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Applying Professional Kanban (APK) from Prokanban.org

Kanban Training certified by prokanban.org

Prioritize within throughput, adjust for noise

Get stronger flow
... without more people

A Professional Kanban training course created by ProKanban.org and the Professional Kanban Trainer Community.

The ProKanban.org mission is to support all Kanban practitioners (new or old) by providing a safe and inclusive forum to learn about Kanban.

Applying Professional Kanban logo from Prokanban.org

A Professional kanban training course created by prokanban.org and the Professional Kanban Trainer Community

Course delivery is by a co-author of kanban guide, the author of kanplexity, and he happens to be a flight levels coach.

APK Course Overview

The essence of Kanban in practice

  • Optimize the flow of value, not the flow of activities
  • Prioritize within throughput, adjust for noise
  • Better to have slack than overwhelm
  • As needed, split items into smaller but valuable items
  • Show empathy within, upstream, and downstream
  • Unblock, focus, finish, & feed
  • Do ensemble work as needed 
  • Look after work item aging
  • Lower aging => Lower cycle times => after a time lag..
    More stable throughput, then higher throughput
  • Get stronger flow… without adding more people
  • Expand optimization of flow upstream and downstream, and at higher levels
 

Applying Professional Kanban

Kanban is fast becoming the modern way to manage an organization’s delivery of customer value. In today’s always-on environment, you need a clear set of practices that don’t get in the way of your ability to continuously deliver but that provides enough structure to keep everyone aligned and focused. This 16 hours of learning  will give you an in-depth introduction to improving  effectiveness by applying Kanban flow principles.

Who should attend?

The APK course is for anyone who wants to improve their ability to deliver value and be more effective. 

Typical attendee roles include team members, team leads, agility coaches, scrum masters, product owners, project managers/directors, product managers/leaders, management, and leaders at all levels. 

This particular class is aimed at entrepreneurs, executives and board members.

Course Learning Objectives

In this class, you will learn the basic principles of flow and how to use them to make your flow more efficient, predictable, and effective. With an emphasis on the practical application of concepts, this course includes many hands-on exercises that will lead you through the steps of setting up and operating a Kanban system for continuous value delivery and improvement.

 

After attending the course, learners will be able to:

  • Explain the basic principles of flow
  • Describe the value of WiP limits
  • Create a visual board to manage your work
  • Capture and interpret key flow metrics and analytics to find improvement opportunities
  • Explain why flow should be focused on value delivery
  • Define, build, operate and continuously improve a Kanban system
 
 

Topics

  • Kanban theory, strategy, and practices
  • Applying Kanban practices
  • Workflow design and visualization
  • How to get started

Certification included

All participants completing the Applying Professional Kanban course will receive a password to attempt the Applying Professional Kanban certification assessment. APK class participants who attempt the APK assessment within 14 days of the class and do not score at least 85% will be granted a 2nd attempt at no additional cost.

APK Course Dates and Time

About the trainer

Profile of the trainer

Top 10 Thinkers 360John Coleman

Top 50 Agile Leaders 2022Ecocycle planning - Liberating Structure in Sofia

What John Coleman’s Students Say

 Google 21Dec19  Trustpilot as at 21Dec19   VocalReferences 21Dec19

* When offered in-person, this course is generally delivered over two consecutive days. When offered as a Live Virtual Class, the course may be broken up into more, shorter days, sometimes consecutive, sometimes one week apart.

It’s not just about Reviews & Ratings 

Reviews & ratings are limited by nature. John needs to understand if the learning made a real difference back in the office. So, John likes to checks in 12-18 months later. He sees a pattern of improvement and regularly gets pleasant vibes from successful agility inspired by ideas from the training. For example, see this experience report.

John’s Scrum+Kanban Nexus+ case studies can be found at https://www.valueglide.com/blog/nexus-nexus-and-scrum.org-certifications. 

John is grateful to be part of Marshall Goldsmith’s #payitforward campaign and, in so doing, offers free coaching/mentoring/co-training to a selection of potential agility chefs. Marshall Goldsmith taught John in Salt Lake City in February 2018. All of John’s workshops #payitforward Marshall Goldsmith content, including Marshall’s advice to John himself.

Client list

John’s client list (directly or indirectly) includes Japanese Tobacco International, TUI, Lilbit, digital2DNA, Shell, BP, Barclaycard, Vocalink Mastercard, Centrica, the Musgrave Group, RR Donnelley, DELL, Nordic Aviation Services, 84.51, Intralinks, PaySafe, Vodafone, Ericsson, NASA, and Sky.  

Free assessment readiness call(s)

Assessment preparation tends not to be covered in the workshop. The workshop focuses on attendees getting ready to apply new skills back at work immediately after the workshop. There is an expectation that attendees will attend some free post-workshop Zoom calls and watch recordings of their own group (or previous groups) doing tough practice tests, sometimes including John Coleman’s own practice tests which address the same learning outcomes, albeit from a different angle. John has an expectation that attendees will attend the calls, as assessment preparation does not scale on a 1:1 basis. Signing up for this workshop is effectively signing up to attend these calls.

Co-trainers

Sometimes, John Coleman will have a trusted co-trainer to give a helping hand, someone who is already qualified or who is building up experience.

Testimonials

International Training Clients

Erin Donaghy Professional Agile Leadership

John is an incredibly helpful instructor. I completed the Agile Leadership course with his assistance, and his explanations were always very clear and emphasized the big picture thinking of Agile. The work in the class was very dynamic, looking at scenarios and working in small groups or pairs to discuss our ideas. I also appreciated his real world examples from his extensive work experience and knowledge base. John also has a wonderful sense of humor, an ideal trait in a teacher. Thank you!

Simone Cusimano Professional Agile Leadership

Well-structured and balanced course between theory and practice. Course full of exercises to put into practice what you are learning. You take home with you useful techniques that you can immediately apply in your work the day after. Many thanks to John Coleman for what he shared with me during the course and the follow-ups!

John Brookmyre Professional Scrum Master 1

Inspirational, insightful and engaging John thank you for your support guiding over 100 of our Agile Leaders through PSM1. The feedback from the groups was phenomenal with people sharing how much they liked your depth of knowledge, facilitation and support - Thank you! Could not recommend John highly enough - fabulous experience.

Chungan Ke Professional Kanban

John is an excellent trainer and an extremely knowledgeable mentor. I was able to gain so much from his teaching during the 16 hours of Professional Kanban training course. If anyone is looking for a Kanban trainer who not only can deliver the course material, but also share so much from his personal journey as an Agile practitioner, look no further, John is your guy.