Learn Kanban by running a pizzeria
Orders keep coming, the oven only bakes two pizzas at a time and you decide what to start. In a few nights you feel what a WIP limit, a pull system and a bottleneck mean in practice, with no theory to read first.
How it works
Every pizza goes through four stations: Dough, Toppings, Oven and Counter. You accept orders from the door line, send ready pizzas to the next station and move cooks around. You can drag, tap or use the keyboard. Only the pizza that leaves through the door counts, and the live panel shows how many shipped, how long each order takes and how much money went cold on the way.
The oven is the bottleneck on purpose: the kitchen never ships more than it bakes. The fun is figuring out what to do with the rest of the kitchen once that becomes clear.
What you learn each night
- Night 1: starting is not finishingAccept everything that comes in and watch the benches fill up, the team slow down and every order wait longer.
- Night 2: visualize the workA board on the wall shows every station and the age of every pizza. Seeing the pile changes your decisions.
- Night 3: WIP limits and pullEach station gets a maximum. The next one only takes work when its light is on, and the line moves to the door, where nobody promised anything.
- Night 4: bottleneck and capacityA fourth cook arrives. Putting people before the oven grows the pile; the way out is to pace the kitchen to the oven.
- Night 5: classes of service and cost of delayBirthdays with short deadlines and deliveries at a fixed time. You write the priority rule before opening and see what happens when the urgent one interrupts everything.
- Night 6: continuous improvement and Little’s LawThree rounds with the same orders. Between rounds you change one thing only and check the Little’s Law forecast against what you measured.
- Night of the monthA new night every month, with different orders and incidents, to use everything together.
Who it is for
For people who have never used Kanban and want the idea in a few minutes, for teams that already have a board and want to feel the effect of a WIP limit before proposing one, and for teachers and facilitators who need an activity that runs on students’ phones.
Using it in a class or workshop
A 30 minute sequence that works: everyone plays night 1 with no guidance, then night 3 with limits they choose. Then the group compares results: who shipped more, who threw away fewer pizzas, who waited less. The question at the end of each night brings the conversation back to the group’s real work.
Put the demo on your site
The two hour version of the kitchen can be embedded in blogs, internal wikis and course material. Copy the code:
<iframe src="https://www.kanban.global/en/embed/pizza/" title="Kanban Pizzaria" width="100%" height="760" style="border:0;max-width:1100px" loading="lazy"></iframe>What the game simplifies
Every cook does every task at the same speed, the oven never gets better and there are no ingredient costs. Each simplification is listed at the end of the night, so nobody mistakes the pizzeria for a business model.
Keep practicing
- Practice WIP limits →Watch flow change as work in progress goes up or down.
- Find the bottleneck in the flow →The stage that sets the pace for everything else.
- Mission: A squad drowning in WIP →Five rounds to pull a team out of the flood.
- Play the Kanban Game →Run a squad and watch every decision count.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an account to play?
No. Your nights are saved in your browser. With a free account, the server replays each night from your moves and the result counts on the Kanban Pizzaria leaderboard and in your progress.
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. The kitchen was designed for a phone held upright first, with large tap targets. On a computer it fits in one row and accepts the keyboard.
What is a WIP limit?
It is the maximum number of items in progress at a step. When the step is full, it stops pulling new work until something is finished. At the pizzeria, it is the maximum number of pizzas at each station.
Why can the oven not be upgraded?
Because the lesson is about flow, not investment. Almost every team has one step that limits delivery, and the game shows what to do with the rest of the system when that step does not change.
How is order time measured?
From the moment you accept the order until the pizza leaves the door, like lead time in the Kanban Method, which starts at the commitment point. The wait in the door line is shown separately.
How is it different from the Kanban Game?
Kanban Pizzaria is the way in: short, playful, no sign-up. The Kanban Game is the main product, with a software squad, more decisions and a leaderboard.
Ready for a real squad?
The Kanban Game takes the same ideas to a product team, with a leaderboard and seasons.
