Kanban Meetings and Cadences Explained

Kanban is often described as having no meetings. That is not quite right. Kanban does not require specific meetings, but it relies on regular feedback loops, and the Kanban Method describes a set of recurring meetings, called cadences, to provide them. Used well, these cadences keep work flowing, keep customers informed and help an organisation improve steadily. This guide explains each cadence, how often it usually happens, who attends and how to adapt them to a small team.

Key takeaways

• The Kanban Method describes seven cadences, from a short daily meeting to a quarterly strategy review.
• Cadences are feedback loops; teams adopt the ones that help them, at the frequency that suits their work.
• The daily Kanban meeting focuses on the flow of work, not on individual status updates.
• Small teams often combine several cadences into one regular meeting.
• The Kanban Guide does not prescribe any meetings, but expects teams to manage and improve their workflow regularly.

What are Kanban cadences?

A cadence is a regular rhythm of review and decision-making. In the Kanban Method, cadences put into practice one of its six core practices: implement feedback loops. David J. Anderson and Alexei Zheglov describe seven cadences in their 2016 book Essential Kanban Condensed, with suggested frequencies. They are suggestions, not rules; each organisation adapts them.

The Kanban Guide by Daniel Vacanti and Yuval Yeret takes a lighter view: it does not prescribe any meetings, but it expects teams to actively manage items in their workflow and improve it regularly. Either way, the purpose is the same: regular, structured feedback on work and on the system itself. For an introduction to Kanban, see our complete Kanban guide.

The seven cadences at a glance

Cadence	Suggested frequency	Focus
Kanban meeting	Daily	Flow of work through the system today
Replenishment meeting	Weekly or as needed	Selecting new work to start
Delivery planning meeting	Per delivery	Planning what is delivered to customers and when
Service delivery review	Every two weeks	How well the service meets customer expectations
Operations review	Monthly	How several services work together
Risk review	Monthly	Risks to delivery and how to reduce them
Strategy review	Quarterly	Whether the services and their direction are still right

The first four usually operate at the level of a team or service; the last three at a wider organisational level.

1. The daily Kanban meeting

Purpose: keep work flowing today. Typical length: around 15 minutes. Who: the people doing the work, and anyone else who wants to listen.

The conversation centres on the board, not on individuals. A common practice is to walk the board from right to left, starting with items closest to done. Useful questions:

• What is blocked, and who can help unblock it?
• Which items have been in progress longest, and do they need attention?
• Are any stages at or over their WIP limit?
• Is anything at risk of missing a deadline or the Service Level Expectation?

Output: actions to unblock and finish work. Detailed problem-solving happens afterwards with the people involved.

2. The replenishment meeting

Purpose: decide which work to commit to next. Typical frequency: weekly, or whenever the Ready column runs low. Who: the people who request and prioritise work, and representatives of the team doing it.

The meeting looks at the ordered list of options and current capacity, and selects items to move past the commitment point. It is also where the team checks that items are clear and small enough.

Output: an updated, ordered set of work the team has committed to start. For ordering techniques, see how to manage a Product Backlog.

3. The delivery planning meeting

Purpose: plan how and when finished work is delivered to customers. Typical frequency: at each delivery, which varies from continuous to scheduled releases. Who: the team, and people responsible for releasing and supporting the product.

It covers which items are ready, any coordination needed with other teams, and what customers need to know. Teams that release continuously may need this rarely or not at all.

4. The service delivery review

Purpose: check whether the service is meeting customer expectations and improve it. Typical frequency: every two weeks. Who: the team, its customers or their representatives, and people who manage the service.

This is where flow data matters most. Typical topics:

• Cycle time compared with the Service Level Expectation
• Throughput trends
• Items that took much longer than usual, and why
• Customer feedback and changing expectations
• Policy changes to try next

See Kanban metrics explained for the measures and charts used.

5. The operations review

Purpose: look across several services or teams to understand how they affect each other. Typical frequency: monthly. Who: representatives of each service and managers responsible for them.

It often reveals dependencies and shared bottlenecks that no single team can see, such as a shared review or approval stage that slows everyone down.

6. The risk review

Purpose: understand and reduce risks to delivery. Typical frequency: monthly. Who: people involved in delivery across services.

A practical approach is to look at why items were blocked or late, group the causes and decide which to address. Recurring blocker causes are often the most valuable risks to tackle.

7. The strategy review

Purpose: check whether the organisation's services and direction are still right. Typical frequency: quarterly. Who: senior leaders and those responsible for strategy.

It considers market changes, customer needs and whether services should be expanded, changed or retired. Its decisions flow down into the other cadences.

Adapting cadences for a small team

A small team does not need seven separate meetings. Common adaptations:

• Daily: a short Kanban meeting at the board.
• Weekly: a combined replenishment and planning session.
• Every two to four weeks: a combined service delivery review and retrospective, looking at metrics, customer feedback and improvements.
• Quarterly: a short review of direction with the people who set priorities.

