By - Jan 01, 1970
Working on a project with a team required everyone to stay updated on the individual progress made by every member of the team. Going through the email chains, multiple Excel or Google sheets, accessing meeting notes, or scheduling meetings following everyone’s schedule is time-consuming and tedious. Kanban boards are helpful in such scenarios. This system lets you monitor and stay updated on every tiny detail of a team or project in one place via visual boards; making synchronizing much easier and more efficient.
Kanban is a scheduling system created by an industrial engineer, Taiichi Ohno, at Toyota to track and upgrade production efficiency. The name of this scheduling system method was derived from the cards used to keep track of production in a manufacturing plant or factory.
Kanban is a software tool that helps companies implement Agile methodology to encourage better team productivity via easy communication and transparent collaboration. The smallest details from a project development process can be viewed via Kanban boards, allowing members to always stay updated on the development process. It also helps team members realize a development obstruction or problems in real-time. They can access every detail about the issue by themselves without wasting time on convoluted instructions or complicated email chains. Hence, Kanban can be highly effective in improving productivity, cost, and time efficiency.
A Kanban Board is a project management tool that uses the Kanban methodology to visualize all the elements of a work process. Members can use these Kanban boards to access the different stages of work progress and effortlessly update reports from one place with visual elements. This subsequently increases productivity and improves the workflow and efficiency of the production team. You can create individual elements to define various components or different boards for individual projects or teams. Using these boards, team members can track the project's progress with a glance, and plan the next step without having to juggle between multiple applications of browser tabs.
Kanban Boards can be used by different teams for various work purposes. Users can use both digital and physical Kanban boards to manage their project progress.
Physical Boards
Physical Kanban boards are mostly created by teams on whiteboards with manually drawn columns on them. Members can use sticky notes with individual elements and move them according to work status to represent project progress. The physical boards can be useful in demonstrating work progress within teams easily. However, it may not be a convenient method for remote teams.
Digital Boards
With the benefits of the digital Kanban system, remote teams can monitor their work progress systematically. Tools like Trello, Jira, or Notion help teams track their project progress digitally with precision. You can create an elaborate system with different parameters to track work progress within minutes. The digital boards are quicker to set up, can be shared with members easily, and make the collaboration process effortless.
Whether you use a hand-drawn manual Kanban board, cards, or virtual Kanban boards; you can maintain the workflow in a similar fashion. Create cards to represent different values on the board, and each card with represent an element in the process. Individual kanban boards are used to track separate project progress, while you can use a system of kanban boards to keep track of complex, multifaceted projects.
A Kanban board is a visual project-scheduling system created using 5 prime components. These components are - Visual signs, Columns, WIP limits, Commitment points, and Delivery Points.
Visual Signs
The visual signs of Kanban boards like cards, tickets, and stickers are the elements that help you represent the project data on a visual board. Team members can write the work elements on the card to portray individual work stories.
Columns
Different columns on a Kanban board are used to highlight particular activities related to the workflow. The individual cards placed in each column denote the work process until completion.
WIP Limits
WIP limits denote the maximum number of ongoing project elements that can be grouped in one column at a time. This is often used as a signal to define the work capacity of a team. Once a column reaches its limit, no more cards can be added until the existing cards move further in the workflow.
Commitment Point
Each Kanban board features a commitment point where the team members or stakeholders can share their ideas and feedback. Teams can check these ideas and pick them up to carry forward with the particular tasks when they are ready.
Delivery Point
The delivery point is the ultimate point of the Kanban workflow management. In a project management team, the delivery point represents the end of the project where it is ready to be released or delivered to the client/audience.
The primary goal of any project management team is to reach the delivery point from the commitment point within the shortest time. The main purpose of these Kanban board is to reduce this duration known as system lead time.
A number of principles are used in Kanban methodology to improve productivity and collaboration capabilities between team members. The 6 best practices implemented in the Kanban method are:
Visualization of Workflow
The first step to implementing the Kanban method is to sectionalize the work process and represent each section with easily accessible and interpretable visual components. You can use either an electronic process or a manual method to use the Kanban process to your team’s benefit. You can use a simple or elaborate Kanban board for workflow management, depending on the complexity of your project and the involved work elements.
Users can use different color schemes, labels, stickers, and signs to denote the sections, services, work status, or other process factors on the Kanban board. You can use Swimlanes on the Kanban board to separate your workflow into multiple sections.
Limit Work in Progress
Limit WIP or work in progress is one of the chief fundamentals of the Kanban work methodology. It encourages the teams to finish the ongoing work before taking up different projects. This helps the team manage the ongoing tasks better and make space for new assignments accordingly. You can, however, use the Kanban boards only to monitor the projects your team is working on during a particular period without using the WIP limit.
The WIP limit does not help your team members to track the ongoing tasks. It also allows other managers to determine the capacity of your team to take on new projects. So, your team can be assigned work that it can handle without overshooting your team’s capacity.
Manage Work Flow
Kanban boards help you monitor and manage the workflow of your team by showcasing the progress and work status through visual clues in real time. Depending on the WIP limit and the ongoing tasks; you can analyze the system, check any backlog that is hindering your work capacity, and make specific adjustments to improve the workflow simultaneously.
The best part of this system is you will get to learn the typical wait time taken between stages on tasks like reviews, feedback, or any other follow-up procedure. Having data on these wait hours can help you analyze the system and reduce the time taken in such tasks to initiate a better workflow.
Explicit Work Policies
Having accessible guidance or direction can help team members follow a process without complications. You can insert the process guidelines on the Knaban based on individual projects, swimlanes, or different columns. You can create checklists or cover the basic regulations to follow while working or editing a board regarding the work type, data entry criteria, color scheme, and other particular information they need to maintain.
Feedback Loops
Feedback or review systems are another integral part of the Kanban methodology. Members can use visual cues like stats, charts, metrics, or reports to provide feedback on a work process. The continuous feedback system helps members catch a mistake early on, thus helping them resolve an issue before on time. Workers also do not need to wait to send updates or receive feedback to continue with their work under this system.
Improve Collaboratively
As you implement all these little steps and adapt to the changes in your work process, it makes collaboration more efficient. You can also experiment with different work strategies, implement scientific methods, and measure the tiniest of changes using the Kanban metrics. By following this process, you can also measure the improvement or lack thereof and determine the best course of action as necessary to achieve the most beneficial results.
Kanban is a helpful system for creating a balanced workflow between team members or different teams working on the same project. You can build a proper workflow by implementing Kanban systems with your remote team’s working process. Hire remote developers to build a strong in-house development team and manage the work progress from anywhere, anytime, with the digital Kanban systems.
