Flowrence explains the Kanban Practices and Principles

Flowrence, our well-known flow expert duck, proudly explains the range of Kanban Practices and the two sets of Kanban Principles – and we created a poster about it!

Since she has a legendary sense of humor, she’ll try to explain the conditions for a successful Kanban system with her favorite sticker – just as a mnemonic trick.

She helps you to foster your Kanban by saying erst dann done, wenn done done when she shares her advice to make policies explicit to everyone involved. Her favorite saying about monsters who are only scary in the dark shows that shining the spotlight on what you are doing makes your work flow explicit as well. Visualize risks and the whole process!

And don’t forget to establish feedback loops at an appropriate cadence. It fosters collaboration and learning – so be a Feedbäcker!

Being a flow expert she knows that you should definitely limit your work in progress. “Stop starting, start finishing”, she quacks the whole day. Flow is the movement of work, so manage the flow! You can trust that little duck: There is no need to sprint when you can flow! Don’t be afraid. Just start where you are and improve collaboratively and evolve experimentally! Run experiments – don’t guess it, test it!

Slightly Flowrence makes a more serious duck face, while explaining the three service delivery principles. “First of all”, she quacks while raising her little wings, “Wer ist der User?”. Focus on the customer’s needs and manage work – not people. Trust the teams!

To improve your outcome, Flowrence offers this piece of advice: Review your network and policies. But in the end, this duck quote matters: “Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.”

When it comes to change management, there are also three principles. First of all: Start with what you are doing now. Yes, everything starts with now! So: no big steps are necessary – all you need are little duck steps to improve. Viva la evolution! What you can contribute: leading by enabling means encouraging acts of leadership at all levels in order to promote self-organization.

It doesn’t have to be extraordinarily complex. It’s just your turn to begin! And if you have further questions: Do not hesitate to ask Flowrence! She can’t wait to answer them at her own Slack Channel “Ask Flowrence”.