Kanban

https://asana.com/resources/what-is-kanban
What is Kanban?
• Kanban is a Japanese term and its meaning is signboard
• This agile methodology is built on the philosophy of continuous
improvement
• Work items are pulled from the product backlog (To Do column)
• Kanban is especially popular with product, engineering, and software
development teams
What are Kanban boards?
• Kanban teams use a visualization tool called Kanban boards to
manage their workload and flow
• In a Kanban board, work is displayed on a project board that is
organized by columns
• each column represents the stage of the work
• the most basic columns are “To do,” “In progress,” and “Done”
• each column is filled with visual cards that represent individual tasks
• a team moves through the columns until the tasks are completed
• Today, you can create and maintain your Kanban board online
What are Kanban boards?

https://otrs.com/otrsmag/kanban-board/ [Access Date: 2024 09 27]

What are Kanban cards?
• Each card representing an individual task or work item
• They provide a clear and concise overview of the task at hand
• Kanban cards typically include essential details
• task title
• description
• due date
• key stakeholders
• the person responsible for it
• Colors are often assigned to different types of work
How does Kanban work?
• Kanban boards visualize a team's work by assigning individual tasks to
Kanban cards or sticky notes
• they are organized in columns on a whiteboard
• These columns, known as swimlanes, reflect the value stream
• a series of specified stages that tasks or products must complete from beginning
to end
• Tasks, or cards, are then placed into their appropriate swimlanes
• As work progresses, team members remove cards and move them from
left to right
• Some swimlanes have a capacity limit to ensure the Kanban system runs
smoothly
4 core principles of Kanban
• Start with what you do now
• You can apply Kanban to any current workflow or process
• Agree to pursue incremental, evolutionary change
• big changes can be disruptive to your team, and if you try to change everything at
once, your new system may not work
• Kanban framework focuses on continuous improvement and incremental change
• Respect the current process, roles, and responsibilities
• Kanban doesn’t have any built-in team roles, so it works within your current team
structure and process
• Encourage acts of leadership at all levels
• Kanban method recognizes that change can come from anywhere—not necessarily
just “top-down.”
• With Kanban, team members are encouraged to chime in, brainstorm new ways
for processes to evolve, and take the lead on new work initiatives
Essential Kanban best practices
• Visualize work
• one of the biggest advantages of Kanban is the functionality of seeing work
“move” through stages
• you can also get real-time, at-a-glance insight into the stage of work
• Limit work in progress
• Work In Progress Limits, or WIP limits, are the maximum number of cards that
can be displayed in a single column at any given moment
• there’s no set requirement for how many tasks should be “in progress” at any
given time
• in general, WIP limits can encourage your team to reduce multitasking
Essential Kanban best practices
• Manage flow
• to limit the work in progress, optimize the flow of tasks within the Kanban
board
• for example, the amount of time spent between starting on a task and moving
it to the “Done” column on your Kanban board
• reduce bottlenecks
• ensure you’re delivering tasks or shipping new products while they’re still relevant
• Make process policies explicit
• because tasks move so quickly in Kanban, make sure your team has established
and clearly communicated conventions
• process policies should guide how your team implements the Kanban
methodology
• Implement feedback loops
• in Kanban, you want to gather feedback from two distinct groups: your
customers and your team
• Customer
• gather feedback and user stories from customers on the quality and
effectiveness of the solution your team produced
• if there were problems, revisit your Kanban flow and add more time for review,
vetting, and evaluation
• Team
• check in frequently with your team on the process of running a Kanban
framework itself
• How do they feel about their output?
• Use key metrics to improve continuously
• metrics provide valuable insights into the team's progress and efficiency,
highlighting areas that could be improved
• examples are cycle time, throughput
• Improve collaboratively and evolve experimentally
How to create a Kanban board
in 5 easy steps
• Start with a blank board
• Though your Kanban board will eventually hold all of your backlog tasks and
completed work, it’s OK to start with a blank board for now
• Create columns to represent work
• they represent different stages of the work. e.g.,
• Backlog, Inbox, or New - this is where new work will go before you assign it to a team
member
• Ready or Prioritized - move work to this column when it is ready to kickoff
• In progress - this is the work your team is currently working on
• On hold - move work into this column if you have to block it for some reason
• Completed or Done - move tasks into this column once they are done
How to create a Kanban board
in 5 easy steps
• Add tasks to represent work
• in a Kanban board, each task is represented by a card
• task titles should be actionable - start them with verbs
• Move work through stages
• a core element of workflow management with Kanban boards is moving work
through stages
• Create new Kanban boards if necessary
• you could theoretically use the same virtual Kanban board indefinitely
• there’s no required reason for you to ditch your current board
• but in some systems, like Scrum, you’ll be creating Kanban boards frequently
for each new sprint
Benefits of Kanban
• Provide at-a-glance insight into your team's work
• Increase clarity, especially for remote teams
• If your team is working remotely, it can be difficult to gain visibility into what
everyone is working on
• Kanban boards can help you and your team gain instant insight into who’s
working on what
• Encourage flexibility
• Improving efficiency
Disadvantages of Kanban
• It can quickly become overwhelming
• because each task card takes up so much visual space, your Kanban board can
quickly get cluttered and overwhelmed if you have too many things in flight at
once
• It’s not as common among non-engineering teams
Hybrid Methodologies
• What would be a hybrid process of Kanban and Scrum?
• What would be a hybrid process of Kanban, Scrum and XP?