Effective project management is essential to the success of any organization. By handling projects strategically, you can ensure that resources are used efficiently, goals are met on time, and outcomes align with organizational objectives. To achieve this, the Kanban technique can provide the support you need.
Kanban offers tools for clear planning, prioritization, and communication throughout projects, helping your teams stay focused, adapt to challenges, and deliver high-quality results. If you’re new to this technique and are unsure what Kanban is or how to use it to optimize project flow, this article is for you.
In this article, I will explain the basics of Kanban operation, how it can benefit your projects and the best practices for enhancing project flow. At the end, you’ll also learn how to create a Kanban board for yourself and your team.
What Is Kanban?
Kanban is a method for visually managing tasks as they move through different stages of a process. The term “Kanban” was originally developed by Toyota in the 1950s, when employees used cards (kanban) to indicate when parts were needed, ensuring a smooth, demand-driven flow of materials. It helped the company minimize waste and overproduction.
- Related Reading: History of Kanban: How Toyota Started Kanban
Beyond manufacturing, kanban has become popular in agile project management, especially in software development, where tasks are visualized on a board and divided into stages like To Do, In Progress, and Done. Each task is represented by a card that moves across these stages, allowing teams to monitor workload and identify bottlenecks at a glance.
Kanban boards are a major part of this process as they hold these progress cards and help teams manage work-in-progress (WIP) by limiting the number of tasks at each stage, ensuring that new tasks only enter when there’s capacity.
Enhance Operation Flow with Kanban
Kanban is an effective technique that you can use to optimize your operation flow. It helps you organize the stages clearly so you can make a plan beforehand and move through them. However, there are certain things that you need to consider to get maximum results out of this method:
Start with Basics
While your project might be complex, your boards shouldn’t be. Limit your boards to only basic columns like To Do, In Progress, and Done to keep your workflow optimized. Depending on your operation, you can also add columns such as Ready for Review or Waiting on Approval.
Write each task on a card with details like task description, deadlines, and responsible team members for additional clarity. This way, each task has a clear owner and status.
Define Work-in-Progress (WIP) Limits
Set a maximum number of tasks allowed in each column to prevent team members from overloading themselves. This way, members must complete their ongoing tasks before starting new ones because the capacity needs to be available.
This can help your team members improve their focus on their tasks, avoid any delays in the updates, and also keep moving smoothly through each stage.
Prioritize Tasks Clearly
Arrange tasks in each column by priority so team members know which tasks to tackle first. You can arrange these by order (High-priority tasks should be at the top of each column), use color-coded cards or labels for different priority levels, or even set statuses with color codes to make it easy to see what needs immediate attention.
This prioritizing within Kanban helps you get clear insights into the progress of key tasks so you can allocate resources effectively.
Monitor and Measure Workflow
Once your board is fully organized, keep an eye on how the tasks move through the board and identify patterns.
For example, you could monitor at which stage the tasks are getting delayed or how long it takes for a task to move from one column to another.
To do this, you can also arrange quick meetings to discuss the board, where you get insights, and team members can offer support to one another and discuss roadblocks effectively. Once you identify these patterns, you can take the necessary steps to improve the efficiency of the operation.
Improve Continuously
Kanban is a regular process, so ensure that you take some time out to improve your board continuously. The improvement should be based on regular reviews and insights that you have. Also, If your workflow changes, adapt the Kanban board to reflect any new stages or task types, keeping the board relevant to your evolving operation.
How to Make a Kanban Board
EdrawMind, an intuitive mind mapping and work management app, makes creating a Kanban board easy.
EdrawMind has a straightforward UI that makes it easy to set up and manage Kanban boards, even for individuals who are new to this methodology. With EdrawMind, you can efficiently visualize your workflow, track job progress, and improve team cooperation.
Let’s go through some of the EdrawMind’s key features in terms of explaining Kanban functionality:
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- Personalized boards: Create boards that adhere to the project workflow and guarantee team protocol compliance.
- Drag-and-drop: It is possible to drag and drop the tasks from column to column, which will help the user know the task's current status.
- Task details: Every task management task involves certain details like descriptions, timelines, and urgency levels, which are important for the particular task to be effective.
- Collaboration tools: Share your Kanban boards with other team members so everyone is on the same page and visibility is present for all project phases.
Visit EdrawMind here to start creating your project management kanban. Note that the Kanban feature is available only in the premium version of EdrawMind. It is recommended that you upgrade to make all the features and the potential for improving project management efficiency available to you.
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