Kanban

Kanban is a method for managing work by visualizing tasks, limiting work in progress, and improving flow. It emphasizes continuous delivery rather than fixed-length iterations.

Kanban board: A visual display of work items arranged by workflow stage. Columns and cards make the work system visible and expose bottlenecks.
Workflow: A sequence of activities through which work moves from initiation to completion. Kanban represents work as movement through explicit stages.
Toyota Production System: Toyota's integrated approach to manufacturing, built around waste reduction, quality, and efficient production. Kanban originated as one control mechanism within this production system.
Scrum: An Agile framework that organizes work into fixed-length sprints with defined roles and events. Scrum plans work in iterations, whereas Kanban can manage continuous flow.
Work in progress limit: A constraint on the number of tasks allowed in a workflow stage or system. Limiting active tasks prevents overload and encourages finishing before starting more.
Queueing theory: The mathematical study of waiting lines, service processes, and their performance. Its concepts explain why queues and overload increase delivery time.
Taiichi Ohno: A Japanese industrial engineer who developed the Toyota Production System at Toyota. Ohno helped establish the production practices from which Kanban emerged.
Waterfall model: A project approach that organizes work into sequential phases with substantial upfront planning. Kanban favors incremental flow over a fixed sequence of project phases.
Pull system: A production system in which work begins in response to downstream demand or available capacity. Teams pull new work when capacity opens instead of pushing tasks into queues.
Bottleneck: A process step whose limited capacity constrains the throughput of an entire system. Visible queues help locate the stage restricting the system's flow.

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