What it is and why it matters
Visualizing, limiting and measuring produce information. Cadences are the moments when that information becomes a decision. Without them, the board stays up to date and nobody acts on what it shows; with them, each type of decision has the right time, participants and data.
The Kanban Method describes a set of cadences, each with a purpose. They are not mandatory ceremonies with a fixed duration. They are functions that need to happen somewhere. A small team can combine several into one meeting; a large organization can hold each one in a separate forum. What cannot happen is for the function to disappear.
Key concepts
The frequencies below are usual starting points. Adjust them to the demand and pace of your service.
Team Kanban Meeting (daily)
Coordinates the day’s work with a focus on flow. The central question is: what is keeping items from moving forward? It lasts around 15 minutes, in front of the board, with the people who do the work.
Replenishment Meeting (usually weekly)
Decides which options cross the commitment point and enter the system. The people who do the work and the people who represent demand take part. The conversation considers available capacity, Cost of Delay, classes of service and free space within the WIP limit. The frequency should match the exit rate: if the team delivers 10 items per week and the input queue only holds 6, a weekly replenishment leaves the system with no committed work in the middle of the week.
Delivery Planning Meeting (per delivery cadence)
Organizes delivery to the customer: what goes, when, with what preparation and with what risks. It is separate from the Replenishment Meeting because committing to do the work and delivering it to the customer are different decisions, with different constraints, such as deployment windows and coordination with other areas.
Service Delivery Review (usually every two weeks)
Examines a service from the point of view of those who receive it. The team and the customers look at the data together: lead time by percentile, SLE compliance, throughput, share of expedite items, recurring blockers. The question is whether the service meets expectations and what to change in the policies. It is the cadence that most directly supports the principle of focusing on the customer. Practice running it in the Service Delivery Review challenge.
Operations Review (monthly)
Looks at the network of services as a whole. It assesses dependencies between services, capacity balance, the effects of one service on another and the allocation of people. Problems that no single Service Delivery Review can solve show up here, such as a shared service that delays five teams.
Risk Review (monthly)
Studies the risks of not delivering: it groups blockers by cause, examines items that went well past the SLE and identifies patterns. The result is preventive action, such as changing a policy, negotiating with a supplier or adjusting how early Fixed Date items start.
Strategy Review (quarterly)
Reviews which services the organization offers and to whom, in light of the market and of results. The decisions made here guide capacity allocation and the priorities of the operational cadences.
How the cadences connect
The cadences form a feedback chain. The daily meeting reveals a recurring blocker; the Risk Review groups the occurrences and finds the cause; the Operations Review negotiates the change with the neighboring service; the Service Delivery Review confirms, weeks later, whether lead time improved. Information flows up, decisions flow down, and nobody waits for the quarter to fix what can be fixed tomorrow.
The flow-oriented daily meeting
The difference between a Kanban daily meeting and a status round is the focus: items, not people. A way of running it that works:
- Walk the board from right to left, starting with the items closest to delivery. The goal is to finish.
- Ask about blockers and decide who acts on each one today.
- Look at item age relative to the SLE. An item that has already passed the 70th percentile deserves attention before it passes the 85th.
- Check the WIP limits. If a step is at its limit, who can help clear it?
- Close with clear actions. Long discussions leave the meeting and become a conversation with the people involved right afterward.
On a team of eight people, this usually fits in 10 or 15 minutes, even with 20 items on the board, because there is no need to talk about every item: only the ones at risk.
Common mistakes
- A “what I did yesterday” round. It shifts the focus from flow to individual justification.
- Service Delivery Review without the customer. It becomes a self-assessment and loses its purpose.
- Replenishing without looking at WIP. Committing items with no room in the system only lengthens the queue.
- Cadences without data. A service review based on impressions repeats the same discussions.
- Dropping a cadence because “there is no time”. The function is still needed; combine it with another one instead of deleting it.
How this shows up on the exam
Questions present a problem and ask for the most suitable cadence to address it, or describe a meeting and ask for the most important correction. Examples of the kind of situation: a blocker from another department that has repeated for months; a daily meeting that lasts 40 minutes; customers unhappy with delivery times the team considers good; a replenishment that adds more items than fit within the limit. Knowing the purpose of each cadence matters more than memorizing its frequency.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to hold all seven cadences?
The functions need to exist, but not necessarily as seven separate meetings. A small team with a single service can handle risks and operations in one monthly review. What cannot be missing is some moment for each type of decision.
What is the difference between the Replenishment Meeting and the Delivery Planning Meeting?
The Replenishment Meeting decides what the team commits to do, crossing the commitment point. The Delivery Planning Meeting decides how and when what is done reaches the customer. They are different commitments, with different constraints.
Who takes part in the Service Delivery Review?
The people who provide the service and the people who receive it, or someone who legitimately represents the customers. Without the perspective of those who receive it, the review cannot assess whether the service meets expectations.
How can I make the daily meeting shorter?
Shift the focus from people to items, walk the board from right to left and talk only about what is blocked, aging or close to the limit. Topics that require long discussion leave the meeting with an owner and a time slot.
