KMP study guide
KMP · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
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). Topics on this exam: Kanban System Design and Kanban Systems Improvement. The KMP study guide has 2 sections and about 814 words.
01Kanban System Design: Building a System That Fits Your Work
Kanban System Design asks you to design a kanban system around the work, not around an org chart. The exam tests whether you can start from the current state, model the workflow, make policies explicit, set WIP limits, define classes of service, and choose metrics and cadences that fit demand and capability. A kanban system is more than a board: it includes work item types, commitment and delivery points, explicit policies, WIP limits, pull signals, feedback cadences, and measures. Use STATIK: understand purpose and sources of dissatisfaction; analyze demand and capability; model the workflow; discover classes of service; design the system; socialize it; run a small experiment.
411 words, about 2 min02Kanban Systems Improvement: Reading Flow and Evolving the System
Kanban Systems Improvement tests whether you can use the kanban system as an improvement engine: read flow metrics, diagnose system problems, run feedback loops, and evolve policies without destabilizing delivery. Manage flow end to end. Track lead time distribution, throughput, WIP, flow efficiency, due-date performance, and blocker frequency. Use a cumulative flow diagram to see where work accumulates, and a control chart to separate normal variation from special-cause signals.
403 words, about 2 min