Reviewed: Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business

Author: David J. Anderson
Publisher: Blue Hole Press
Year: 2010
ISBN: 9780984521401

Having (re)read the Phoenix Project, I decided to dig a bit deeper into Kanban, and the underlying concepts and methods used in its application. One of the first books that showed up in my searches was David Anderson’s Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business.

Unlike the Phoenix Project, Kanban is not a fictionalised account, but rather shows how the thoughtful application of the concepts of kanban and kaizen can be utilised to shorten lead times to delivery, improve quality, and increase satisfaction. It does so by exploring a number of case studies, showing the benefits provided by the application of Kanban in each instance.

The book, while fairly specific to software development, clearly demonstrates how those who apply these ideas become more successful by doing so, and it is my belief that any DevOps practitioner would benefit from knowing more about the practical application of them. That is where the value of this book lies; it demonstrates how Kanban is applied, through the exploration of case studies.

Crucially, the case studies are all explored in depth, so that the reader is left with an understanding of how the results were achieved. Each chapter builds upon the lessons learned in the previous chapter, and each goes more in-depth into an aspect of Kanban. Finally, each chapter ends with a bullet-point list of the major takeaways from the lessons learned in the chapter.

I found the book not only interesting, but also well written, and think anyone curious about the application of Kanban in DevOps would benefit from reading it.