What is Kanban?

Kanban is a Japanese term that means signs or visual boards. It was developed by Toyota in the late 1940s as a management system for just-in-time manufacturing. It is used as a framework for agile and DevOps software development. The tasks and work items of the project are visually displayed on a Kanban board so that the team can view each item's status.

In this Answer, we will be learning what Kanban is and some of its terms.

Kanban board

The core of development using the Kanban framework is the Kanban board. It is the tool using which the team visualizes the project's tasks. The team can view the status of any task, which helps in easier collaboration and management of the tasks. A Kanban board can either be digital or physical. The main edge of using a digital Kanban board is that teams can collaborate between tasks at any time and place.

A Kanban board helps visualize the three-step workflow of a work item. The steps are "to do," "in progress," and completed. This provides complete transparency of the team's work and capacity. An example of a Kanban board is shown below:

Kanban cards

Kanban cards contain all the information required to track a work item. It contains details of the person responsible for the task, task title, description, estimated completion time, and other important information required for tracking the work item. These cards allow team members to keep track of the task, which increases focus, responsibility, and delivery of the task.

Roles

The two roles that have evolved in using Kanban are:

1. Service request manager: Responsible for prioritizing and managing incoming requests.

2. Service delivery manager: Responsible for ensuring the delivery of a work item.

Kanban principles

The principles involved in Kanban are:

1. Visualizing workflow: Visualize the work items by representing them through cards and placing them into the column with appropriate status (to do, in progress, or completed). Visualization helps a team view the in progress, completed, and pending tasks.

2. Limiting work in progress (WIP): A limit is set for the tasks that can be in the "in progress" status according to the team's capacity. This also ensures that a team completes the tasks as early as possible so that work on the next tasks can be started.

3. Focusing on flow: Focusing on the flow ensures that the work runs smoothly. For that, some measures should be defined, like, the time taken for a work item to move from "to do" to the "completed" status, and the time taken to move the work item from "in progress" to "done" status.

4. Improving continuously: Even after the Kanban system is working smoothly, the system requires continuous improvement and changes in the processes.

Benefits

The benefits that Kanban provides are:

1. Increased visibility of the workflow: Every team member can view the tasks that are completed, pending, and ongoing.

2. Improved work delivery: Keeping track and visualizing the tasks increases the responsibility of work completion, which in turn improves work delivery.

3. Aligned goals and work execution: The project goals, tasks, and deliverables are all listed on the Kanban board.

4. Future work predictability: The team members can view the tasks that are to be started once the work in progress gets completed.

5. Increased customer satisfaction: Customer satisfaction improves as the work tasks are aligned and completed according to the customer's priorities.

Kanban terms

Some of the terms involved in Kanban systems are:

• Columns: Vertical sections that represent different stages of a work item.

• Swimlanes: Horizontal lines that separate a Kanban board into different sections.

• Cycle time: Time that starts once the work item reaches the "in progress" status and ends till it gets "completed".

• Lead time: Time that starts once a work item is requested and ends at the time when it gets through the system (completed status).

• Throughput: The number of work items passing the "completed" status. It helps in determining the team's efficiency and productivity.

• WIP limits: The number of tasks the team can work on without burnout.

• Kanban cadences: The meetings that take place in a loop to ensure work delivery and quality.

• Kanban software: It is a digital platform that incorporates Kanban practices and principles.

Conclusion

Kanban is a powerful project management framework used to visualize a project's workflow that enhances work productivity and efficiency.