Kanban 2023

In project management we have to keep up with the emergence or growth of new methodologies, frameworks or best practices, for example: Kanban is a popular visual methodology for project management, its fundamental principles focus on transparency and limitation of the amount of work that is done at each moment, and it is true, like other strategies such as Scrum and Agile, creativity and flexibility are crucial.

Project management has always been a deeply nuanced practice, it can require a lot of organization, communication, and active management to keep a team aligned and on track.

Many teams have moved to remote or hybrid work environments in recent years, further complicating project management, while the move has also inspired many leadership teams to place a new emphasis on visibility and the efficiency of the projects.

A bit of history, Kanban is a favourite among high-tech companies, its history dates back to the 1940s, it is said that, at that time, the methodology was invented to optimize production in Toyota car factories. In Japan, in fact, the Japanese word “Kanban” roughly translates to “signboard,” reflecting the highly visual approach to the methodology.

In this way, Kanban can help streamline project management, and it's especially popular with software development teams for that reason, whether you're just getting started or brushing up on your Kanban knowledge, what I can tell you is that it helps you maintain balance and agility in your organization.

Kanban supports business agility

Now if we start, what is Kanban?

Kanban is an approach to project management that divides the steps of a repetitive process into clear stages. Within the Kanban framework, tasks move visually through various stages of progress on a common Kanban board, each time a team member team looks at the dashboard, they have complete visibility into the status of each piece of work.

Kanban's goal is to identify potential bottlenecks early and get team members aligned at each stage of the process, enables teams to quickly troubleshoot and operate profitably, is most often associated with developing software, but the Kanban methodology can be applied to virtually any type of work that follows a repeatable process.

Kanban in IT and software

Reinforcing the origin, Onho's implementation of Kanban caused Toyota's sales to skyrocket, and the company is still considered a top-tier carmaker today, then adaptations came, Ohno's work inspired the engineer David Anderson to adapt Kanban to software development.

Imagine the power of results, after applying Kanban to his work at Corbis and Microsoft, he published a book called Kanban:

Successful evolutionary change for your technology business

Today much software development teams use Kanban to manage their daily work, it is popular in the IT industry because it focuses on incremental improvement, when teams are working on large scale deliverables it is impossible to do everything within scope and on time without checking progress every day, then the Kanban framework allows teams to break large chunks of work into smaller, more manageable pieces and watch their tasks move through the workflow, at the same time, they can easily spot blockages as they arise, rather than at the end of a project.

What is a Kanban board?

A Kanban board is a project management tool that visualizes a work process by using columns to represent each step and movable cards that represent the work itself, today Kanban boards can be digital or physical.

Basic example of a digital Kanban board

As I mentioned, the columns on a Kanban board are flexible, so a basic board might have only three, one to do, in progress, and done, however many have multiple columns, such as “requested”, “overdue”, “analysing”, “in development”, “testing” and “done”, in this way, any recurring set of steps or project stages can become columns on a Kanban board, without affecting the others.

Teams typically meet daily to review the Kanban board, which increases transparency between team members and senior management, this also helps teams understand how much work they can reasonably take on at any given time, which informs their limits of work in progress.

What is a Kanban card?

A Kanban card is a small card, sometimes a physical card, sticky note, or digital box, that represents a job that needs to be done, such cards are placed on a board to allow team members to visually monitor their progress.

Some teams track specific KPIs related to their work items, so they may list multiple fields on each card, such as the person requesting the task, the task due date, and the person responsible for the task.

Cards can also contain a brief description of the work, links or attachments to supporting documentation, or comment sections to facilitate collaboration.

Let's see the benefits of Kanban

It offers several advantages for teams of all sizes and in all industries, it started in manufacturing and is the favourite of software developers today, however, it offers clear and distinctive benefits for small sales teams, human resources departments from companies, marketers and everyone in between.

Faster cycle times

Cycle time is the total elapsed time from when a team member starts a task to when the task is completed. Average cycle time is often a key metric for Kanban teams because it helps determine how efficiently they are working.

Analysis of cycle times can allow project managers to identify bottlenecks and discover who can step in to resolve them. Within the Kanban framework, team members are expected to help each other to complete work, due to Since dashboards make it easy to see who is doing what work, project managers can easily find out who has shared skill sets and can contribute if work falls behind.

Alignment between business objectives and execution

New cards are not added to the kanban backlog unless they are in line with a company's core strategy, once a card is on the backlog it is prioritized in order of importance, this ensures that the cards with the highest priority are placed on the board below, which means that teams only work on the most critical tasks.

Planning flexibility

If a piece of work needs to be prioritized, it can be moved from backlog to flow as soon as the team reviews the Kanban board. The flexibility it provides can help project managers keep up with business and compliance demands to customers without interrupting your team's workflow.

Improved customer satisfaction

As project managers strive to reduce cycle times, inherently increasing the output of their team, but not at the expense of quality, Kanban boards outline the steps required to test and verify work, ensuring that If the result is up to scratch, then customers get better-designed features in less time, leading to higher overall customer satisfaction.

