Trainings & courses

Kanban System Design (KMP I)
Logo of Lean Kanban University (LKU)

Kanban System Design is a highly interactive two-day course accredited by the Lean Kanban University (LKU).
It combines teaching, group discussions and a fully immersive simulation to introduce Agile Lean Pull systems, and illustrates how the Kanban Method helps organizations to manage and continuously improve their deliveries and flow of work in the processes.

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Kanban Management Professional (KMP II)
Logo of Lean Kanban University (LKU)

Kanban Management Professional is a two-day course accredited by the Lean Kanban University (LKU).
It focuses on roll-out and daily operation of a Lean Kanban system, and how to evolve it over time. We study how to continuously improve the performance through Kanban cadences, flow optimization, forecasting, prioritization, balancing demand vs. capability, and scaling.

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Demystifying The Kanban Method: Project planning with Kanban
Logo of Lean Kanban University (LKU)

In this free meetup we will discuss the principles of project planning in Kanban, which information to base your plan on, how to track the actual performance, when the plan should be adjusted, common pitfalls, and attention points.
We will also review why the Work Item size does not matter (too much) in Kanban and the consequences of this.

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Team Kanban Practitioner (TKP)
Logo of Lean Kanban University (LKU)

Team Kanban Practitioner is a one-day course accredited by the Lean Kanban University (LKU).
The training teaches the basics of the Kanban Method and serves as the entry level and starting point to an alternative path to agility. The intention of the course is to learn core concepts of Agile, Lean and the Kanban Method as well as design and implement a Kanban task board on the single-team level.

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Project estimation and Forecasting

This two-day in-depth training teaches you rules and procedures for creating accurate and not politically biased estimates and forecasts. It contains a lot of exercises to teach the skills to create different kinds of estimates and Monte Carlo forecasts for all kinds of projects - small, medium large in different phases of the project. This course is based on the works of top Agile guru's.

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Who we are

Leadershipping provides expert services in Agile, Lean, Kanban and Scrum Training, Coaching and Management

We help mature businesses and help them to move from good to great by implementing Agile transformations in all parts of organization, including but not limited to Research and Development, Human Resources, Finance, Operations, Logistics

While we're located in Eindhoven, North Brabant, The Nerherlands, our services span worldwide

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Group photo of our Agile Lean Kanban training in Seoul, South Korea

About Agile and Lean

Manifesto for Agile Software Development

We are uncovering better ways of developing software by doing it and helping others do it. Through this work we have come to value:

Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
Working software over comprehensive documentation
Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
Responding to change over following a plan

That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.

There are numerous approaches and frameworks to achieve team and enterprise level agility such as the Kanban Method, Scrum, Extreme Programming, SAFE, etc.

Leadershipping follows the Agile Manifesto and Lean continuous improvement philosophy in all team and oganisation level Agile, Scrum, and Lean Kanban transformation, coaching, and project management activities

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Lean Philosophy and Principles

Lean was born out of manufacturing practices but has transformed the world of knowledge work and management. It encourages the practice of continuous improvement and is based on the fundamental idea of respect for people. Womack and Jones defined the five principles of Lean manufacturing in their book "The Machine That Changed the World".

The five Lean principles provide a framework for creating an efficient and effective organization. Lean allows managers to discover inefficiencies in their organization and deliver better value to customers. The principles encourage creating better flow in work processes and developing a continuous improvement culture. By practicing all 5 principles, an organization can remain competitive, increase the value delivered to the customers, decrease the cost of doing business, and increase their profitability.

The Five Lean Principles Explained

Define Value
To better understand the first principle of defining customer value, it is important to understand what value is. Value is what the customer is willing to pay for. It is paramount to discover the actual or latent needs of the customer. Sometimes customers may not know what they want or are unable to articulate it. This is especially common when it comes to novel products or technologies. There are many techniques such as interviews, surveys, demographic information, and web analytics that can help you decipher and discover what customers find valuable. By using these qualitative and quantitative techniques you can uncover what customers want, how they want the product or service to be delivered, and the price that they afford.

Map the Value Stream
The second Lean principle is identifying and mapping the value stream. In this step, the goal is to use the customer's value as a reference point and identify all the activities that contribute to these values. Activities that do not add value to the end customer are considered waste. The waste can be broken into two categories: non-valued added but necessary and non-value & unnecessary. The later is pure waste and should be eliminated while the former should be reduced as much as possible. By reducing and eliminating unnecessary processes or steps, you can ensure that customers are getting exactly what they want while at the same time reducing the cost of producing that product or service.

Create Flow
After removing the wastes from the value stream, the following action is to ensure that the flow of the remaining steps run smoothly without interruptions or delays. Some strategies for ensuring that value-adding activities flow smoothly include: breaking down steps, reconfiguring the production steps, leveling out the workload, creating cross-functional departments, and training employees to be multi-skilled and adaptive.

Establish Pull
Inventory is considered one of the biggest wastes in any production system. The goal of a pull-based system is to limit inventory and work in process (WIP) items while ensuring that the requisite materials and information are available for a smooth flow of work. In other words, a pull-based system allows for Just-in-time delivery and manufacturing where products are created at the time that they are needed and in just the quantities needed. Pull-based systems are always created from the needs of the end customers. By following the value stream and working backwards through the production system, you can ensure that the products produced will be able to satisfy the needs of customers.

Pursue Perfection
Wastes are prevented through the achievement of the first four steps: identifying value, mapping value stream, creating flow, and adopting a pull system. However, the fifth step of pursuing perfection is the most important among them all. It makes Lean thinking and continuous process improvement a part of the organizational culture. Every employee should strive towards perfection while delivering products based on the customer needs. The company should be a learning organization and always find ways to get a little better each and every day.

