Kanban Techniques
The agile umbrella consists of many useful frameworks to achieve agility, Kanban being one of these frameworks. According to the State of Kanban, Report 2022 and the 16th Annual State of Agile Report - Kanban has been growing its user base exponentially. The report says, "87% of respondents indicated that the Kanban Method was more effective than prior ways of working and managing work." More and more organizations are adopting Kanban as their way of working. No doubt, this framework sets itself apart from its competitors through flow visibility, delivery speed, and scaling capabilities. If this excites you and you are looking to enhance your knowledge and skills in Kanban, consider taking a Kanban certification course. In this article, we'll have a closer look into Kaban techniques, principles, benefits and some of the top Kanban terms businesses use.
What is Kanban?
Kanban is a Lean workflow management approach for defining, handling, and refining the products or services that deliver value to the client. It emphasizes Just-In-Time and focuses on reducing waste. Kanban was developed in the late 1940s by a Japanese engineer named Taiichi Ohno. Initially, it served as a scheduling system for lean manufacturing at Toyota to improve manufacturing efficiency. Kanban is a Japanese term meaning 'Kan = Visual, Ban = Board'. The Kanban technique helps to visualize the workflow and the bottlenecks.
Simply put, it is a flow of cards from its starting point to the destination (the Card can any activity needed in the system to deliver a solution). With cut-throat competition in the industry, organizations are moving towards efficiency and speed of delivery. This is where Kanban shines bright. It not only helps to keep up with the pace but also, through Lean as its backbone, optimizes the processes. We have been doing the basic Kanban all our lives - 'To-Do', 'In-Progress', and 'Done' - more about visualizing the flow.
Kanban Techniques to Improve the Productivity and Workflow
Let us look at the techniques needed to implement a Kanban system in the organization. The Kanban general practices on an implementation include:
1. Understand Kanban and if it is the solution to your problem
Just because something is trending in the market does not mean it can solve your organization's problem. The first step is to assess the current situation and identify if Kanban is the framework you would like to go with. Once the decision has been made, the team needs to understand the concepts like – WIP limits, cycle time, etc. Getting the team trained on Kanban helps set the tone for the new implementation.
2. Map Your Workflow
Getting the entire end-to-end flow over the board needs close work within the team to map the workflow. All efforts from the 'To-Do' state to 'Done' must be defined and added to the board. The teams can use multiple tools to come up with the mapping, including whiteboarding.
3. Visualize the Workflow
Once the workflow is set up, it is time to organize it. Activities need to be aligned in a descending manner, starting from initiation to getting it closed. Every task matters! Make sure each activity during the flow is captured, whether small or big.
4. Improvisation
The workflow created over the Kanban should be smooth, and the flow of activities should be such that they do not create hindrances. There might be instances where a swim lane can get
clogged with loads of cards. Once the framework is put in place initially, one can see a lot of areas for improvement. But do not go for all at once as this might disrupt the system. Try going for one improvisation at a time.
5. Start WIP (ing)
Putting limits on each swim lane is a critical activity. As we know, 'If it's Kanban, it's all about the WIP'. If the WIP is high, it might result in jamming the lane, and with a low WIP, it might impose a bottleneck at other lanes. Having an optimal number helps increase efficiency and quality.
6. Continuous Improvement
Like any other framework, setting up Kanban does not end the job. But keeping it optimized, straightened, and focused on the process improvements. The team can use various metrics to analyze how they can make it better.
Kanban Principles
Since the time of its birth, the evolution of Kanban has been immense. The Kanban principles in agile practices have gone through mutation to bring out the best in the process. One can go for Agile online training to start the journey in Agile.
Kanban has four basic principles:
- Start with what you do now - Kanban can be easily built over the existing processes. Rather than scrapping the old and implementing the new, Kanban focuses on starting with what is already there. With transparency at its core, Kanban helps improve the ROI over time.
