Kanban Board/Card
It is critical to understand the visualization of workflow stages in the task execution pipeline. Kanban board provides a simple way to understand the process. It can be explained as follows:
- Every request received is put on the Kanban board.
- A column on the board represents a stage (these stages are termed as the Work stage) during the lifecycle of bugs/ tickets. For instance, the Kanban board can have 4 stages- Received/ Acknowledged, In-progress, UAT & Done.
- The received stage could be called a “Backlog” also.
- The team could decide the names for the phases based on the terminology used by their respective teams.
- Kanban board could be a simple whiteboard on which sticky notes could be used with ticket details or an electronic Kanban board could be used.
- ALM tools like Rally/ Jira could be configured to use the Kanban board.
- The board can give a signal in case the bugs/ tickets are stuck in one stage for a long.
- For electronic boards, one can configure the Kanban board in a way that tickets/ user stories along with the time stamp are visible.
- For whiteboards that are maintained manually, the team can enter the date/ time.
From the sample board above, these can be inferred about Kanban Boards or Cards:
- Workflow: Backlog -> Acknowledged -> Development -> Testing -> Deployment/UAT -> Done
- Work stages: Acknowledged, Development (In Progress), Development (Ready), Testing (In Progress), Testing (Ready), Deployment/UAT, Backlog (Arrival Queue), Done (Finished Stage)
- Work Items: Two types of tasks (Type 1 and Type 2) are represented by work items
Kanban – Agile Methodology
Kanban is a popular Agile Software Development Methodology. It is a signaling device that instructs the moving of parts in a ‘pull’ production system, developed as part of the TPS (Toyota Production System). Kanban is about envisioning the existing workflow in terms of steps. These steps can be created on the whiteboard.
Table of Content
- What is kanban?
- When Would The Kanban Approach Be Needed?
- Kanban Board/Card
- Principles of Kanban
- Kanban Practices
- Kanban Workflow – How does Kanban Pull System Work?
- Lead Time and Cycle Time
- Cumulative Flow Diagram
- How to Calculate Lead Time and Cycle Time
- Steps of Kanban Approach
- Benefits of using Kanban Framework
- Kanban vs Scrum
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions on Kanban – Agile Methodology
The main aim of Kanban is to reduce WIP (Work-In-Progress), or inventory, between processes by ensuring the upstream process creates parts as long as its downstream process needs it. The goal of the Kanban execution is to ensure work items move to the next steps quickly to realize business value faster.