What is the Kanban Method?

Kanban is a method for defining, managing, and improving services that deliver knowledge work, such as professional services, creative endeavors, and the design of both physical and software products. It may be characterized as a "start from what you do now" method - a catalyst for rapid and focused change within organizations - that reduces resistance to beneficial change in line with the organization's goals.

The Kanban Method is based on making visible what is otherwise intangible knowledge work, to ensure that the service works on the right amount of work - work that is requested and needed by the customer and that the service has the capability to deliver. To do this, we use a kanban system - a delivery flow system that limits the amount of Work in Progress (WiP) by using visual signals.

The signaling mechanisms, sometimes referred to as kanbans, are displayed on kanban boards and represent WiP Limits, which prevent too much or too little work entering the system, thereby improving the flow of value to customers. The WiP Limit policies create a pull system: Work is "pulled" into the system when other work is completed and capacity becomes available, rather than "pushed" into it when new work is demanded, regardless of the delivery capability.

Kanban focuses on the delivery of services by an organization - one or more people collaborating to produce (usually intangible) work products. A service has a customer, who requests the work or whose needs are identified, and who accepts or acknowledges delivery of the completed work. Even where there is a physical product from services, value resides less in the item itself and more in its informational content (the software, in the most general sense).

Kanban helps you understand how your work works, but Kanban is not a project management tool.

10 Things You Should Know About Kanban

Every Kanban system is unique
Each organization is unique, so Kanban does not propose a "one size fits all" approach to the work. Kanban allows the organization to do an honest evaluation of the way it works: the level of demand for work to be done; how the workers deliver on that demand; the rules for when the work is started and how it is handled; the constraints and dependencies; and ultimately, whether the internal and external customers are satisfied.

Kanban is about focus and flow
Predictability requires steady and consistent behavior. How do you accomplish that in professional services work where there is a high variation and high risk? Lean Kanban courses teach many approaches to achieving and measuring flow and with flow comes predictability. Flow also means happier customers. Kanban limits the amount of work in progress so the most important work is finished first and more gets done overall, all at a sustainable pace without adding staff or budget.

Kanban is about evolutionary change - not revolutionary
The Kanban system starts with simply mirrors the current way work is done. Then pain points are identified. Small changes are made to address only those issues. Small, gradual changes mean a smooth process that gets big results without trauma.

Kanban is committed to agility
While Kanban can work with timeboxed iterations, Kanban is primarily a flow-based system. It optimizes coordination and communication so work can flow more smoothly. Its managed commitment points and limits on the amount of work in progress assures a focus on the most important work. If market conditions change, Kanban has the super flexibility to shift the selected work.

Kanban is grounded in reality
While other systems seem to support wishful thinking and guesses, Kanban is big on measurement, validation, and facts about actual performance. The Kanban Method incorporates the scientific method. When a problem or deficiency is detected, an experiment can be tried through a deliberate process. Most importantly, with Kanban we acknowledge the current reality (including problems) without finger-pointing and instead focus on how the entire system can improve.

Kanban is a living system
The Kanban Method is designed to be expanded and extended. Kanban enthusiasts and thought leaders worldwide have developed new techniques that have resulted in a vast body of knowledge. Kanban approaches now cover topics like product validation, portfolio management, depth charting, capacity allocation, motivational models and much more. Kanban is continually modified and extended in collaboration with the broad Kanban community.

Kanban is a risk management method
Using Kanban, an organization can look at its current work and develop a risk profile. What are the associated risks for the different types of work? What does this mean for how the work is handled? Because of Kanban's attention to feedback loops and measurement, there is quick validation of results and performance in high risk areas. As a side benefit, Kanban's handling of risk is so easy and comfortable that workers at all levels can start thinking in terms of organizational risk when they make decisions.

Kanban balances demand with capability
Demand, the request to do work, can be managed! We call this "shaping demand." There are several methods we teach to improve how work requests are handled. We also have ways of reducing delay and other factors that eat into productivity. The Kanban Method specifically addresses the challenges of professional services work including the high variation environment of technology businesses.

Kanban isn't only for software development or IT
Kanban works for all professional services, which are organizations that produce work that is NOT a physical item. The delivered work might be digital or it might be a service.
Organizations using Kanban include: education, legal, sales, marketing, HR, design, media, film production, military, customer support, financial, research, insurance, government agencies, and many more.

Kanban works at scale
Large organizations are using Kanban with thousands of employees, enterprise wide, including many remote offices. Lean Kanban offers a recommended approach to scaled Kanban called Enterprise Services Planning. Rather than creating a giant master board, Enterprise Services Planning scales by connecting many separate kanban systems.

Free Essential Kanban guide
What is Scrum?

Scrum is a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value.

Scrum itself is a simple framework for effective team collaboration on complex products. Scrum co-creators Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland have written The Scrum Guide to explain Scrum clearly and succinctly. This Guide contains the definition of Scrum. This definition consists of Scrum's roles, events, artifacts, and the rules that bind them together.

Scrum is: Lightweight, Simple to understand, but Difficult to master

Free Scrum guide
Agile versus Lean

Lean reduces waste and improves operational efficiency. Agile delivers iteratively and responds to change quickly.

You do not need to choose Agile vs Lean or Scrum vs Kanban "sides", but should strive to become Lean and Agile at the same time. Remember, that the most Agile number of work items in an iteration or in a release is one, and this is also the most optimal Lean batch size.

Kanban is committed to Agility via its managed commitment points and a focus on the most important work. If market conditions change, Kanban has the flexibility to shift the selected work and quickly adapt to the changes. While the Kanban Method is both Lean and Agile, it also can fit existing Agile frameworks to make them even more Agile.

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