Most organisations are drowning in work they can’t see, can’t measure, and can’t control. Delivery is unpredictable. Teams are overloaded. Managers ask for status updates because they have no other way of knowing what’s really happening. The Kanban System Design (KSD) course — accredited by Kanban University and David J Anderson, the creator of the Kanban Method — gives you the tools to change all of that, without needing to rip out your existing processes and start from scratch.

Kanban is an evolutionary approach — it builds on whatever your team already does and improves it incrementally. This 2-day hands-on workshop takes you through all six core Kanban practices: from visualising workflow and limiting work in progress, to managing flow, making policies explicit, and establishing the feedback loops that keep teams improving. You’ll leave with a Kanban system designed for your context, not a theoretical framework that gathers dust.

Unlike providers who treat Kanban as one module in a generic agile catalogue — or who route you to a trainer you’ve never heard of — we live and breathe this framework. Agile Affinity runs the Kanban Coaching Exchange, one of the UK’s most active Kanban practitioner communities, and our trainer Helen Meek is an Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) and Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) who has applied Kanban across 60+ organisations. This is specialist, boutique, practitioner-led training — priced at £900 + VAT.

Taught by the UK’s Kanban Community — Not a Generic IT Training Provider

Agile Affinity runs the Kanban Coaching Exchange — one of the UK’s most active Kanban practitioner communities. Our trainer doesn’t just teach Kanban: she’s an Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) and Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) who coaches teams using these exact practices every week. When you ask a question, you get an answer from someone who has solved that problem in a real organisation — not read about it in a slide deck. That’s the difference between training that changes how you work and training that fills a CPD requirement.

What Will You Receive?

	KU Certificate of Attendance An official certificate of attendance from Kanban University (KU), accredited by David J Anderson — the creator of the Kanban Method. You’ll also become eligible to join Kanban University as a member.
	Hands-On Kanban Simulation A team-based, realistic Kanban simulation where you experience all six practices in action. You’ll build and iterate on a real Kanban visualisation during the course, then take a complete digital copy back to your organisation on day one.
	Electronic Course Materials A full digital copy of course slides, materials, and your workshop outputs — everything you created across both days, ready to share with your team and put into practice immediately.
	One Month of Kanban+ Access Every attendee receives a one-month full access trial to Kanban+ — including the latest Kanban books, tools, and artefacts from Kanban University.

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Included: A Free 30-Minute Coaching Session After the Course

Every booking includes a free 30-minute one-on-one session with Helen, scheduled after the course when you need it most. Use it to design your first real Kanban board, work through a specific challenge, or plan how to bring your team on the journey. That level of post-course support isn’t something you’ll find from providers charging more. Kanban adoption doesn’t end when the workshop does — and neither does ours.

How Does the Kanban System Design Course Work?

Who Is This Course For?

Kanban is not just for tech teams. Anyone responsible for managing work, improving delivery, or reducing organisational friction will benefit from this course. There are no prerequisites — it is deliberately open to all levels.

Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches — wanting to add a powerful evolutionary approach to their toolkit and help teams improve flow without forcing a wholesale change programme.

Team Leads and Managers — who need genuine visibility into their team’s work, want to reduce overload, and are looking for a low-risk path to sustainable improvement.

Product and Project Managers — seeking greater delivery predictability and a data-driven approach to managing flow, capacity, and client commitments.

Professionals in any industry — from technology and financial services to marketing, operations, and healthcare. If your team manages any kind of knowledge work, Kanban applies.

Course Curriculum: The Six Core Practices of the Kanban Method

The KSD syllabus follows the official Kanban University curriculum, covering all six core practices through hands-on exercises, games, and team simulation. You’ll work on visualisations for your own organisation throughout both days and iterate on them as each new practice is introduced.

Kanban Overview — What Kanban is (and isn’t), the history and common myths of the method, the case for evolutionary vs. revolutionary change, the principles and core practices, and when Kanban is typically the right tool.

Visualising the Workflow — Identifying work item types, modelling your process, conducting demand analysis, and designing Kanban boards that give your team the shared visibility they need to make better decisions together.

STATIK — Systems Thinking Approach to Introducing Kanban — The structured method for designing a Kanban system with a whole-system perspective: understanding sources of dissatisfaction, analysing demand and capability, and designing a system that fits the actual work — rather than a generic template applied without thought. You’ll use STATIK to design your own Kanban system during the course.

