## the basics | | | |--|--| |origin | japanese word for signboard. used to make manufacturing more efficient| | | think of it as an assembly line for tasks | | how it works | tasks move from left to right on a kanban board... each move into a column to the right signifies a step change for that task e.g. it goes from WAITING to DOING to COMPLETED | ### example 1 | backlog | waiting | doing | completed | |--|--|--|--| | task 1 | | | | | | task 2 | | | ||| task 3 || |||| task 4 | In the example above, task 3 is being worked on and when it finishes it can move into the completed column and the next task that is waiting (task 2) can be started and so it is moved into the doing column.... ### example 2 | backlog | waiting | doing | completed | |--|--|--|--| | task 1 | | | | | | | task 2 | | |||| task 3 | |||| task 4 | ## How to setup kanban My advice would be to start with a sheet of paper and work out the columns you need. You can do this on a whiteboard if you need to share it with a team. In one place I worked we had a large whiteboard and marked out the columns (and rows) in tape... then using a dry erase marker we put tasks in "cells" eventually we had a row per person so you could see each team members workload and progress like this... |who| backlog | waiting | doing | completed | |--|--|--|--|--| | Ann | task 5 | |task 1 | | | Bob | task 6 | | task 2 | | | Carol | task 8 ||task 7| task 3 | |Dave |task 12|task 10|task 9 , task 11| task 4 | This implies that tasks 5,6,8,12 are not yet ready to do as they are not in "Waiting" like task 10 is. You can easily see who is working on what and who is overloaded with tasks. You can then use this to rearrange tasks across the team moving the task to another person. If an item is on the board for longer than expected you can see how that impacts other tasks. A format I have used for the items on the board is. creation date Item description approx days of work deadline as an example: 01/06/2025 Retest logon procedure 0.5 day 15/06/2025 I had a rule that NOTHING takes less than 0.5 day. I also resisted having priorities on tasks as you then find only high priority items go forward and low priority items always stay in th the backlog. Prioritisation is carried out by saying something is waiting and assigning it to a person who can do it soon ! It works. ## tools | | | |---|---| |manual | index cards | |simple | trello | |overcomplicated | jira kanban view | ## use cases 1. Tracking support issues (tickets) as they are fixed. 2. Tracking project tasks as they are handled by an analysis/development/test team. 3. Balancing the workload of a team.