Uncover the Kanban toolbox you may not know

Image Source: www.freecodecamp.org

The most common tool used by agile teams in their daily work is Kanban. As a kind of notification card, Kanban aims to communicate each team member's task status and specific task content. Its purpose is to promote the up-and-down task connection of team members and pull the product value in the development process. In the process of value flow, we need to manage the Kanban and promote the efficient collaboration of the team by designing a reasonable Kanban.

I. Design principles of Kanban

The design of Kanban needs to follow the following principles.

1. Visualization principle

Visualization of Kanban methods can be done in the following ways.

• Visualization of the work status: Kanban work items are usually in three states: waiting, in process, and completed. Members need to update their task status after processing the task so that other team members can get the latest task status. If a member's task on the Kanban does not change its status in a longer period, other members can pay attention to the problem in time and help this member solve the difficulties encountered in their task.
• Visualization of task items: the task list of members in the team is in the iteration cycle of the whole team, and the visualization of task items makes the task, time, and workload transparent, clear, and intuitive. In addition, displaying task items adds intrinsic discipline to members, prompting them to complete tasks quickly and with high quality.
• Visualization of workflow: in the work queue, members complete work handoffs to each other through task status changes, thus pulling the value flow. The members downstream of the value flow can also arrange their plans according to the current workflow to avoid a task window period and achieve the task handover in time.

2. Flow principle

The Kanban system emphasizes the end-to-end value flow, and we take a product development process as an example to create a Kanban, the task items of the Kanban should include: development, testing, to be released, release, released, where the development can be divided into implementation, review, completion.

This development process, which starts from user requirements and ends with value delivery, realizes the flow of value, and the value eventually flows back to the user.

During this flow, Kanban provides a clear picture of the backlog level. When one of these steps gets in the way, it is first reflected in the task status presented in the Kanban -- a backlog of task items is suddenly found at a certain point, or a task handover between a downstream member and an upstream member cannot be achieved. Since Kanban enables these issues to be exposed to members and resolved on time, it allows product value to flow quickly from left to right.

3. Pull principle

Unlike the traditional "push forward" production method, Kanban is a "pull back" production method. It passes instructions through the Kanban, and the back process pulls the production of the front process to achieve clear and orderly production management. Finally, it pulls the value flow to pursue the quality of products that satisfy both teams and users.

4. Collaboration principle

Kanban requires limiting WIP (work in progress) in the teamwork process, and if you need to pull multiple values flows simultaneously, it will lead to each person's energy being too scattered, thus making teamwork articulation errors and a self-care situation. When prioritizing tasks, the team needs to have, in this sense--focus on the higher priority tasks and ensure that things that need to be solved quickly are prioritized.

It should be noted here that the number of work-in-progress should generally be limited to about three, and an "emergency channel" should be set up to make way for unexpected tasks.

ZenTao Kanban

II. Visualization toolbox

To achieve Kanban's visualization, what toolboxes can we use?

1. Visualization of work protocols

In product development, testing, and other stages, the criteria for task completion, test cases, and test success must be agreed upon and visualized among team members.

We can do it this way: we can divide a special section in the Kanban in advance, members discuss and form a consensus on these criteria in advance, and then fill in the consensus criteria in the corresponding position of the board so that they can be consulted at any time.

2. Visualization of avatar

To make each member's task more visual, the team can also choose to use avatar visualization: each team member chooses an exclusive avatar of their own (it can be a real avatar, or an animal, cartoon, or landscape avatar), and then pastes the corresponding avatar sticker on each member's task item so that the avatar visualization will be more powerful in binding the members.

3. Sprint information visualization

In each Sprint cycle, making a Sprint card can easily visualize the Kanban: the card information includes the Sprint cycle, title, task person, start time, end time, number, log entry, problems encountered, etc. In practice, the team can make flexible changes according to their Sprint cycle.

4. Task backlog diagram

To identify the task backlog, address the task backlog, and help value flow quickly, teams can mark backlogged tasks in each stand-up meeting. The marker can be a triangle or a black dot. When a task item is followed by multiple backlog markers, each member of the team can know that help is needed from the task person for that task to complete it.

The visualization of Kanban makes the product development process more transparent and accelerates the review and feedback process. Kanban is more implementable than other agile methods, but a single Kanban cannot meet the needs of a team undergoing an agile transformation. Therefore, teams must combine Kanban with other agile methodologies in the agile and lean transformation to promote efficiency and "early and continuous delivery of valuable software to satisfy customers."