Kanban Speak – A glossary of Lean and Kanban Terms
While working on a paper for an audience new to lean, kanban and flow, I created a glossary of terms (listed alphabetically) for people to reference.
| Term | Definition |
| A3 | The context, goals, analysis and proposed countermeasures of a problem made visible on a single sheet of A3 sized paper (11 x 17in. |
| Constraint | A bottleneck in the system. Something preventing forward movement. |
| Cycle Time | The elapsed time it takes to complete a request from the time the work began to the time the work completed. |
| Kanban | Japanese word for visual signal. Used here to refer to a visual management pull system for knowledge work. |
| Lead Time | The elapsed time it takes to complete a request from the time it was first requested. |
| Lean | A Socratic philosophy used to improve. |
| Systems Thinking | A holistic view of the system where the goal is to optimize the whole system versus just individual functions or silos. |
| System | A network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish a goal. A system includes the people doing the work and the impacting rules and tools. |
| Pull System | When new work is pulled into the system based on available capacity to handle it, rather than work being pushed into the system. |
| Queue | A pileup of work waiting to get worked on. Work that’s in a wait state. |
| Value Stream | The activities done from beginning to end for a specific product or service in order to provide business value. |
| Work State | The state that the work is in. Work flows through different states on its way to completion. The work states show us where the work is in the pipeline. |
| Workflow | The flow of work through the pipeline (or system) from beginning to end. |
| Work Item | Anything being worked on. Work that encompasses effort – both large and small. |
| Work-In-Progress | Work-in-progress (WIP) equals all the work started but not yet finished. |