What is Kanban
Using Kanban Agile Process to Manage Fluid Projects
by Lenka Davis
Project management best practices are a hot topic, so what is Kanban in Agile anyway?
How do you apply Kanban to what you do?
Why would you want to use Kanban?
What is Kanban?
It’s all visual. The most common way people hear about Kanban is in reference to the Kanban board. It’s a board that tracks parts of your marketing projects from start to finish. A fluid project is one that has a continuous flow of work with continuous delivery dates as opposed to regular releases with a fixed set of deliverables.
As a system, it is a visual work management system.
Visual systems work for creative teams or those that are new to the Agile methodology.
In Japanese Kanban means ‘visual signal’ or sometimes is defined as a billboard or signboard. The system usually involves a kanban board with kanban cards, such as a Trello or an Atlassian Jira board with cards, and a Work in Progress (WIP) limit. The WIP limit is decided on by the team so they know when their team is at capacity or where they have bottlenecks. Here is a good video explanation of Kanban.
“Work items are visualized to give participants a view of progress and process, from start to finish—usually via a Kanban board”
Kanban is fundamentally four principles and six practices, see the list below on what they are.
Principles:
Start With What You Do Now
Agree to Pursue Incremental, Evolutionary Change
Respect the Current Process, Roles & Responsibilities
Encourage Acts of Leadership at All Levels
Practices:
Visualize the Workflow
Limit Work in Progress
Manage Flow
Make Process Policies Explicit
Feedback Loops
Improve Collaboratively (using models & the scientific method)
It was designed for knowledge work organizations. It focuses on getting things done. To get started you can follow a simple workflow. There are three parts to the workflow, the Team, the Kanban board and the regular meetings.
Kanban Workflow showing Teams, Kanban Board and Meetings.
How do you apply Kanban to what you do?
If you are doing your own marketing or you have a marketing lead on your team, and they have not had the opportunity to use Agile then we recommend starting with the Kanban method and setting up a board.
Set up a spreadsheet or use the free version of Trello to get started.
Why would you want to use Kanban?
Kanban is more fluid than some methods used by software teams. It works well for those groups that have a continuous stream of work coming in and could potentially have roadblocks or bottlenecks in the workflow. Work is based on customer demand and so work is pulled through this system. Thus it is often used by marketing teams or anyone that has a workflow for customers.
Scrum vs Kanban: Scrum is used by software developers. Kanban is used by project or marketing teams.
Definition of Scrum framework: a set of practices used in agile project management that emphasize daily communication and the flexible reassessment of plans that are carried out in short, iterative phases of work.
Atlassian.com
To begin using Kanban:
Get your team onboard with using Agile or one of its derivative methodologies
Identify a lead team member to go to for all topics related to Agile
Sign up for free Kanban board software
Have each team member create their own cards
Set up regular check in meetings to keep everyone informed on all parts of the project
If you would like assistance with getting up and running, send us an email. If you are interested in learning more about startup marketing and project management give us a call and we can talk about your project.
References
Agile Acceptance Criteria https://www.flytosoar.com/articles/agile-acceptance-criteria
Agile Project Predictability and Risk https://www.flytosoar.com/articles/agile-project-predictability-and-risk
Benefits and Role of an Agile Product Owner https://www.flytosoar.com/articles/benefits-and-role-of-an-agile-product-owner
Agile Project Management https://www.flytosoar.com/articles/agile-project-management