Improved predictability

When you constantly review a team's progress, it's easier to forecast how long projects will take, this is great, project managers learn how to allocate resources appropriately, reduce unnecessary tasks and optimize their team's workload in one go way that improves forecasting and helps other teams in their planning efforts.

Basic practices of the Kanban method

Best practices to empower teams to reap all the benefits of the Kanban method and while these are geared toward software teams, they apply to many areas of the business.

Workflow Visualization

A public Kanban board provides a clear visualization of a team's workflow, this helps team members visualize how they are contributing to an end goal because they can see the work ahead, keep their Kanban board up to date and review it daily promotes transparency within the team, encourages them to mention risks, and helps them feel like their work is making a difference.

Limit work in progress

Allows project managers to easily assess whether there are enough or too many cards on the board, providing a deeper understanding of skills and resource availability; So, reviewing the Kanban board every day gives project managers and team members the opportunity to assess their workload, so the team never has too much or too little to do.

Flow management

In the context of Kanban, "flow" refers to how work moves through each stage of the board. By reviewing the board every day, project managers must try to strike a balance between speed and risk. Managing flow helps teams set their WIP boundaries and exposes roadblocks and bottlenecks, helping teams work more efficiently.

Make Process Policies Explicit

Kanban boards clarify who is doing what, how issues should be raised and when tasks are due, by making policies explicit project managers can prevent emotion from getting into the decision-making process to get it right and focus to deliver great work.

Feedback loops

ntinuous improvement is key to staying agile, developers and project managers must learn from the feedback they receive during daily meetings or conversations with stakeholders to deliver even better products next time.

Improve through collaboration

Kanban is a very team-focused methodology, each employee must provide suggestions, constructive criticism and additional help when needed, however this only works when everyone operates under the same principles and approaches problems in the same way, sharing information and combining skill sets can help teams achieve more in a shorter period of time.

Kanban principles

1. Change management principles

Implementing Kanban is not a walk in the park, especially for teams used to other project management strategies, when introducing Kanban to your organization it is important to emphasize three change management principles.

Start with what you know

Goals that are too vague or too lofty are hard to follow and even harder to meet. Kanban encourages teams to assess their ability, ability and availability, and only then add clear and concise tasks as needed helps to grow sustainably, advancing towards goals every day.

Agree to pursue incremental and evolutionary change

The method is designed for slow and steady improvement, so all team members involved in the process must commit to gradual change, even though it can be hard to get used to, breaking big changes into smaller parts translates into less resistance from top management, fewer errors, and more manageable workloads.

Encourage acts of leadership at all levels.

In a Kanban-oriented work environment, anyone can take charge of the problems that arise, it is suggested to foster a culture of encouragement and collaboration in which team members are willing and able to help each other solve problems and achieve the final objectives.

2. Principles of service provision

An organization is made up of hundreds of independent services to maintain balance, Kanban suggests adhering to three main service delivery principles.

Focus on customer needs

Knowing what your customer needs, why they need it and their expectations should drive your Kanban project management, I recommend that you always put the customer first when thinking about how to prioritize backlog, manage budget or troubleshoot.

Let people self-organize around managed work

Allowing development teams to choose what they work on and how they get there will help manage the flow, empower them to become leaders, and ensure there isn't too much work on their hands.

Periodically review the service network and its policies

After delivering hundreds of projects you are sure to learn how your team works and what your stakeholders want, to continue to improve customer satisfaction and business results take some time to regularly review and update your policies.

Kanban or Scrum

“Kanban and Scrum share some of the same concepts, but they organize work differently”

Scrum delivers a certain amount of work in one to four week increments, usually called “sprints” and uses four main “sessions” to stay on track:

Sprint planning, sprint review, retrospective and daily meetings, at the beginning of each sprint the team commits to the tasks, at the end of each sprint, they evaluate what they have achieved and discuss how to mitigate the problems, so they do not appear again.

Unlike Kanban, there is no project manager in Scrum, just a product owner who advocates for the customer, a "Scrum master" who ensures the team adheres to agile principles, and a development team that does the work.

While Scrum and Kanban are similar, the clear differences can help you decide which is a better fit for your development team's skills and style.

Kanban supports business agility

It can help a company improve the delivery of its products and services at all organizational levels. Teams using Kanban constantly incorporate leadership and customer feedback, prioritize tasks based on specific goals, and learn how to reliably deliver work. , allowing them to stay agile even as the complexity and size of the organization grows, companies currently using Scrum or other agile methodologies can benefit from how Kanban refines and updates processes for higher performance and market satisfaction.

First steps

Kanban has the potential to connect engineers with customers, promote internal collaboration and transparency, and execute complex projects, without causing burnout. Due to its flexibility, developers and project managers have the power to design their own policies, correct course and find opportunities to go further.

But if you're just getting started with Kanban, you'll need to consolidate and simplify your complex workflows, if you've been in the world of project management for a while, you can always take your approach to the next level.

This is an introduction to the project management method with the Kanban method, although in many companies they look for people who manage PMI, Scrum, Agile, ISO and Kanban, the important thing is to have your processes documented and well-defined, there is no better, nor worse, here how important is the one that best suits the business.

I hope it will be useful for managing not only projects, but also processes, so I look forward to your comments in the Feed, thank you very much for your time.

His friend,