In any production there is a main production and additional production . The rate of release of final products is set by the main production, while additional production cannot accelerate the rate of release of the product, but can slow it down if the required parts are not released on time.
Additionally, there may be a shift in priorities during production.
The purpose of Kanban is only to receive a finished high-quality product on time.
Kanban starts with visualization so that the processes are visible to the team. To do this, use a special board and a set of cards or stickers. A whiteboard is a must-have for Agile. It’s in Scrum, and it’s also in Kanban. Each team member gets access to it at any time and sees where the task is. The board is suitable for both real and virtual. A kanban board adapts to any process and applies to any field. For example, to make a to-do list.
Each project has a workflow plan.
• First, we analyze it and divide the board into columns that represent the stages.
Column names vary from project to project, but it is important to maintain consistency – this is the core value of Kanban, which is called flow.
• Kanban cards are tasks that move downstream and flow into other columns depending on their state.
• The name of the task is written on a card or sticker and attached to the beginning of the board.
• With the help of a kanban board, it is easy to manage several projects at the same time using cards of different colors: one color – one project.All processes are reflected on the board. The team analyzes them and eliminates weak points. In Kanban, this is called flow control.
To use Kanban, one board is not enough. The team must know the principles by which they work.
The team in Kanban is a single mechanism. If someone fails, then the common cause suffers. The work is planned on the board, so everyone can see their contribution and value to the project.
It is important to find a balance: choose the pace of work that is convenient for the team and does not harm the project timeline. To do this, Kanban takes into account the execution time of each task. So the team understands what takes more time and what – less, and can organize the work correctly.
Basic principles of Kanban
• Respect and use what is now: existing roles, responsibilities and proper instructions
• Constantly optimize and improve the development process but not allow too drastic changes
• Encourage team members to strive for leadership
Kanban includes two simple rules:
• The production station has a part production plan (“backlog”). The plan is sorted by priority, and can change at any time;
• The number of tasks performed on the station at the same time is limited . This limitation is necessary to control the rate of production at the station, as well as the speed of response to plan changes.
Kanban works great with support teams like:
• software support groups, where the “plan” is not important, but the speed of response to changes is important;
• test teams working separately from development teams;
• support services;
• other examples of “non-core industries”.
Separately, it should be noted that Kanban works well in startups that do not have a clear plan, but are actively working on development.
The limitations of Kanban when used in product teams include:
1) This methodology does not work well with large teams (more than 5 people);
2) In its purest form, Kanban does not work well with cross-functional teams. Those. Unlike Scrum, it is difficult to combine testing and development in one team. A better idea is to split the process into a development “station” and a test “station” with separate leaders and backlogs;
3) Due to its history and specificity, Kanban is not intended for long-term planning.
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