Visualize your workflow
- Your work is displayed on a board so that you have a clear overview of your project
- Each column represents a step in your workflow
Limit your work in progress
- Encourages focus by avoiding multitasking
- Each phase can have work-in-progress limits
- Limits help identify bottlenecks
- Limits help avoid working on too many tasks at the same time
Kanban uses lead and cycle times to measure performance:
- Lead time: Time between task creation and completion
- Cycle time: Time between task start and completion
For example, you may have a lead time of 100 days but only have to work 1 hour to complete the task.
Kanban vs Todo lists
Todo lists
- Single phase (just a list of items)
- Multitasking possible (not efficient)
Kanban
- Multiple phases, each column represents a step
- Bring focus and avoid multitasking by setting a work-in-progress limit per column
Kanban vs Scrum
Scrum
- Sprints are time-boxed, usually 2 or 4 weeks
- Do not allow changes during the iteration
- Estimation is required
- Uses velocity as default metric
- Scrum board is cleared between sprints
- Scrum has pre-defined roles like scrum master, product owners and the team
- A lot of meetings: planning, backlogs grooming, daily stand-up, retrospective
Kanban
- Continuous flow
- Changes can be made at any time
- Estimation is optional
- Use lead and cycle time to measure performance
- Kanban board is persistent
- Kanban doesn’t impose strict constraints or meetings; the process is more flexible
Usage Examples
You can customize your boards according to your business activities:
Software development
- Backlog
- Ready
- Work-in-progress
- To be validated
- Validated
- Deployed in production
Bug Tracking
- Reported
- Confirmed
- Work-in-progress
- Tested
- Fixed
Sales
- Leads
- Meeting
- Proposal
- Purchase
Lean Business Management
- Ideas
- Development
- Measure
- Analysis
- Done
Recruiting Process
- Job offers
- Candidates
- Phone screens
- Interviews
- Hires
Online Shops
- Orders
- Packaging
- Ready to send
- Shipped
Manufactory
- Customer Orders
- Assembly
- Tests
- Packaging
- Ready to ship
- Shipped