When Would The Kanban Approach Be Needed?
Kanban is best suited in the below scenarios:
- Dynamic/ frequent changing requirements which need to be delivered faster.
- In case of changing priorities, the team can pull the prioritized work as soon as the WIP limit drops.
- Frequent releases are there (Periodically).
- When incoming work is continuous.
- Where task priority needs to be decided dynamically based on task nature and type.
- The best suit is for Ticket or Production support projects.
- Kanban could be used by any function of an organization as well, for instance in Marketing, Sales, and HR.
However, Kanban might not be the right fit for projects where:
- Tasks could remain in the ‘wait’ state for long.
- Mainly research-oriented takes are there.
- For enhancements where requirements are evolving/ unclear.
- No prior scope is not defined and tasks keep on evolving.
- Too much dependency is there between tasks.
- If all the items across work stages need to be collated, then only deployed.
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.