Kanban Simulation — A team-based, realistic simulation of a Kanban system in action. This is the session where everything clicks: you’ll experience all six practices from the inside and see the impact of each change in real time, in a safe learning environment.

Limiting Work in Progress — Pull Systems — Little’s Law, WIP limits, input queues, output buffers, and how Pull systems work to reduce overburdening and improve throughput. How to set WIP limits that create genuine flow improvement rather than just friction — and why most teams are carrying far more work in progress than they realise.

Managing Flow — Key Metrics — How to use Lead Time, Run Charts, and Cumulative Flow Diagrams (CFDs) to make continuous improvements: using WIP as a lead time indicator, identifying problems in flow data before they become delivery failures, and removing bottlenecks with evidence rather than instinct.

Making Process Policies Explicit — Classes of Service, Cost of Delay, scheduling policies, and Service Level Agreements — the practices that turn a visual board into a shared agreement about how work flows, enabling better risk management and governance without adding bureaucratic overhead.

Feedback Mechanisms — Running the Kanban Meetings — The cadences of the Kanban Method: how to run the daily Kanban meeting, replenishment, and delivery meetings so the work is always visible and the team can organise around it. How regular feedback loops keep your system improving rather than stagnating after the initial implementation.

Kaizen — Collaborative Improvement — Improvement and experimentation cycles that evolve your process in a meaningful, sustainable way, involving the team rather than imposing change on people who didn’t ask for it.

Your Trainer: Helen Meek

Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) · Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP) · Accredited Kanban Consultant (AKC) · ICF Professional Certified Coach (PCC) · Certified Enterprise Coach (CEC) · Certified Team Coach (CTC)  Helen has spent 18+ years in organisational change and agile coaching, applying Kanban across more than 60 organisations including ASOS, Merck, and Cambridge University Press. As both an Accredited Kanban Trainer (AKT) and Kanban Coaching Professional (KCP), she brings a level of credential and real-world depth that puts her among a very small number of true Kanban specialists operating in the UK today. Helen runs the Kanban Coaching Exchange — one of the UK’s most active Kanban practitioner communities — and brings those live practitioner conversations directly into the training room. She is practical, warm, and clear-eyed about what actually works in organisations. If you have a challenge you’ve been unable to solve, bring it: the course is structured to let you work on real problems, not toy examples.

Benefits of Training with Agile Affinity

KU-Accredited Training Your KSD training is accredited by Kanban University and David J Anderson — the highest possible endorsement for Kanban System Design training.

Save on Future Courses Receive 20% off all future Agile Affinity certifications when you sign up for our newsletter.

Join the Kanban Community Join the Kanban Coaching Exchange and the wider Agile Affinity community — ongoing support from practitioners who are actively using what you’re about to learn.

Free 1:1 Coaching Session Every booking includes a free 30-minute session with Helen after the course to help you apply Kanban in your specific context.

Agile Affinity is a UK-based boutique agile coaching and training consultancy, established in 2019. We certify over 750 practitioners per year and run some of the UK’s most active agile communities — including Scrum Event (the largest Scrum Alliance meetup in Europe), the Kanban Coaching Exchange, the Agile Coaching Exchange, and Agile Coach Camp UK. When you train with us, you’re not just attending a course — you’re joining a community of practitioners who are actively using what you’re about to learn.

Planning to Go All the Way to KMP? Ask About Our KSD + KSI Bundle Price.

Completing both KSD and KSI through an authorised Kanban University provider earns you the Kanban Management Professional (KMP) designation — the gold standard Kanban credential. If you’re planning to do both, we offer a special bundle price for booking KSD and KSI together. Same trainer, same learning environment, and the most cost-effective route to KMP.

Email us with the dates you’re interested in and we’ll send you the bundle pricing and get you booked in for both courses.

Email talk@agileaffinity.com to ask about the KSD + KSI bundle →

Frequently Asked Questions

Kanban University®, Kanban System Design (KSD), Kanban System Improvement (KSI), and Kanban Management Professional (KMP) are trademarks of Lean Kanban Inc. Any unauthorised use is strictly prohibited. Agile Affinity LLP is an authorised Kanban University training provider.