Kanban Board is an agile project management tool designed to visualize work, limit work in progress, and maximize efficiency (or flow). This helps both agile and DevOps teams bring order to their day-to-day operations. Kanban boards use cards, columns, and continuous improvements to help technology and service teams focus and do the right amount of work.
Kanban has come a long way from the origin of lean manufacturing, thanks to a group of small but powerful kanban enthusiasts. David Anderson's work in defining Kanban methodologies helped bring Kanban into the field of software and services, and Personal Kanban by Jim Benson and Tonianne De Maria helped expand Kanban applications into incredible areas. The
Kanban board can be divided into five components: visual signals, columns, work-in-process limits, commitment points, and delivery points.
Visual Signals – The first thing you notice about Kanban boards is visual cards (sticky notes, tickets, etc.). The Kanban team writes all projects and work items on the card. Usually one for each card. For agile teams, each card can include a user story. When you join the board, these visual clues help teammates and stakeholders quickly understand what the team is working on. Column – Another feature of the Kanban board is the column. Each column represents a particular activity, which together form a "workflow". The card is completed through a workflow. Workflows can be as simple as To Do, In Progress, Completed, or much more complex. Work in Process (WIP) Limits-WIP limits are the maximum number of cards you can put in a row at any given time. A column with a WIP limit of 3 cannot contain more than 3 cards. If a column is "run out", the team must swarm on those cards before new cards can enter that stage of the workflow. These WIP limits are important for identifying workflow bottlenecks and maximizing flow. WIP restrictions give an early warning of overkill. Commitment Points – Kanban teams often have a backlog of the board of directors. This is where customers and teammates can provide project ideas that the team can pick up when they're ready. The commitment point is the moment when an idea is picked up by the team and work starts on the project. Delivery point — The delivery point is the end of a kanban team`s workflow. For most teams, the delivery point is when the product or service is in the hands of the customer. The team`s goal is to take cards from the commitment point to the delivery point as fast as possible. The elapsed time between the two is the called Lead Time. The Kanban team is constantly improving to reduce lead times as much as possible.
