Is that “start with what you do now”-principle from kanban still ‘true’?

One of the pillars of the Kanban method is the principle “Start with what you do now.”

Looking at it historically, this was especially related to the fact that there is no need for any additional roles, meetings, or titles when introducing the Kanban method. In the early days that was such a stark contrast to other process improvement approaches that you still can find the foundational principle “Initially, respect current roles, responsibilities & job titles” on some Kanban method websites. Today this message has become part of the “Start with what you do now”-principle (as the second bullet point).

Over the years the body of knowledge in the realm of Kanban has grown and with some of the “newer” ideas there are a number of aspects that seem to contradict this very notion.

One of the more prominent ideas in this respect is the whole landscape of “Discovery Kanban”, “Customer Kanban”, and “Upstream Kanban.” Basically this is the idea to not only manage the delivery of work through a Kanban system, but also manage and organize the discovery of options with a Kanban system. Conceptually this has been described by Patrick Steyaert and it has been incorporated in the Kanban method as can be found e.g. in the related book Essential Upstream Kanban.

Yet, many companies don’t actually have a managed options discovery process – so where does this leave us with regards to the "start with what you do now"-principle? One possible starting point is David Anderson’s example for combining discovery and delivery kanban. This is a little different from the approach Patrick is describing, and most probably not exactly how the items “on the left“ of your delivery Kanban system flow now. (That is of course regardless of whether you call them “ideas“, “options”, “feature requests”, “demands”, or anything else.) But in my experience it is a very feasible way to get to “(finding out and) starting with what you do now.” As in so many cases, even though there might not be any formal discovery process, once you start looking into the details of the existing items and their history you might find that there is an informal process to be uncovered. It might more or less conform to the concepts lined out in the system descibed by David J Anderson, or not. Even if it doesn’t, just by having a board conforming to those concepts, trying to fit the (existing or assumed) items on it and facilitating the discussions around it, there is a good chance that you either uncover the real process or already evolve the process to something a little bit more fit for purpose.

Still, you actually started with what you did then – no new roles, no new processes. Not initially at least. Probably some processes evolved from having the discussions about the relative position of items on the board and how to get them there. And that is already the Kanban method at work as a change-management approach.

till next time
  Michael Mahlberg

P.S.: Thanks to Tim for bringing up this issue about “start with what you do now.” Nice catch.