What matters is that each feedback loop exists, not that each has its own meeting.

Kanban cadences and Scrum events

Teams moving between Scrum and Kanban often ask how the two relate. The purposes overlap, although the structures differ:

Kanban cadence	Closest Scrum event	Key difference
Kanban meeting	Daily Scrum	Focus on flow; the Daily Scrum focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal
Replenishment	Sprint Planning	Happens as needed rather than at the start of each Sprint
Service delivery review	Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective	Combines customer feedback and improvement, based on flow data
Strategy review	No direct equivalent	Scrum leaves organisational strategy outside the framework

See the five Scrum events explained and Kanban vs Scrum for more.

An example cadence calendar

As an illustration, a single support and development team might run:

• Every working day, 9:30: 15-minute Kanban meeting at the board.
• Every Monday: 30-minute replenishment meeting with the product lead.
• Every second Thursday: one-hour service delivery review with key customers, followed by a short team retrospective.
• Monthly: the team lead joins an operations and risk review with other teams.
• Quarterly: a strategy review with leadership.

Running cadences remotely

• Use one shared digital board for every cadence.
• Keep the daily meeting short and focused on the board.
• Share key charts before review meetings so time is spent on discussion.
• Record decisions and policy changes where everyone can find them.

Running a good daily Kanban meeting, step by step

1. Start on time, at the board. Everyone looks at the same picture, physical or digital.
2. Check the expedite lane first. Is urgent work moving, and does it need help?
3. Walk the board from right to left. Start with items closest to delivery and ask what each needs to finish.
4. Focus on blocked items. For each, agree who will act and by when.
5. Look at ageing items. Anything older than the Service Level Expectation gets extra attention.
6. Check WIP limits. If a stage is full, agree who can help clear it.
7. Close with actions. Confirm who is doing what, and take detailed discussions offline.

A meeting that follows this pattern rarely needs more than 15 minutes, even for a busy team.

Replenishment: deciding what to pull

A good replenishment meeting balances value, urgency and capacity. Useful questions:

• How much capacity is there, given current WIP and limits?
• Which options are most valuable to customers right now?
• Are any items tied to a fixed date that requires starting soon?
• Is the balance of work types right, including technical improvements?
• Is each selected item clear and small enough to finish within the Service Level Expectation?

The result should be a short, ordered set of committed items, with a clear record of what was not selected and why.

A service delivery review agenda

As a template to adapt, a one-hour service delivery review might include:

1. Five minutes: purpose and actions from the last review.
2. Fifteen minutes: flow data, including cycle time percentiles against the Service Level Expectation and throughput trends.
3. Fifteen minutes: customer feedback and any change in expectations.
4. Fifteen minutes: outliers and blockers: which items took unusually long, and why?
5. Ten minutes: agree one or two policy changes to try, with owners.

Roles that support the cadences

Kanban does not require new roles, but the Kanban Method describes two optional roles that many organisations find useful:

• Service Request Manager: understands customers' needs and helps order and select work, often facilitating the replenishment meeting. The role has some overlap with a Product Owner.
• Service Delivery Manager: focuses on the flow of work and improving the service, often facilitating the daily Kanban meeting and the service delivery review.

These can be responsibilities taken on by existing team members rather than new job titles.

Metrics to bring to each cadence

Cadence	Most useful data
Daily Kanban meeting	Work item age, blocked items, WIP against limits
Replenishment	Current WIP, available capacity, deadlines
Delivery planning	Items ready for delivery, dependencies
Service delivery review	Cycle time percentiles, throughput, SLE performance, customer feedback
Operations review	Throughput and cycle time across services, shared bottlenecks
Risk review	Blocker causes and how long items stayed blocked
Strategy review	Long-term trends, demand and customer outcomes

See Kanban metrics explained for how to calculate and chart each measure.

Signs your cadences are working

• Blocked items are raised and resolved quickly.
• Customers know what to expect and find forecasts reliable.
• Policy changes are agreed, tried and reviewed.
• Meetings feel short and useful rather than routine.
• Problems that cross teams are spotted and addressed.

Common mistakes

• Turning the daily meeting into status reports. Focus on the work and its flow.
• Adding every cadence at once. Start with the daily meeting and replenishment, then add reviews as needed.
• Reviews without data. Service delivery reviews are far more useful with cycle time and throughput data.
• No customer voice. Service delivery reviews need customers or their representatives.
• Decisions that go nowhere. Record agreed changes and check their effect at the next review.

Learn more

For board design, see how to set up a Kanban board, and for limits, WIP limits explained. If you want to build and demonstrate Kanban skills, Kanban Management in Systems Plus covers flow, WIP limits and flow metrics; the exam is taken online on ExamVault by CertExpert with three attempts included, and the certificate and digital badge are valid for two years.