From version 16.2 of ZenTao, the Kanban project management model has been added to visualize and manage projects through the professional R&D Kanban function.

The following section will introduce the function of the Kanban project and professional R&D Kanban.

1. Create a Kanban Project

When creating a project, select the project management method page and select Kanban (Professional R & R&D Kanban Project Management).

Create a Kanban project:

The access control of the Kanban project is the same as that of other projects, except that the permission control can only be selected as an inheritance (taking the combination of system permissions and project permissions) and cannot be customized.

2. Create Kanban

After the Kanban project is created successfully, it is time to create it.

Click the kanban project name in the project list to enter the project's kanban list page.

The Kanban list page can be filtered and viewed by the All, In Progress, Not Started, Pending, and Closed tabs.

On the Kanban list page of the project, click the Create Kanban button to enter the Kanban create page.

Add Kanban Page.

The Kanban successfully can be displayed as a card under the Kanban item.

• The status of the Kanban is displayed in front of the Kanban name.
• Kanban team members are displayed in the lower-left corner of the Kanban card.
• The access control of the kanban is displayed in the lower right corner of the Kanban card.
• When the mouse hovers over the upper right corner of a Kanban card, it will display the more action buttons of the Kanban. You can set kanban, change the status of kanban, and delete kanban.

For more operation settings, you can go to the Kanban settings page. To set up a kanban is the same as editing it. After changing the information, click Save.

3. Kanban Settings

Click on the Kanban name to enter the board. By default, all kanban are displayed: Requirement kanban, Task kanban, and Bug kanban.

You can switch to a requirement kanban, task kanban, and bug kanban. Initially, each Kanban displays default kanban columns and kanban subcolumns.

You can switch to a particular kanban, task kanban, or bug kanban. Initially, each Kanban displays default kanban columns and kanban subcolumns.

3.1 Create button of Kanban

There is a Create button in the upper right corner of Kanban, which can directly put up requirements, put up requirements in batches, associate requirements, and associate requirements according to the plan.

You can also create bugs, create bugs in batches, create tasks, and create tasks in batches.

After the successful creation or association, it will be displayed in the corresponding Kanban column.

In addition to the Create button in the upper right corner of Kanban, there are Create buttons in the upper right corner of the Backlog column of the Requirements Kanban, the Unstated column of Tasks, and the Pending Confirmation column of Bugs.

These Create buttons also create and associate requirements, tasks, and bugs.

The following is an example of the new requirement function of Kanban.

Click the Create Requirement button to enter the requirement creation page.

When you click Associate Requirement, you can select the plan to be associated according to plan association.

After the association is successful, the requirements under the plan will be displayed in the Backlog column of the Requirement Kanban Board.

3.2 Kanban Settings Button

On the left side of the Create button is the Kanban setting button. Through the Kanban settings button, you can add a new Kanban area and set the lane height and the column's width.

You can also edit the Kanban, change the state of the Kanban, delete the Kanban, etc.

3.2.1 Create Regions

Click the Create Regions in the Settings button to add a Kanban Region. The new region can be customized or copied from the default region style.

The created regions are displayed below the default regions. The style inside is the same as the default region's Kanban board. If you select the custom regions style, the new regions are empty, and you need to set the kanban column by yourself in the new lane.

Lanes can also be edited and created via the More Actions button in the upper right corner of the board.

3.2.2 Set Lane Height 

The default height of the swim lane is adaptive, which is adaptive according to the height of the card. If there are ten cards, they will be displayed directly without the scroll bar.

If set to custom, the height of the swimlane is customized according to the number of cards, and it needs to be set to the number of cards greater than 2. For example, if it is set to 3, then there are 4 pieces of data in the Kanban column, then only 3 pieces of data can be displayed, and the 4th piece of data can be viewed by dragging the scroll bar.

The following is the display style after setting.

3.2.3 Setting the column width

The width of the Kanban columns is fixed by default so that all Kanbans in the region have the same column width.

Kanban display with fixed column width:

However, after setting to adaptive column width, the kanban columns in the kanban lane are adaptively displayed, and the column width is no longer the same.

The Edit Kanban, Change Kanban Status, and Delete Kanban operations under the Kanban Settings button are the same as the More Operations buttons under the Project Kanban and are not repeated here.

The Edit Kanban, Change Kanban Status, and Delete Kanban operations under the Kanban Settings button are the same as the More Operations buttons under the Project Kanban.

3.3 Kanban Column Display Quantity Settings

You can also set the number of data displayed in a row in the Kanban column. By default, one row shows 1 data, and the maximum of 4 rows of data can be set.

When it is set to the maximum display quantity, when 4 pieces of data are displayed in a row, only the avatar of the assignee of that data is displayed.

3.4 Kanban Column Settings

We can edit and WIP settings on the kanban column.

When editing the Kanban column, you can edit the Kanban column name and modify the color of the Kanban column name.

Kanban is listed in the WIP settings. By default, there is no limit to the quantity of WIP, i.e., infinite.

The quantity can be set according to usage needs.

When the quantity of the kanban column exceeds the WIP setting quantity, the kanban column will be displayed with a red background, and the mouse hovering over the question mark icon will indicate that the WIP limit is exceeded.

If the Kanban has kanban sub-columns, the sum of the WIP quantities of the kanban sub-columns cannot be greater than the WIP quantity of Kanban's parent column.