- Agree to pursue incremental, evolutionary change – Deliver small and quality solutions that make Kanban delightfully adoptable. This feature of Kanban directly aligns with Agile and its ways of working. Whether implementing a change, a new solution, or a process improvement, delivering in small chunks helps stay efficient. It is easy to chew and digest small rather than big chunks.
- Respect the current process, roles, responsibilities, and titles - Kanban is collaborative; disrupting the legacy is never the case. Respecting what is already there and creating a coalition to deliver efficient solutions is the base intent of Kanban.
- Encourage acts of leadership at all levels in your organization - Being a leader does not imply that you need to have a title and a position. Anyone can take ownership of the issue and lead it to closure. It is a 'Pull' system where the team is empowered to take the lead, risks, and decisions and work in tandem with the goals.
Benefits of Kanban
- Improved Visibility: As the name suggests, Kanban is all about visualizing progress. When one item moves through different swim lanes on the board, one can predict its pace. Not only is progress determined, but it also shows the bottlenecks and the blocked items that need immediate attention.
- Accelerated Productivity: Known fact says; If you see it, you do it! Better visibility of the progress encourages the team to give their best efforts, which increases quality outputs. As it is a 'Pull' system, the team can pick another work item as soon as they are done with one in hand. The WIP limits in each column ensure optimum usage of the resources.
- Waste Reduction: One of the most critical aspects of Kanban; Reduce waste. With reduced waiting time through WIP limits and minimized idle time, this framework showcases Lean aspects.
- Predictability: Kanban is visual and data-driven, and this attribute supports decisiveness. With limits set at each column of the flow, problem-solving discussions get smoother.
- Balanced Workload: With the 'Pull' system, the team is not pressurized to work beyond their capacity. The WIP limits ensure that no new task is added unless the one in hand gets closed. The team members can 'Pull' the task as per their skillset and take it to closure.
What are the Main Kanban Terms You Should Know?
- Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD) - This represents the number of cards in a specific lane for a specified duration.
- Card - It is a work item or an activity over the board that flows from one state to another.
- Cycle Time - This represents the time an activity took to get to closure from the time it started its journey on board.
- Lead Time – Represents the total time an activity took to get completed, including the waiting time in the backlog.
- Work In Progress (WIP) Limit - It is a limit on the number of cards that can be worked upon at any point in time, in any lane.
Scrum vs Kanban
Though Scrum and Kanban are ways of implementing Agile and have many similarities, some major differentiators set them apart.
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Parameter | Scrum | Kanban |
Flow | Iteration based approach; the team uses a time box known as a sprint to deliver solutions | It is a continuous flow of work items over the board. No concept of timeboxing |
Role | Role-based framework - Scrum Master, Product Owner, and the team | Does not support prescribed roles |
Team Size | Team sizes is limited to 7 (+/-) 2 | Team size is irrelevant |
| 'Push' system inside the sprint | Pull' system throughout |
Productivity | Productivity is measured through Velocity and Burndown | Productivity is measured through Cycle time and Lead time |
Change Management | Change is difficult once the sprint gets initiated | Change can be introduced at any point of time during the flow |
Backlog | Sprint backlog is shared between the team | The Kanban board may be shared by single or multiple teams |
Board | Sprint Board changes every sprint | The Kanban board remains the same |
Applicability | Originally meant for software development | Originally meant for Lean manufacturing |
Conclusion
Overall, Kanban has been steadily making its mark in the IT industry. It is the 2nd runner-up in the list of top Agile frameworks in all major global surveys. Comparatively, it is easy to implement and is quite lightweight. Kanban focuses on optimization and waste reduction, and its basis on Lean makes it highly adoptable. Taking KnowledgeHut's Kanban certification course can be a great way to learn the core practices of Kanban and understand how to implement them effectively in an organization's processes. By gaining this knowledge and expertise, individuals can help streamline underlying issues that impact overall performance and drive positive changes in output and quality delivery.
