The Kanban board is a work and workflow visualization tool allowing people to customize their work flow. There is a physical Kanban board, which commonly uses sticky notes on a whiteboard for the communication of progress, status, and issues. There is also an online Kanban board, which draws upon a whiteboard metaphor using a software.
Kanban boards are offering a way to visually manage your work. If you have used a sticky note to get yourself reminded about something that you need to do, you are using visual management. This type of management enables the team to see works in progress and understand the complicated information like task relationships, processes, and risks with relation to the capability of a team to complete the work on time.
- Flexible: Using Kanban boards is as easy as writing a sticky note and posting it to a whiteboard, so that anyone will be able to use them for any purpose. This method serves as a guidelines about how to use a kanban board, but there are lots of people who are using this do not follow this methodology. As a user of kanban board, you can find your won method that will work best for you and your certain project.
- Helps less waste and increase efficiency: A Kanban board has been proven to be the best solution for managers who want to improve the overall efficiency and cut waste. The waste in the world of business may take on some forms, such as defects, motion, inventory, overproduction, non-value-added process, transportation, under-utilizing people, and waiting.
- Visual: Humans are visual creatures, and so we find it easy to process information with a visual aid than without any. Because of this, a Kanban board will be a perfect tool for helping teams to instantly see and understand all parts of a project, which is popularly known as a visual management.
- Helpful in team collaboration: People how have ever managed a project may appreciate the effectiveness of having to use a Kanban board as the best way of collaborating. Many project managers may spend less time to communicate status updates through kanban boards because the boards are creating transparency.
- Easy to use: if you are using sticky notes on a whiteboard for planning and prioritizing your work, you will be able to hit the ground running with an online kanban board. You can create cards in a matter of seconds and you can move them around the board with simple drag and drop.
How does it works
“Kanban” is a Japanese term, which means signboard. The process to implement a Kanban board is by breaking down the tasks into logical categories, which is usually referred to as a workflow, which is categorized in 3 steps:
- In-progress step
- Queue
- Completed step
Every step has limited number of work items assigned, and it is determined by the workflow manager. The card (represented as the work) is added in the queue step, pulled in the in-progress step, and moved to the final step to be completed. It is as easy as 1,2,3 but very effective.
Do not spend all your time looking for information. With kanban board, all the answers to your questions will be found on the board.
— Slimane Zouggari