about Kanban board

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2.  Kanban is a scheduling and work management system developed by Taichi Ohno, an
industrial engineer at Toyota, in the late 1940’s. It is closely associated with Lean and
Just in Time. There are various translations of the Japanese word Kanban, but literally it
means ‘a card you can see’
 Kanban is an
approach to
change
management. It
isn’t a software
development or
project
management
lifecycle or
process – David
Anderson
 An English-
language term
that captures the
meaning of the
Japanese word,
Kanban, is queue
limiter; and the
beneficial result
is queue
limitation
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A Kanban board is one of the tools that can be used to implement the Kanban Method for
a project
Kanban is a method for managing knowledge work which balances demands for work with
the available capacity for new work
A Kanban board is a work and workflow visualization tool that enables you to optimize the
flow of your work

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History of Kanban
 Developed by Taichi Ohna at Toyota in 1940’s
 Designed after the shelf-stocking techniques used by supermarkets
 Demand controlled system where replenishment happened based on market
conditions
 Based on a pull based system rather than a push based one
 Use of visual signals was essential to the system
 “The Kanban Method” for software dev pioneered by David J Anderson

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What’s wrong with existing systems
 Burnout
 Frequent bugs on production
 Complaints about productivity
 Low throughput
 Leads to vague sprint planning
 Too much work stuffed into one sprint
 Unidentified bottlenecks

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What are the Goals of Kanban Method ?
 The goal of a Kanban system is to limit the amount of work in process so the work
flowing through the system matches its capacity
 In other words, a system can only handle so much traffic and still have that traffic
move smoothly through the steps in the process

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Why to use it ?
 When the system becomes overloaded with work, everything slows down, and the
smooth flow of work turns into a logjam
 Stuck work is easy to spot on a Kanban board, because work piles up in the affected
lane(s) and gives you instant clarity into the work that needs attention
 Sometimes Time-Boxing doesn’t work
 Easy integration with other processes
 Minimal entry barrier
 Organizational constraints
 It helps determine what to work on, when to make it, and how much work to be in
process
 It reveals bottlenecks dynamically

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How does having the Kanban board help ?
 Visualize your work
 Limit your work in progress
 Focus on the flow of your work
 Support a culture of continuous improvement
 Increase your efficiency
 Implement continuous delivery
 Achieve Lean process improvement

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Where all is it used ?
 Software Development
 Marketing
 HR teams
 Organizational strategy and executive leadership teams
 Audit teams
 Personal task management or "Personal Kanban" as described and promoted by Jim
Benson

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Principles of Kanban
 Kanban is rooted in two sets of principles, for change management and service
delivery, which emphasize evolutionary change and customer focus
 Kanban focuses on the customer and work which meets their needs, rather than
individuals' activities
 Kanban has six general practices
 Visualization
 Limiting work in progress
 Flow management
 Making policies explicit
 Using feedback loops
 Collaborative or Experimental evolution
 Any defect infused is not taken further in any process and returned from where it
comes

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Kanban Values
 Understanding – of what you are about to alter
 Agreement – even for cases of externally forced changes
 Respect – current roles and responsibilities within the ongoing change
 Leadership – initiate, encourage and support it at all levels
 Flow – sense of ongoing process and predictability allowing to manage them
 Customer Focus – value as recognized to the utmost satisfaction of the customer
 Transparency – work visibility, status update and process understanding
 Balance – with Work in Progress limits
 Collaboration – to work together and search beyond inner team to look for solutions

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Types of Kanban

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Types of Kanban (contd.)

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So Advantages of Kanban are ……
 Flexibility
 Focus on continuous delivery
 Increased productivity and quality
 Increased efficiency
 Team has ability to focus
 Reduction of wasted work and time

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What are the types of Kanban boards ?
1) Physical Kanban boards, like the one pictured below, typically use sticky notes on
a whiteboard to communicate status, progress, and issues
Kanban boards are perceived as a variation on traditional Kanban cards.
Instead of the signal cards that represent demand or capacity, the board utilizes
magnets, plastic chips, colored washers or sticky notes to represent work items.
Each of these objects represents an item in a production process as it moves
around the board. Its movement corresponds with a knowledge work or
manufacturing process

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2) Online Kanban boards draw upon the whiteboard metaphor in a software setting

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Answering these questions can help you choose the ONLINE Kanban
tool
 How many people will be using the software for the pilot?
 How many people do we plan to have on the system after a full rollout?
 Will online Kanban software be the only tool we use, or will it need to be integrated
with existing systems? (e.g., Microsoft Project or Team Foundation Server, JIRA,
GitHub, etc.)
 Do we need software that helps us track multiple projects at once?
 Do we need reporting tools built in to help us analyze our processes and track our
progress?

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Some popular Online tools:
 Trello
 Asana, with the Boards
 Targetprocess
 Jira (software); also provide Kanban board

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And here’s a basic checklist for good Kanban software:
 Built-in work-in-process (WIP) limits
 The ability to assign work to multiple team members
 Flexibility and scalability in board design
 Flexibility in card customization
 Easy-to-use collaboration features
 A range of pre-built board templates
 Companion mobile applications
 The ability to support and coordinate multiple boards and multiple teams
 The ability to integrate with and share data with existing enterprise software systems
 Metrics and reports for analyzing the flow of work

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Choosing a Kanban Board for Your Team: Physical or Virtual?
 Some teams prefer physical Kanban boards over virtual ones
 A physical board uses sticky notes or index cards for the Kanban cards, and the board
is drawn on a whiteboard or wall. This works well for teams that are 100% co-located,
since every team member can individually interact with the board and not have to rely
on onsite colleagues to update their cards by proxy
 Some teams also prefer the tactile, low-tech feel of a physical board. Metrics, such as
cycle time, can be measured manually
Overall, physical boards are an inexpensive way to start practicing Kanban for individuals
or co-located teams whose work doesn't intersect with other team

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How to get started ?

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Here’s how we get started …….
 Map your current workflow

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Here’s how we get started (contd.)…….
 Visualize your work

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Here’s how we get started (contd.) …….
 Focus on Flow

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Here’s how we get started (contd.) …….
 Limit your Work in Progress

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Here’s how we get started (contd.) …….
 Measure and Improve

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Setting up the Kanban board
 The choice for a Physical or Online board is to be decided
 The cards used on the board could be of various types / elements
 Project / Deliverable / User Story / Task / Request / Ticket / Defect / Feature / Test /
Campaign / Requirement / White paper / Landing page
 The card to be used is defined to suit the need and agreed upon
 The left most column is from where the work flows to the right most column
 The left most column could be an input from another process
 The left most column is mostly named as backlog, to provide visibility into what needs
to be addressed
 You can keep a separate horizontal row for Priority tasks that may come up
 Multiple projects could also be housed with visual and easy differenciation

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 Below are some examples of the cards used
Cards used on the Kanban board

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Cards used on the Kanban board (contd.)

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Work In Progress limits
 The purpose of the WIP limits is to ensure that no swim lane is a bottle neck
 WIP limits are set against each lane on the Task Wall
 WIP limits are used to ensure that the team is not attempting to work on too many
Stories at any given time and that each Story is completed before a new one is worked
on
 WIP limits should be reviewed regularly and changed accordingly to avoid bottlenecks
– this cannot be done by any individual and it must be a team exercise and agreement

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Metrics
 Total WIP
 Blockers
 Throughput (cards complete / day or week)

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41. Credits / References / Disclaimer
• Due regards and credits to all those whose
work has been used to sum up the
understanding
• Sources like Google search, Slideshare and
other sources in primary search domains were
taken, with the understanding of them being
available for open use by anyone
May 2017
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