Milk Kanban

16 Mar, 2025

In its original meaning, Kanban represented a visual signal. The thing that communicated, well, something. It might have been a need, option, availability, capacity, request, etc.

Enters Kasia, our office manager at Lunar. One of the many things Kasia takes care of is making sure we don’t run out of kitchen supplies. The tricky part is that when you don’t drink milk yourself, it becomes a pain to check the cupboard with milk reserves every now and then to ensure we’re stocked.

Then, one day, I found this. A simple index card taped to the last milk carton in a row stating, “Bring me to Kasia.” That’s it.

In the context, it really says that:

we’re running out of (specific kind of) milk

we want to restock soon

there’s enough time to make an order (we don’t drink that much of cappuccinos and macchiatos)

But it’s just a visual signal. Kanban at its very core.

What Kasia designed is a perfect Kanban system. It relies on visual signals, which are put in the context. Even better, unlike most Kanban boards I see across teams, the system is self-explanatory. Everything one needs to know is written on the index card.

#im-4 #simplicity