Kanban is an agile method that visualizes work on a WIP-limited board to expose bottlenecks, treating work as a continuous stream rather than time-boxed sprints. Columns typically run To Do, In Progress, Done, with refinements like Code Review, QA, and Deploying inserted as needed. It originated in Toyota's manufacturing system in the 1940s (Taiichi Ohno) and was adapted to software by David J. Anderson in the 2000s (Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business, 2010). It is the most-used agile method outside Scrum and a natural fit for teams whose work doesn't break cleanly into sprint-sized chunks.
The four core practices: visualize the work (a board, physical or digital, shows every item and what state it's ...