change by making formerly intangible things visible and negotiable (the –evolutionary– change management part)

Of course, there is STATIK, the Systems Thinking Approach To Introducing Kanban, but once again, this is not an end in itself. And it only is an approach to introduce the Kanban method. All the organizational change that comes after that is not driven by STATIK, but by the Kanban method itself.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say is "Don't ask what you have to do for the Kanban method, ask what the Kanban method can do for you."

till next time
  Michael Mahlberg