Kanban Methodology in Project Management – A Complete Guide

 

Introduction

Every industry wants to enhance its productivity and efficiency during project completion, and in order to achieve that goal Kanban methodology is used.

Kanban methodology is a visualization technique in agile project management.

The Kanban process originated in the Toyota production process. It uses cards, boards, and visual signals to help teams organize their processes and track progress.

It enables teams to easily visualize a workflow in real-time and to identify progress at a glance.

Kanban board is used in this technique. Kanban board is a project visualization tool that is primarily used in manufacturing industries, but the usage of Kanban methodology can also be seen in tech industries nowadays.

Let us learn more about the key principles and practices of kanban methodology in the next section.

Kanban Principles And Practices

The Kanban framework is designed to help teams reduce bottlenecks, improve efficiencies, increase quality, and boost output. Kanban is based on four principles and six core practices.

The Four Principles of Kanban Methodology are:

- Start with now. Focus on what you’re doing now. Fully understand the processes already in place, including what works and what doesn’t.

- Take an incremental approach. Look at how to slowly change your processes over time. Avoid implementing radical changes.

- Keep roles. Unlike other frameworks that promote their own unique roles, Kanban emphasizes working with the roles your team already has.

- Encourage leadership. Innovation and ideas for improvement should be promoted at all levels. Encourage every employee to act as a leader, regardless of role or title.

Kanban Methodology’s Six Core Practices are:

- Visualize the workflow. Kanban requires using a physical or virtual board to visualize how workflows from one stage to the next.

- Limit work in progress. Each project team needs to set a limit to how many tasks are allowed to be in each stage of the workflow at once. If you have five reviewers, you may limit the “Review” stage to having no more than five tasks in it at once.

- Actively manage the workflow. As a project manager, your primary role is to monitor the workflow for bottlenecks and adjust/remove roadblocks and improve efficiency.

- Create process guidelines. Have clearly communicated guidelines on how work is completed, what “done” means, etc. This can be a checklist in each column or on each “card” outlining what is required for it to move to each stage.

- Use feedback loops. Use tools and processes to promote early and continual feedback. This can mean multiple review stages, or reports and metrics communicating performance.

- Evolve. As with other Agile frameworks, adapting, evolving, and improving your processes is encouraged. Focus on developing and implementing small changes to improve your workflow and processes.

The next section talks about the benefits that the organizations will receive from implementing kanban methodology.

Benefits Of Kanban Project Management

The primary benefits of the Kanban methodology are:

- Flexibility. Kanban doesn’t dictate which work occurs when, simply, how many tasks are allowed in each phase at once. This approach makes it incredibly easy to reshuffle work as priorities change.

- Fewer bottlenecks. Kanban boards help you quickly identify bottlenecks in the process so you can discover and resolve what’s slowing down your team.

- Increased efficiency. While Kanban doesn’t have a set schedule, a key metric is often the average time it takes for a task to complete the workflow. This emphasis on how quickly or slowly tasks move through phases can help increase efficiency and speed up output.

- Better quality. By limiting the number of tasks your team can work on at once, you help improve their focus and the quality of their work.

- Faster adoption. Kanban encourages starting with your current processes and roles and making small changes. This approach helps teams embrace the change more easily.

- Visibility. Anyone can look at your Kanban board and quickly see what stage a task is in and who is working on it.

Now let’s talk about the tool used in Kanban methodology.

What is a Kanban board?

The Kanban board is a physical or virtual board that maps out your project’s workflow and how tasks move through it from beginning to completion. A Kanban board ensures the workflow is standardized, and that team members can easily see where each task is in the overall scheme.

The most basic Kanban board only has three workflows: To Do, In Progress, and Complete. But, columns can be added or changed to suit your project.

Each task is represented as a “card” and placed on the board in the column representing its current stage of work. As tasks progress, the card is moved throughout the workflow. Each card will contain information about the task, such as:

- A short description

- The name of the person responsible

- An estimate of how long it will take

- Requirements to move it to the next stage

Virtual cards may also contain other data, including links to relevant documents and supporting files.

In the next section, we have compiled a list of Kanban project management tools that make the implementation of Kanban methodology easier.

10 Best Tools For Kanban Project Management

Here are some popular tools for applying the Kanban methodology in an organization.

1. monday.com

Monday.com is a cloud-based platform that allows users to create their own applications and project management software. Learn more