2020 has been, undoubtedly, a markedly unusual year for a variety of businesses. Teamwork and collaboration have had all sorts of new challenges thrown their way, and so assessing our performance has never been so vital.
Luckily, 2020 has also been a year that has seen the release of a huge number of innovative initiatives. We’ve seen applications, publications and digital offerings make such marked contributions that, this year, we actually reached a significant peak in the evolution of Kanban.
This means that, even while stuck working from home, the widely-held goal amongst managers of facilitating an improvement in their performance is being made increasingly easy, efficient and, most importantly, data-driven.
2020 may be drawing to a close, but it’s certainly not too late to utilize these fantastic initiatives. To give you a sense of where the Kanban trends will be heading in 2021, here is our compilation of the top five Kanban hits of the year.
#5 Menta Triage Application
When it comes to what to do now, what to leave until later and what not to do at all, there are two aspects underpinning the quality of your decision:
good decision + consistency = trustworthiness
But how do you go about achieving such a target? Well, that’s where Menta Triage DS comes in.
This mobile application is designed to help you with both of these elements, enabling you to improve upon the quality of your decision-making and the consistency of it. Mauvisoft has codified the mathematical algorithm behind the app to help you determine the classes of service of your items based on your lead times and cost of delay.
The beauty of this app is that there is no need to understand the mathematics behind it, or to dive into the calculations of the cost of delay. Plus, it is completely free and it is available in the App Store and Google Play.
Try the Menta Triage App here →
#4 Kanban University Conference Archive
If there’s one thing that we’ve learned this year, it’s how to organize and run virtual events. Whether it’s meetings, conferences, training or networking events, we’ve taken it in our stride.
The new Kanban University Conference Archive is a comprehensive collection that enables us to virtually attend all of the Kanban conferences from across the world, which go all the way back to 2013.
The focus of the conferences is to demonstrate how Kanban helps businesses improve their capabilities, customer satisfaction, and generally speaking, the economic and sociological outcomes a chieved by those adopting it.
Kanban University’s bank offers an extensive set of sessions to help you better understand how to apply Kanban in your organization by providing empirical evidence of Kanban success. The archive is a must-watch resource for everyone involved in a business agility transformation initiative.
#3 Limited WIP Society
Next up on our hit list is The Limited WIP Society. The Limited WIP Society is the online home of the Kanban community which essentially consists of local Kanban meetup groups all over the world.
The Limited WIP Society is designed for Kanban practitioners and those who are just about to implement the method – basically, everyone who is interested in Kanban, evolutionary change and agile management is welcome to join. This society is worldwide, it is open for everyone without any cost, obligations or strings attached.
Our global community regularly shares videos, articles and guidance for the application of Kanban. What’s more, it’s completely non-commercial. There are sessions with leading Kanban pioneers as guest speakers, as well as regular online meetings, where the community exchange their thoughts and ideas about how Kanban can be used to improve their workflows.
Find your local Limited WIP Society group here →
#2 Sustainable Predictability Digital Course
The Sustainable Predictability digital course is brilliant for managers striving to improve the predictability in their delivery workflows using the Kanban Method. It’s inspiring, actionable, and fits around your busy schedule. We cannot recommend it enough.
Sustainable Predictability is a program that has been exclusively created for agile practitioners. The course shows you how to manage the flow of your work to achieve predictable and consistent results and meet your customers’ expectations by delivering on time, every time.
The course is for leaders with no shortage of ambition who’re ready to build a culture that allows their business to create a real impact, enable motivated and engaged teams and bring significant benefits to their company.
Sustainable Predictability will give you the tools, inspiration, and support to achieve consistent and predictable delivery of customer value.
Explore the Sustainable Predictability digital course here →
#1 Kanban Maturity Model (2nd Edition)
We’ve come to the top spot on our Kanban hit list. The first place goes to the newly released second edition of the Kanban Maturity Model.
The new release of the Kanban Maturity Model was officially presented a couple of months ago. The KMM is a book which codifies more than 10 years of experience, and the knowledge that comes with implementing Kanban across a staggeringly diverse range of industries and businesses.
The book provides guidance on improving business outcomes in an organization throughout the different Maturity Levels, it ventures into the sociology of driving evolutionary change and it provides a deep dive into the mathematical models behind some of the concepts used.
This book is for those who aspire to be on the cutting edge of helping professional businesses, surviving the competitive marketplace while providing humane and rewarding work environments for their employees.
The Kanban Maturity Model is a must-have reference guide, certainly essential to any Kanban practitioner and everyone involved in agile transformations in general. It is a definite 21st-century management masterpiece!
Learn more about the second edition of the Kanban Maturity Model here →
2020 has earned itself quite a reputation, and it’s been a wake-up call for so many companies to strive for more predictability. They had to adjust quickly to the market demands and fit into their customers’ expectations.
There has never been a better opportunity to improve the stability of our workflows and optimize our processes. Now is the time to adopt a data-driven approach to managing the flow of work and gain a sustainable competitive advantage. These brilliant initiatives are designed to help you do just that.
