Kanban Replenishment Workshop Guide

At a Glance

The Kanban Replenishment Workshop helps teams maintain steady workflow by systematically selecting and prioritizing new work items to enter their system. This structured session ensures the team's backlog stays healthy, work continues flowing smoothly, and priorities remain aligned with business value. Teams walk away with a properly prioritized queue and clear understanding of their capacity constraints.

• Purpose: Systematically select and prioritize work items to maintain optimal workflow

• Audience: Kanban teams, product owners, and stakeholders involved in work prioritization

• Outcome: Prioritized backlog with appropriate work items ready to enter the system

POWERD Start

• Purpose: Establish a regular process for selecting, prioritizing, and preparing work items to enter the Kanban system while maintaining optimal flow and alignment with business objectives.

• Outcomes: Teams will have a properly sized and prioritized backlog, clear understanding of capacity constraints, and systematic approach to managing work intake that prevents overloading.

  • What's In Scope: Work item selection, priority assessment, capacity planning, backlog health maintenance, and flow optimization within the team's Kanban system boundaries.

  • What's Out of Scope: Major strategic planning, budget allocation decisions, resource assignments outside team control, or work that requires external dependencies not yet resolved.

• What's In It for Me: Teams maintain steady workflow without overcommitting, reduce context switching through better work selection, improve delivery predictability, and align daily work with strategic priorities.

• Engagement: Collaborative prioritization session combining capacity assessment, value evaluation, dependency analysis, and commitment planning with clear agreements on work intake.

• Roles: Product Owner drives prioritization decisions, team members assess capacity and technical feasibility, stakeholders provide business context, and facilitator guides the replenishment process.

• Documents: Current Kanban board state, candidate work items or backlog, team capacity data, business priorities or roadmap, and any dependency information for proposed work.

What Is a Kanban Replenishment Workshop?

A Kanban Replenishment Workshop is a regular ceremony where teams review their current work capacity, evaluate candidate work items, and make decisions about what new work should enter their system. The session focuses on maintaining steady flow while ensuring the highest value work gets prioritized.

The workshop balances multiple factors including team capacity, business priorities, technical dependencies, and work item readiness. Teams examine their Kanban board state, assess available capacity, and commit to specific work items that can flow smoothly through their system.

What Are the Benefits of Kanban Replenishment?

• Steady workflow maintained through systematic work intake management

• Improved focus by limiting work in progress and reducing context switching

• Better alignment between daily work and strategic business priorities

• Predictable delivery through capacity-based work selection

When Should Teams Hold Kanban Replenishment?

Kanban Replenishment works best as a regular ceremony, typically weekly or bi-weekly depending on work item size and team velocity. Schedule sessions when the team has completed enough work to create capacity for new items, but before the pipeline runs empty.

Plan replenishment meetings based on team flow patterns rather than arbitrary calendar schedules. Some teams prefer to replenish when specific columns reach predetermined thresholds, while others use time-based triggers that align with their planning cycles.

Who Should Attend Kanban Replenishment?

• Product Owner (Primary decision maker for prioritization)

• Team members who will execute the work and can assess technical feasibility

• Scrum Master or Team Leadto facilitate and guide the process

• Key stakeholders who can provide business context and priority guidance

• Subject matter experts for specialized work requiring specific expertise

What Inputs Do Teams Need?

Teams need their current Kanban board showing work in progress and available capacity in each column. Gather a prioritized list of candidate work items that are ready for selection, including any relevant business context or deadlines.

Prepare recent throughput data to understand team capacity and delivery patterns. Include information about upcoming team schedule changes, dependencies, or constraints that might affect work selection decisions.

What Do Teams Get Out of It?

The workshop produces a prioritized queue of work items ready to enter the Kanban system, with clear understanding of capacity limits and expected flow patterns. Teams create specific commitments about work intake with agreed-upon priorities and success criteria.

Additional outputs include updated team capacity understanding, identified blockers or dependencies that need resolution, and improved alignment between team work and broader organizational priorities.

Preparing for Success

Team Preparation

Review the current Kanban board state and identify how much capacity will be available for new work based on current work in progress. Examine candidate work items and think through any technical considerations or dependencies.

Team members should come prepared to discuss effort estimates, technical approaches, and potential obstacles for proposed work items. Having recent throughput data helps inform realistic capacity planning.

Facilitator Preparation

Organize candidate work items in order of business priority and ensure all necessary context is available for decision making. Prepare capacity calculation tools or templates to guide the team through systematic work selection.

Set up visualization tools that allow the team to see their current board state alongside candidate work items. Ensure remote participants can fully engage in prioritization discussions and decision making.

How Do Teams Facilitate Kanban Replenishment?

1. Review current board stateby examining work in progress, identifying capacity constraints, and understanding flow patterns through the system.

2. Calculate available capacityusing historical throughput data and current work in progress to determine how much new work the team can realistically take on.

3. Present candidate work itemswith the Product Owner explaining business context, priorities, and value for each item under consideration.

4. Assess work readiness by examining whether candidate items have sufficient detail, resolved dependencies, and clear acceptance criteria for smooth execution.

5. Evaluate technical feasibilitythrough team discussion of implementation approaches, effort estimates, and potential technical risks or obstacles.

6. Prioritize based on value and flow by considering business value, capacity constraints, dependencies, and how work items will move through the system.

7. Commit to specific work itemsby selecting the highest priority items that fit within team capacity and can flow smoothly through the Kanban system.

8. Plan work entry timing by determining when selected items will enter the system and what conditions will trigger their start.

How Do Teams Make Kanban Replenishment Successful?

Respect capacity limits by selecting work that fits realistically within the team's demonstrated throughput rather than optimistically overcommitting. Use historical data to inform decisions about how much work the team can handle effectively.

Focus on work items that are truly ready to flow through the system without getting blocked by missing information or unresolved dependencies. It's better to have fewer well-prepared items than many that will stall in the workflow.

Maintain clear prioritization criteria that everyone understands and can apply consistently. When priorities change, communicate the rationale clearly so teams understand how decisions align with business objectives.

What Are Common Mistakes in Kanban Replenishment?

Teams often overcommit by selecting more work than their system can handle, leading to longer cycle times and reduced flow efficiency. Respect the team's work in progress limits and historical throughput patterns.

Another common mistake is selecting work items that aren't ready for execution, causing delays and blocking flow when teams encounter missing requirements or unresolved dependencies during implementation.

Some teams focus only on business priority while ignoring technical dependencies or capacity constraints, resulting in commitments they can't fulfill within expected timeframes.

Prompts for Continuous Improvement

Are we consistently staying within our capacity limits and maintaining steady flow through the Kanban system?

How effectively are we selecting work items that can flow smoothly without getting blocked by dependencies or missing information?

Are our prioritization decisions aligned with business value while respecting technical constraints and team capacity?

Do we have clear criteria for determining when work items are ready to enter our system?

How well are we using historical throughput data to inform realistic capacity planning and work selection decisions?

Start Your Kanban Replenishment Workshops

Establish regular Kanban Replenishment sessions to maintain optimal workflow through systematic work selection that balances business priorities with team capacity and ensures steady value delivery.