Kanban Books

Essential Kanban Condensed

David Anderson & Andy Carmichael

Level: Beginner

https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Kanban-Condensed-David-Anderson/dp/0984521429

This guide summarises the basics of kanban. It talks about the values, practices and principles. It is quite simple and for anyone looking for a quick introduction to kanban then this is your go-to book. It has a very comprehensive glossary at the back describing many of the elements of Kanban systems.

Kanban – Successful evolutionary change for your technology business

David Anderson

Level: Beginner -> Intermediate

This is really one of the foundation books for Kanban, it will explain the Kanban method with case study information about STATIK (Systems Thinking Approach to Introducing Kanban) and many of the very basics. This is very common amongst kanban practitioners and is often referred to as “the blue book”.

Kanban Maturity Model – Evolving fit-for-purpose organisations

David Anderson & Teodora Bozheva

Level: Intermediate -> Expert

https://www.amazon.com/Kanban-Maturity-Model-Fit-Purpose/dp/0985305150

This book is useful for coaches and change agents looking to use Kanban to help organisations become more fit for purpose. This book comes from a large body of knowledge of applying Kanban in different contexts across the globe. What is interesting here is understanding what current level of maturity a team / organisation is at and then applying appropriate next steps for that context. Essentially, given Kanban’s evolutionary nature you will need to crawl before you walk before you run and this book takes you through the steps in the evolution to prevent you from falling down in the process.

Lessons in Agile Management – On the road to Kanban

David Anderson

Level: Intermediate

This book is a select collection of blog posts that come from Davids early work prior to release “the blue book”. Although this book was published subsequently, they tell the thinking journey that led to the emergence of his later work in Kanban. I found particularly interesting the sections on tribal behaviour and how it relates to the change management of Kanban.

Personal Kanban – Mapping work | Navigating life

Jim Benson & Tonianne DeMaria Barry

Level: Beginner

Personal Kanban is a really powerful tool for organising things in your own personal life. As someone who can attest to attempting to cram too much into life, these simple tips can help you achieve some balance.

Kanban from the Inside

Mike Burrows

Level: Beginner -> Intermediate

This book introduces the concepts of the Kanban values and goes over more detail about STATIK (Systems Thinking Approach to Introducing Kanban)

Making Work Visible – Exposing time theft to optimise work and flow

Dominica DeGrandis

Level: Beginner -> Intermediate

I really like Dominica’s subtitle – “Time theft”. Time is the one thing we can’t reproduce, so it’s highly valuable and Dominica helps us understand “The five thieves of time”. Although some of Dominica’s examples are quite simple with images to follow, she gets into more detail about metrics and feedback mechanisms that will help take your Kanban system to a much deeper level (thus I gave this a Beginner to Intermediate rating)

Kanban for Lawyers

John E. Grant

Level: Beginner

https://leanpub.com/kanbanforlawyers

This book is only partially complete, but I thought I’d include it here because it’s interesting to see others take the concept of Kanban and apply it to different domains. It’s fairly simplistic – written to get lawyers started.

Kanban Change Leadership

Klaus Leopold & Siegfried Kaltenecker

Level: Intermediate -> Expert

I think this book is really suitable for Kanban coaches and consultants out there helping organisations to improve. Although this book does recap on the basic practices of Kanban, its focus on the change and the leadership required around that change to support it is really more advanced. Be ready to tackle issues such as emotional responses to change and creating a learning culture.

Practical Kanban

Klaus Leopold

Level: Beginner -> Intermediate

I really like this book from Klaus. Like so many other Kanban books, it’s written from the experience of the practitioner applying Kanban in a number of situations. The first couple of parts of this are really focused at beginners – learning why kanban and how to use and improve kanban systems. He then gets into more advanced and interesting topics in the sections of Large-scale Kanban, Forecasting and Risk Assessment that are really aimed at the intermediate levels (or perhaps even expert).

Rethinking Agile – why agile teams have nothing to do with business agility

Klaus Leopold

Level: Intermediate

I really like the message in this book – plus the simplicity of the message. The cover really says it all – time to focus on the biggest organisational challenges towards agility, rather than an individual team level. At first the concepts seem simple – particularly so because they are portrayed through illustration as much as words. However, tackling the underlying issues that Klaus talks about at the larger organisational level can be challenging, thus I’ve marked this book at the intermediate level.

The Scrumban [R]Evolution

Ajay Reddy

Level: Intermediate

People have been using Scrumban for some time now, however not many people have given a lot of thought to how Kanban can be overlaid on an existing scrum system of work. Ajay has provided a basic overview of scrum & kanban and then gets into many detailed recommendations as to how to combine the two. I’ve given this an intermediate rating because I think one should attempt to read one of the basic books first to get more detailed understanding of Kanban (eg “the blue book” or “Kanban from the Inside”) – oh and if you haven’t read the scrum guide then you should also do that too.

Real-World Kanban – Do less, accomplish more with Lean Thinking

Mattias Skarin

Level: Beginner

This book describes kanban using real world examples. Throughout the book, you’ll see where things started, what they learned along the way and the improvements they made as a result. This is a relatively easy read with some basic examples – for me I particularly like the sections on “Using Kanban to save a Derailing Project” and “Using Kanban in the Back Office: Outside IT” – I think these two scenarios are more common use cases than what you might think.

Essential Upstream Kanban

Patrick Steyaert

Level: Intermediate

https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Upstream-Kanban-Patrick-Steyaert/dp/098452147X

This book, although relatively small, packs a great deal of information in about how upstream kanban works. Often teams start at the level of the team and don’t deal with how work comes to the team. Upstream kanban looks at how you can balance demand and capacity for a smoother flow overall. It’s probably best that you get to know Kanban basics through one of the beginner level books, as this book builds on a base level of knowledge.

Actionable Agile Metrics for Predictability – An Introduction

Daniel Vacanti

Level: Intermediate

Dan’s book on metrics is the go-to for many a kanban practitioner. He goes into many details about the different types of metrics and introduces a number of concepts such as “flow debt”. I’ve marked this as intermediate as you really do need to have a base understanding of Kanban before you venture into this book.

Fit for Purpose – How modern businesses find, satisfy and keep customers

David Anderson & Alexei Zheglov

Level: Beginner -> Intermediate

This is really related to Kanban because Kanban systems when they become more mature are focusing on fit for purpose services for customers. The book includes simple to understand case study / examples that looks more deeply at the purpose of services and how to produce better outcomes.

A Practical Approach to Large-Scale Agile Development – How HP Transformed LaserJet FutureSmart Firmware

Gary Gruver, Mike Young, Pat Fulghum

Level: Intermediate

I really like this book – although it’s not explicitly taking about Kanban, many of the parts of the story are relatable to Kanban values, principles and practices. It describes the journey of a how multi-site HP team (approx 400 people) chose to transform the way they work for greater responsiveness to market. There is a lot of pragmatic context sensitive advice given – with reasons as to why those choices were made in their context and considerations given.