The Kanban for Knowledge Work Alliance is an alliance of thought leaders from Kanban, Lean, Lean Thinking, Systems Thinking, Agile and Agile Thinking. The intent is to continue being thought leaders, to keep up with the state of the art on Kanban and to develop an enterprise grade learning and certification roadmap.

We are professionals with a Systems Thinking perspective of Kanban, Lean and Agile in the context of the markets in which they are applied, their impact at human-factor level and their influence on the benefits the products and services developed. By Systems Thinking we mean a mindset based on understanding the interrelationships between all the aspects of what’s of interest and how they impact each other, so that with such level of understanding we are more capable of figuring out better solutions and outcomes that benefit all the parts involved. Systems thinking does not refer to software systems or so, but a software system may be one component of a System. Our mission is to help others also become systems thinkers in Kanban so that their organizations, the people who belong to it, and its customers are highly benefited, and as result become more successful.

Our Charter:

1. Develop actionable learning roadmap for enterprise adoption and use of Kanban for knowledge work from executive level to team level.
2. Identify the learning milestones that can be evaluated, certified and thus recognized.
3. Connect the learning roadmap in Kanban with areas beyond technical, such as administrative, human resources, financial, legal, scientific, etc., and at strategic, tactical and operational levels.

Kanban for knowledge work has proven to be the most outstanding lean-agile methodology to date. Organizations and teams that have adopted it show high degrees of success in projects. Another advantage for organizations is accelerated maturity thanks to Kanban’s implicit continuous improvement becoming part of the organization’s culture.

Kanban has slowly but surely been gaining market penetration. There exists the impression that Kanban can be applied on IT Operations only. That is far from true. Kanban is a method that helps you improve what you currenlty have. It doesn’t replace your current processes, which means that the significant investment you have made in the past to get where you are now isn’t thrown away but rather taken as the starting point for accelerated improvement. This means that Kanban can be applied on your knowledge work organization whichever its nature is (technical or non-technical), and no matter what your current process is based on (PMBoK, Scrum, Waterfall, or any other). Kanban will help you improve and mature your practices and processes.

The Kanban for Knowledge Work Alliance pursuits to generate a vast community of professionals at all levels of the organization that will understand and apply Kanban, Lean Thinking and Systems Thinking to benefit their organizations, their customers and their markets through thought leadership, the right understanding, the right knowledge and the right practice.