(Also posted to my main blog.)

Kanban Core Concepts

• Visualize work; items, process/ flow, policies
• Limit work-in-progress (WIP), but don’t be too ambitious at first

Basic Kanban is a lightweight framework for change management.
Starting with the core concepts on top of your present process should meet little resistance, at least when coupled with focus on improving quality. 

Btw, I talked at a lokal meetup earlier this year (slides here), mostly on the core concepts – why they work and how to start.

A few Kanban Practices

• Flow; encourage, cultivate, transform towards
• Classes of Service (CoS); visualize and track different types of work, with different demands on them
• Gradually limit WIP to improve flow and to uncover your next improvement opportunity
• Cadence; regular rythm of things like backlog replenishment and deployment, separate from development
• Metrics; to manage flow over time 
• Pull; instead of mostly work with deadlines
• Slack, swarming – doing it consciously

There’s more, but this illustrates the relation between the core concepts and a set of recommended practices.

You’re likely to start with a simple version of some practices, f.ex. the work types (CoS) critical items, work with deadlines, bugs. More practices can be utilized as your organization matures, and more sofisticated use of practices, like setting different target lead times for different CoS, f.ex. 50% of bugs should be fixed within a week.