Physical Aspects of Kanban
Teams gathered around a Kanban board for the daily stand up meeting.
Image sources: http://www.technology-ebay.de/media/
http://jpattonassociates.com/kanban_oversimplified
http://leankit.com/learn/kanban/kanban-software/
Quick Kanban Overview
Kanban is another management style developed by the Toyota motor corporation in Japan in the 1940s. Kanban is centered around the constant flow of value to the customer as features of a product are deployed as soon as they are ready to be deployed without having to wait for a set deployment time.
Kanban Concepts
Much like Agile and Scrum, the physical aspects of Kanban revolve around implementing a physical environment that best facilitates implementation of Kanban theories and practices. To better understand Kanban theories and practices, the following primer on Kanban is provided.
Kanban Theories
Kanban employs the Theory of Constraints, The System of Proud Knowledge, and the Lean economical model. The Theory of Constraints focuses on identifying bottlenecks in the flow of work, and catering all other tasks around that bottleneck. The System of Proud Knowledge helps to visually identify the bottlenecks in the flow of work and to make the bottlenecks (area’s of improvement) visually clear to everyone involved in the process. The Lean economical model focuses on eliminating “mura” or “waste” out of the flow of work. This helps to smooth out the working experience.
Kanban Teams
Unlike other software management styles and methods, Kanban doesn’t have a hard ceiling or floor on the number of people in Kanban teams. Team sizes in Kanban are decided on a project basis, company basis, product basis, and so on. Team sizes in Kanban should be such that they help produce a smooth flow of work from one stage of development to another. In other words, if Kanban teams notice a constant bottleneck in the flow of work, maybe team size or team composition for that particular stage of work needs to be looked into.
Kanban Artifacts
Much like other agile management styles, physical artifacts in Kanban are used to represent the work to do, the amount of work to do, and the amount of work completed. These physical artifacts in Kanban are used to provide understanding and transparency of information so that everybody in the workflow can see what’s happening at any point in time.
Product Backlog
A product backlog as part of a Kanban Board
Image source: 3 benefits of control charts with Kanban
Kanban management style usually employs a product backlog like other agile mangement styles. This product backlog signifies all the features of a product a customer wants. A product backlog is usually represented as one column in a Kanban Board. High priority items are found at the top of product backlog, while low priority items are found at the bottom of the product backlog.
Kanban Board
An example of a Kanban Board with the backlog on one side, and a done column on the other side. This board uses sticky notes to represent Kanban cards.
Image source: www.everydaykanban.com
On the Kanban board there exists Kanban cards. These Kanban cards are used to signify a chunk of work that denotes a feature of the desired product. Kanban cards are assigned to teams or individuals to complete. Kanban cards usually flow from one side of the Kanban board (starting from the product backlog column) to the other side of the Kanban board that usually represents finish and completed work. One special attribute of the Kanban board is the Work in Progress Limit columns of the board (WIP limits). What these special columns signify is the maximum amount of work that is allowed at any stage of the work flow. Having too many cards constantly pushing the WIP limit can easily tell a company where the bottlenecks are in the flow of delivering value to the customer.
Monitoring Progress Towards a Goal
At any point in time, a worker can glance at the physical Kanban board and see the flow of work. The shifting of kanban cards from one side of the board to the other easily demonstrates the amount of progress that has been made. This also makes it easy to identify the bottlenecks by looking at the WIP columns.
The Physical Kanban Environment
an example Kanban office space.
Image source: How to scale Kanban Well
The physical space that works the best for facilitating Kanban management style is a space that promotes a constant flow of work. An open space that promotes communication and collaboration can greatly be beneficial when kanban teams are involved. physically opened space also provides the added benefit of producing multiple easy sightlines to the physical Kanban board allowing anyone to easily see the current progress of work. The constant delivery of value is key in Kanban. Having a work space that promotes this makes Kanban all that more effective.