Kanban
A flow-based method that visualizes work limits work in progress and improves delivery continuously.
Plain English
Make work visible and finish active items before starting too many new ones.
In context
Kanban manages pull-based flow through explicit states while teams use cycle time and bottlenecks to guide improvement.
Example
“The team set a work-in-progress limit of three items for review.”
When you'll hear this
- work tracking
- service delivery
- process improvement
Common misunderstanding
Kanban is more than a board of columns; flow policies and work-in-progress limits are central.
Also known as
kanban methodkanban board
Commonly used by
Related terms
Often compared with
Updated: 2026-08-26
