The Meaning of Kanban From the Inside

Kanban from the inside! What does that mean?

Perhaps it’s about practicing Kanban and it is written by a practitioner? And that would be true!

Perhaps it’s about understanding Kanban and its community of followers from a community insider? And that would be true too!
Or perhaps it is about something deeper, something truly “from the inside”, from inside the author? Kanban from the heart? Kanban from the soul? Kanban expressed by a deeply spiritual person with a strong sense of self and a deeply held set of values?

Mike Burrows was an early adopter of Kanban and an early member of our online community. It helped him do his job. It helped his organization get work done, manage risk better and improve their performance. It was a solid and effective management technique. It was a useful professional tool for a middle manager with operational responsibilities.

In 2010, Mike Burrows attended the Kanban coaching masterclass and like others before him and who’ve come since he described it as “life-changing.” He left with the epiphany that the Kanban guidance he’d been following was rooted in a set of values – values that I wasn’t communicating explicitly. They were values that resonated with someone who quietly follows his religious beliefs. In many ways a private person, Kanban had touched him in a way he didn’t expect.

Since then Mike has dedicated his professional career to the development of Kanban and significantly to making its underlying values explicit. Mike has helped to expand the “Why” of Kanban. He’s helped to humanize it and to explain how it represents “change that is humane.” He’s become a highly respected leader in our community. I’m proud to know him and proud to call him a colleague. It gives me great pleasure that we could publish his book, Kanban from the Inside. I know how much it all means to him.

Kanban from the Inside will help you understand why you should care about Kanban and how Kanban and its community care about you. It is also packed with much of the latest guidance, teaching tools, explanations and experience that otherwise you can only access through training classes.

Yes, Kanban is a useful management method for delivering creative and knowledge work services. Yes, Kanban is an effective way to drive improvement in an evolutionary way. Yes, the techniques in this book will help improve the operational performance of your business. Kanban is all of those things and Mike shows you how to make it happen. But let Mike take you further. Discover the soul of Kanban. Discover what is inside! Get Kanban from the Inside! It’s a great read and well worth your investment. Discover a new deeper way to connect with the concepts in the Kanban Method.