Kanban Workflow

The Kanban Workflow is composed of four Phases. The tasks are managed and organized in these 4 columns over the Kanban board during the entire development phase.

• The user stories are written on sticky notes, which are later pushed to their respective columns as per the current status of the tasks.
• The Kanban Board could either be a Physical board which includes whiteboards and sticky notes or a Digital Kanban Board which allows the team to track multiple workflows at the same time.

4 Workflow Phases in Kanban:

1. To-Do: The workflow is started with an empty clear board where all the tasks are meant to be listed. A To-Do list is formed in the first column of the board which consists of all the user stories. The individual cards must provide a brief description and necessary details of tasks like due date, functionalities, nature of task, etc.
2. In-Progress: As the name suggests, the In-Progress column consists of all the tasks that are currently under progress and under development phase. It acts as an indication that a team is currently operating working on it.
3. Validation: In the validation phase, the code is reviewed, and the model is tested against several sets of tests like unit testing, acceptance testing, system testing, etc. All the functionalities are reviewed and verified. Apart from this, all the bugs and inconsistencies found are rectified in the validation phase itself.
4. Done: After all the functional and system tests are performed and quality assurance is reviewed, the task is shifted to Done state (4th column on the board). All the tasks move column to column towards right until they reach the last column i.e. Done phase. The done column reflects all the tasks that are finished and deployed without any errors.

Agile development methodology provides the highest utility value to product development. It focuses on Adaptive planning and change management. Alongside this, it focuses on developing and deploying the working software quickly in an iterative manner. A major subtype of Agile Development is the Kanban methodology which emphasizes visualizing the entire product development on boards. This article delves into the core concepts and in-depth explanation of Kanban Development Methodology in Agile with its benefits, key functionalities, and importance.