KMP case studies
KMP · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The Kanban Management Professional (KMP) is a Kanban University credential on the advanced end of its certification paths. Kanban University describes its certification paths page as showing "which courses lead to each credential on the interactive map," so the specific course sequence, prerequisites, and credential mechanics for KMP should be confirmed there rather than assumed. KMP is generally pursued by people who already work with Kanban flow and want to design, operate, and improve kanban systems rather than simply attend a foundation class: team leads, delivery and engineering managers, agile coaches, product and project managers, and change agents introducing flow-based working. This page organises study material around two practice areas: Kanban System Design (STATIK-style system design, work item types, classes of service, policies, visualisation, and flow metrics) and Kanban Systems Improvement (managing flow, feedback loops, service delivery review, and evolutionary change). The KMP case studies are 5 cases and about 4,686 words.
1The board that is really a mailbox: redesigning a congested delivery system
Northwind Analytics has a 12-person product team on one B2B SaaS product. The board has four columns - Backlog, In Progress (WIP limit 8), Review (limit 5), Done - and 63 cards currently sit in In Progress.
924 words, about 5 min2Two teams, one test environment: limiting a shared constraint
Two feature teams (7 and 6 people) at a payments company deliver into one shared integration-test environment. It has two test lanes and completes about 8 items per week when healthy, but is unavailable roughly one day in five for resets and data refreshes.
949 words, about 5 min3Everything is urgent: designing classes of service for an internal ops team
A six-person internal IT operations team supports 1,400 staff. A three-month demand sample shows 42% incidents, 23% service requests, 18% change tasks and 17% project work.
952 words, about 5 min4The throughput argument: interpreting flow data before reverting a limit
A nine-person team has six months of flow data. Throughput averages 24 items a month.
892 words, about 4 min5Blocked on one architect: repairing feedback loops and the tail
A nine-person team split across Porto and Manila has a well-shaped board, respected WIP limits and sensible policies. The problem is not the board.
969 words, about 5 min