The Psychology Behind Kanban

– See all the Agile Certified Practitioner Videos –

What is Kanban?

Kanban in an Agile team focuses on minimising “Work in Progress”. It uses a board, where task cards are placed, and move across each column from the “Backlog”, to “In progress” to “Done”.

Kanban gives a team a feeling of Progress.

Professor Teresa Amabile

Teresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer found in their study of more than 12,000 employee journal entries over a prolonged period of time that it wasn’t money, perks, recognition or time-off that contributed to their happiness.

It was a sense of progress, specifically progress in meaningful work.

People were also 50% more likely to find creative solutions on the days they reported their most positive moods, that came from making progress.

Dr Jason Fox

Dr Jason Fox took the idea of progress one step further, specifically:

To make progress visible.

So everyone can see it, and everyone is on the same page.  It is the “Kanban Board” of a team.

Kanban gives a team Clarity on the work and what is expected.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Released a study outlining three things in place when a person experienced the “flow state”, a state of ease and happiness.

Those were:

  • When the person knew what to do every step of the way
  • The person could tell clearly and immediately if he or she had made a mistake
  • The skills of the person were more or less in balance with the challenges that the activity provided

Gallup

In 2015 the Gallup Business Journal studied more than 190,000 employee engagement responses and found that 50% of employees were not clear on what was expected of them at work.

Of these, only 4% were “engaged” in their work.

Companies where employees were clear on what was expected of them saw a 34% jump in engaged employees.

– David McLachlan

– See all the Agile Certified Practitioner Videos –