February 13, 2014 - Philly 'burbs WordPress Meetup

KanbanMichael Toppa@mtoppatoppa.com

What is Kanban?

Wikipedia: “Kanban is a method for managing knowledge work with an emphasis on just-in-time delivery while not overloading the team members. In this approach, the process, from definition of a task to its delivery to the customer, is displayed for participants to see and team members pull work from a queue.”

Why use Kanban?

❖ It helps you:

❖ keep focus on priorities

❖ for example, prioritize interruptions appropriately

❖ identify and eliminate bottlenecks in your workflow

❖ prevent your team from being overwhelmed

❖ And it doesn’t disrupt your team structure

The Imperial Palace Gardens

Kanban is about achieving flow

And minimizing waste

Step 1 - initial card wall with workflow

From “Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business"

Step 2 - put tasks on cards

Step 3 - Work-in-progress limits

Optional: capacity allocation

Optional: add buffers/queues

Optional: add swim lanes

Handling emergencies

Sizing work for Kanban

From http://flow.io/finding-the-right-task-size-in-kanban.html

When tasks are the right size…

❖ WIP limits work

❖ You have visibility into your work

❖ You have fewer bottlenecks

❖ The time to complete tasks does not vary wildly

Kanban standups

Further Reading

❖ Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business

❖ Theory of Constraints

❖ A real-life overview of Agile workflow practices (Agile is different from Lean, but can be complementary)

February 13, 2014 - Philly 'burbs WordPress Meetup

KanbanMichael Toppa@mtoppatoppa.com

Questions?