Are the Kanban practices in the right order?

Hakan Forss blogged about a session he hosted at the 2012 Kanban Leadership Retreat about the order of Kanban practices.

David Anderson has written about a set of core practices for Kanban adoption that go from shallow to deep:

1. Visualise the work and work flow
2. Limit WIP
3. Manage flow
4. Make management policies explicit
5. (NEW) Implement feedback mechanisms
6. Improve collaboratively using models and the scientific method

Based on his experiences, Hakan proposes a new ordering:

1. Visualise the work and work flow
2. Make management policies explicit
3. Manage flow
4. Limit WIP
5. Implement feedback mechanisms
6. Improve collaboratively using models and the scientific method

The difference is the ordering of "make management policies explicit", "manage flow" and "limit WIP".

Hakan's proposal matches my own intuition and experience.

I typically describe the point of visualisation and making things explicit as both falling under an overall umbrella of creating a shared understanding of the current situation.  This is beyond just work, work flow, and policies, I will almost always also look at how to visualise the current capabilities within the team.

I would actually simplify this even further though by borrowing from Steven Spear, we need to setup an environment that allows us to...

1. See our work, work flow, policies, and capability
2. Learn in a disciplined fashion (i.e., science)
3. Share our learning