In the Kanban system, there are three items that need to be visualized. These are the work, workflow, and business risks.
Work - Each card represents individual tasks. You can quickly understand what stage they are in by looking at the column. A quick glance at the board helps you understand how the project as a whole is progressing.
Workflow - These are represented by different stages, from left to right on a Kanban board.
Business risks - You may need to look at details for each card to determine business risks but there often are visual cues. For example, if more cards than expected are listed in the “Doing” or “In Progress” stage there may be a bottleneck slowing down work.
Whether using an online board or a paper-based system, color codes, tags, and labeling are useful to highlight key information.
2. Limit Work-In-Progress (WIP)
Limiting WIP ensures that at any point in time there is never too much or too little work to do. You want to have just the right amount of cards on a Kanban board that can be handled by resources available.
This is achieved by implementing a pull system where new work is only ‘pulled’ in when there is enough capacity to handle it. For this to work, limits to WIP need to be set and adjusted. For example, to have a team of 20 engineers and operators build 10 cars a week.
3. Manage flow
Flow refers to the movement of work items across stages of a process, as represented by cards on a Kanban board.
The responsibility lies with the project manager (or whoever is given ownership of the process). He/she needs to keep the workflow moving fast while keeping an eye on blocks, bottlenecks, and risks.
Tracking speed and smoothness of flow allows leadership to determine how efficient a process is and how that affects the bottom line. As a metric, it isn’t dissimilar to Velocity in Scrum, which is one of the more important ones.
4. Make policies explicit
By having an explicit understanding of issues, operations, and rules, discussions become more rational and objective. These need to be documented and shared across the project team. The intention is to prevent emotion and subjective views from seeping into the decision process.
5. Implement feedback loops
Feedback and continuous improvements are critical for Kanban as they are for other Agile frameworks. In Kanban feedback is gathered at different stages of a project: during meetings or at delivery, operational and risk reviews.
The frequency and format of feedback depend on what has been already established by the Project Office. Any gaps are filled as Kanban identifies them.
6. Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally
In Kanban, collaboration and experimentation go hand in hand as long as there is clarity and consensus on how to approach work and issues.
In his book, David J. Anderson talks about teams having a shared comprehension of problems and suggests the adoption of a model to be able to predict the effect of change. These include:
- The Theory of Constraints
- The Theory of Profound Knowledge
- The Lean Economic Model
By using a proven model it becomes easier to measure outcomes, including the changes leading to them. This helps retain clarity and mitigate risks.
