1. WORKING WITH KANBAN
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KANBAN is Japanese word for “visual signal” or “card.” Toyota line-workers used a Kanban
(i.e., an actual card) to signal steps in their manufacturing process.
CHANTHORN KIM (CK) | PRODUCT OWNER | CHANTHORN.KIM@HOTMAIL.COM
2. HISTORY KANBAN?
In the late 1940s, Toyota found a better engineering process from an unlikely
source: the supermarket. They noticed that store clerks restocked a grocery
item by their store’s inventory, not their vendor’s supply. Only when an item
was near sellout did the clerks order more.
The grocers’ “just-in-time” delivery process sparked Toyota engineers to
rethink their methods and pioneer a new approach — a Kanban system —
that would match inventory with demand and achieve higher levels of
quality and throughput.
3. CORE PRINCIPLES
There are 4 principles of KANBAN:
❏ Visualize Works
❏ Making works visible
❏ Bottlenecks & queue
❏ Limit Work in Progress
❏ Limit unfinished works / Reduce work item travel time / Avoid task switching
❏ Reduce the need to constantly re-prioritize items
❏ Focus on Flow
❏ Focus on team works flow (Principles 1 & 2)
❏ Pay attentions on interruptions in flow
❏ Continuous Improvement
❏ Constant monitoring and analysis to look for the next best way to improve
❏ Lean Mindset: Thinking of any activity and seeing the waste inadvertently
generated by the way the process is organized by focusing on the concepts
of: Value, Value streams, Flow, Pull, Perfection.
5. WORKS VISUALIZATION (WORKFLOW)
How do we visualized our workflow?
❏ Gather all of team members and run a workshop session (1h min)
❏ Work as a team to map out the current workflow
❏ There are some elements that you may raise up during the session:
❏ Definition of Done
❏ Where does the work come from?
❏ What step or process does it takes takes to complete a task?
❏ Where does it end?
❏ Finally, review the workflow after done the mapping and get everyone
agreed.
What is the result?
❏ A mapped workflow and agreed by your team.
❏ Workflow can be various from basic to complex depend on your team
works situation
9. WORKS VISUALIZATION (BOARD)
Base on the flow, you can then design the complex KANBAN Board.
TODO ESTIMATE TODO INPROGRESS TESTING DEPLOY DONE
10. WORKS VISUALIZATION (BOARD - LANE)
You may consider of using lane if there are different priority issues: eg: 1 -
Urgent/important, 2 - Normal
TODO ESTIMATE TODO INPROGRESS TESTING DEPLOY DONE
1
2
11. LIMIT WORK IN PROGRESS
There are some rules you can apply to your team such as:
❏ Little’s Law tells us that the less WIP, the shorter the cycle time. So, single
item flow (WIP=1) may be the ideal for speedy delivery. However, often this
isn’t practical and could end up being too restrictive.
❏ 2 items per person (or pair if pair-programming)
This is a common limit, aiming to keep WIP low, while still allowing some
flexibility for when items get blocked.
❏ n-1
Setting a WIP limit one under the number of team members is a common way
to encourage swarming and greater collaboration by forcing team members
to work together.
12. LIMIT WORK IN PROGRESS
❏ Start with what you do now
Often the best, and simplest, approach is to simply start with, or close to,
what you already do now. So, if you team currently has 12 items in
development at once, start with WIP=12. Or if the team feels ready, maybe
go with WIP=10. Either way, the goal should be to observe the impact on the
system and then adjust as needed.
13. FOCUS ON WORKFLOW
❏ The workflow are implemented as a Team so team must
focus to the workflow
❏ Pay attentions on interruptions in flow purposely to gain
opportunities to improve the Virtualization and Process.
14. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT (SCRUM)
How do we Inspect?
❏ Run Weekly / Bi-Weekly Retrospective
Continuously to:
❏ Remove Blocking/Waste Process
❏ Improve Definition of Done
❏ Improve Workflow & Visualization (KANBAN Board)
