Kanban is a lean approach to agile software development.
Actually, Kanban means many things. Literally, Kanban is a Japanese word that means “visual card”. At Toyota, Kanban is the term used for the visual & physical signaling system that ties together the whole Lean Production system. Most agile methods such as Scrum and XP are already well aligned with lean principles. In 2004, however, David Anderson pioneered a more direct implementation of Lean Thinking and Theory of Constraints to software development. Under the guidance of experts such as Don Reinertsen, this evolved into what David called a “Kanban system for software development”, and which most people now simply refer to as “Kanban”. So while Kanban as applied to software development is new, Kanban as used in Lean Production is over a half century old.