The WIP quantity of the kanban parent column cannot be less than the sum of the WIP quantities of the kanban child columns.

The following is an example of the development column and sub-column in the requirement kanban: in progress and completed.

When the quantity of WIP in the parent column is less than the sum of the WIP in the Kanban sub-column, the saving is unsuccessful, and a prompt will be displayed.

When the quantity of WIP set in the sub-kanban column of development exceeds the quantity of work-in-process of the parent kanban column, the saving is unsuccessful, and a prompt is given.

3.5 Sorting of Kanban

Click the Sort button and drag to change the display order of Kanban.

Kanban sorting can only be done in the same region.

After sorting successfully:

3.6 Setting of Lanes

Mouse-hovering over the lane will show more operation buttons, and you can set and delete the lane.

Set the lane to modify the name and the background color of the lane.

After successful setting:

After deleting the lane, the data in the lane will be hidden and will not be deleted.

Deleted lane can be restored in Admin--System--Data--Recycle Bin.

4. The use of Kanban

Take Requirement Kanban as an example to introduce the use of Kanban.

Bug and task Kanban is the same as Requirement Kanban, which can be used for reference.

4.1 Kanban Card Sorting View

After switching to the requirement kanban, the requirement cards in the Kanban are sorted and displayed by default. You can switch to sort by Requirement Priority, Requirement Category (Requirement Type), Requirement Module, Requirement Source, and Requirement Assigner.

When switching to sort view by assigned person：

4.2 Drag and drop cards to other columns

In the Requirement Backlog Kanban column, drag and drop the requirement card to the Ready Kanban column and release the mouse to realize it.

After dragging the card to the Ready Kanban column successfully:

4.3 Rules for displaying requirements to the Kanban column

• The created requirements are displayed in the Backlog Kanban column by default, and the requirements can be dragged and dropped between the Backlog and the Ready Kanban column.
• Requirements are displayed in the In Progress/Completed sub-column of the Development column, associated with the task status of the development type associated with the Requirement. If the development type task associated with the Requirement is in progress, the Requirement is displayed in the development In progress kanban sub-column. The Requirement will be displayed in the Completed kanban sub-column if the task has been completed.
• The Requirement is displayed in the In Progress/Completed sub-column of the Test column, associated with the task status of the test type associated with the Requirement. If the task type task associated with the Requirement is in progress, then the Requirement will be displayed in the In Progress Kanban sub-column of the test. If the task has been completed, the Requirement will be displayed in the completion Kanban sub-column.
• The requirement is displayed in the Accepted Kanban column, and if the modification stage of the completed requirement is Accepted, the requirement is displayed in the Accepted Kanban column.
• The Requirement is displayed in the Released Kanban column, and the stage of the Completed/Accepted Requirement is Released. The Requirement is displayed in the Released Kanban column.
• The Requirement is displayed in the Closed Kanban column. Click the Close Requirement button to close the Requirement, and the Requirement will be displayed in the Closed Kanban column.

The requirements are consistent with the state of the development tasks:

After the task development of the development type associated with the requirement is completed, the requirement is displayed in the Completion Kanban column.

Rules for displaying data in the Bug and Task Kanban columns:

• The display rules of Bug Kanban and Task Kanban are relatively simple. Successful creation will be displayed in the Bug Pending Confirmation and Task Not Started Kanban columns.
• Bug Kanban, bugs can be dragged and dropped from the Pending Confirmation Kanban column to the Confirmed, resolved (In Progress/Completed) Kanban column.
• Bug kanban, bugs can be dragged and dropped from the Completed kanban column to the Testing (Testing in progress / Testing complete) kanban column.
• Bug kanban, bugs can be dragged and dropped from the test (in progress/completed) kanban column to the closed kanban column.
• In the Task Kanban, it is displayed in the corresponding kanban column according to the task's status.

4.4 Requirements and Bug list data synchronized with Kanban data

The requirements and bugs under the product associated with the Kanban project, in the product requirements and bug list, some operations on the requirements and bugs will be synchronized and displayed on the Kanban.

The Kanban will also be updated to the requirements and bug list synchronously through operations such as creating and dragging to change the state.

4.5 View Kanban in full screen

Click the Full-Screen View button in the upper right corner of the Kanban to view the board on full screen.

When viewing the Kanban in full screen, you can press the Esc key to exit the whole screen.

5. The difference between professional R&D Kanban and General Kanban

ZenTao currently provides two types of Kanban: Professional R&D Kanban under the Kanban project (which is the function we introduced above) and General Kanban under the Kanban view.

General Kanban:

5.1 Different user groups

The project R&D team mainly uses professional R&D Kanban.

General Kanban is mainly suitable for managing non-R&D affairs and personal affairs.

5.2 Different functions of Kanban

Professional R&D Kanban manages projects through requirements, bugs, and task Kanban.

General Kanban can build specific workflows to manage daily affairs.

5.3 Different flexibility

The drag-and-drop of professional R&D Kanban column data is limited by status and associated data.

General Kanban is more flexible, and the Kanban column data can be dragged and dropped at will. General Kanban distinguishes private space, collaborative space, and public space.

5.4 The Similarities

Professional R&D kanban and General Kanban are used to collaborating and visually managing through Kanban.

Both can be customized through Kanban columns.