After spending a few years as a systems engineer, I got the opportunity to try my hand at management. My first few management roles were technical leadership positions. I led small to medium-sized teams, and my technical know-how was enough to get me through. I thought I was managing, but in reality, I was reacting to the day’s situation. My team and I would put in the hard work and the long hours to get whatever needed doing; done. It was not great; we were constantly overwhelmed and felt there was no way out. Sigh.

I needed a better way. I felt like there must be something I was missing. How could all the other managers make it look so easy? Was I missing something? I knew I had the ability, and I just lacked the knowledge. I embarked on a post-graduate degree in Engineering Management, thinking that salvation must lie in the hallows of the holy institutions. I came out of there with a greater appreciation of management and started to apply what I had learned. Sadly, the results were short-lived. I was better, but I found myself in the same situation of being overwhelmed with work and needing to put in mammoth hours to get on top of things again.

I wasn’t done yet, not by a long shot. By pure chance, I happened on the Theory of Constraints and its Logical Thinking Processes. At that point, I had no idea of the immense power of systems thinking. I delved deeper into systems thinking, reading everything I could about it. I decided to dig even deeper and took a Graduate Certificate in Constraints Management at Washington State University to find out more. Here, I met Dr. Russ Johnson, who turned my world upside down. I felt like this was what I had been searching for all along.

I now had the knowledge and could use it to manage work effectively. The challenge now was to turn it into a practical mechanism for daily use and make it easily accessible to everyone. Fortunately, I did not have to look far. Everywhere I worked, people were using Kanban boards to visualise their work but not using them to their full potential. And this is when it hit me, why not use the systems thinking tools to unlock the full potential of the Kanban boards?

I hope you enjoy what I have shared in this book. The lessons I have learned and continue to learn when applying these simple rules to work have resulted in me enjoying going to work and, most importantly, have given me confidence in my managerial skills. Once you have the knowledge outlined in this book, you will manage your work and not have it control you.

One of the life lessons I gained while being coached as a kid stuck with me my whole life. My coach said to me, “If you think you can’t, you won’t“. I remember, during my undergrad, having to go through control engineering. Man, I wouldn’t say I liked control engineering. Any opportunity to avoid it, I took. Then I heard my coach’s voice in my head, ‘If you think you can’t, you won’t’. That was it; I printed out that saying and stuck it on my wall. Every time the subject of control engineering came up, I looked at the sign and got to work. That little saying has gotten me through a lot. It was the rod I used to search for a better way. Still today, I catch myself thinking, ‘If you think you can’t, you won’t‘.

I recall my first day in Level 6 Physics at high school. I entered the classroom and saw this young man standing in front of the class. Wow, I thought, what is this young gun doing teaching physics. It looks like he left school last year. We settled down, and he introduced himself. He said the most profound thing, ‘You can’t learn physics yet because you haven’t yet learned how to think properly’. Ha! What? At the time, I remember smirking; what did he mean? We didn’t know how to think? We had been in school for what felt like an eternity! Of course, I learned how to think. So I thought, but boy, was I wrong.

He was right. I didn’t know how to think. That is, I didn’t know how to think logically. He taught us how to think logically by having us do logic puzzles for the first three months of our study. At the time, I thought we had wasted all that time on puzzles. I hoped he knew what he was doing. Once we did start on physics, boy did we race through the syllabus and aced our exams to boot. Our ability to think logically gave us the upper hand.

I am going to borrow from my young gun physics teacher and take the same approach. No, we’re not going to do logic puzzles, but we will start thinking correctly before we go into unlocking the power of Kanban. We are going to start with some essential Kanban and systems thinking. We will then build on that foundation and deal with the more complicated situations we find ourselves in as part of our working lives.

I recommend you practice what you learn one at a time, especially if you have existing boards. Both you and your team will need time to adapt to the changes you introduce. Taking this approach is the path of least resistance when working in a group. The team members get to experience first-hand the outcomes of each change.

I have received the same advice above in reading other books and have never listened to it, instead choosing to make a wholesale change to get maximum benefit. If you are wired that way, then I am not going to stop you. Go for gold! You may meet with resistance from the broader team as they try to get their heads around the changes you have put in place. Some of the things I suggest are counterintuitive, and some team members may ignore your requests. Remember, ultimately, our role is to make work flow as smoothly as possible and service our customers as fast as possible. Either approach will get you there. One is more inclusive. I leave it to you to choose which you prefer.

A quick note about my writing style: it will be evident through the book that I am not a writer. Not by a long shot! I have formatted the text to most resemble a presentation I would provide to one of my clients. The words I use are more aligned with if I were delivering this as a presentation to you. In some instances, the tone is more conversational; in others, it is more informational. I intend to let the information presented do the talking and not have me fill the gaps with many words that won’t make much of a difference to the underlying message.

With that, let’s jump in.

A PDF copy of the book can be found here: Unlocking the Power of Kanban

The physical copy of the book can be found here: Unlocking the Power of Kanban