Kanban is a method used for managing the creation of products with large emphasis laid on continual delivery while making not overwhelming the developmental team with much work. Kanban is similar to Scrum in that both are designed to help people work together as a team to achieve better results.
The secret to Kanban accomplishing this by strictly following the flow of value. You have to acknowledge that what you are after is value if what is being sent to you isn’t valuable, then the whole Kanban flow is useless to you. Kanban has the immense ability to refocus your brain to what is important; value finishing over starting
Stop starting and start finishing!
Basic principles of Kanban.
To understand it better, Kanban will help you:
- Organize chaos that might arise due to many teams making deliveries by prioritization.
- Discover work flow and process issues so that you can resolve the issues and deliver to your clients more consistently.
Most developers do not value this term and it is very important. This is why Kanban principle is built around results and not just starting. Kanban reminds you to stop starting and start finishing!
To be successful with this methodology, you will need to know and practice the following principles.
- Start with what you do now: one of the unique features of Kanban is that it doesn’t dictate to you where to start or how to go about the procedure. Kanban is to be merged into your work as you can easily inscribe Kanban properties on top of your existing workflow or process to bring your issues to light so that you can introduce positive change over time. Implementation is thus easier with Kanban as you don’t have to change everything.
- Only go after increase: Kanban method is designed to help you change your approach to management. It encourages continuous increase even if it is little as that will make evolutionary changes to your current system. Kanban doesn’t encourage mass changes as that will be met with resistance due to fear or sometimes uncertainty.
- Respect the laid down process: Kanban recognizes that there is an existing pattern or process of handling things and some of those processes are worthy and deserve keeping. Kanban doesn’t prohibit change, but it doesn’t prescribe it either. Kanban only encourages incremental changes as those are the type of changes that will bring about progress for the team. Small course corrections are also just inherently easier than altering the complete process.
- Leadership should be embraced at all levels: this is the latest principle of Kanban. Kanban doesn’t need you to be a team leader to actually lead a team. Usually, the best leadership comes from everyday acts and decisions and you can definitely take that role. Kanban encourages everyone to have a mindset of continuous growth and improvement and that will help the company or organization reach its peak potential.
- Visualize the workflow: The workflow helps you know what needs to be done. The primary goal of Kanban is to bring about positive changes to optimize the flow of work through the system. The positive changes can only come to fruition if you fully understand the workflow and aspire to improve it by making needed changes. There are several methods you can use in visualizes your workflow such as the use of cards.
- Having a limit to work in progress: This allows for a lot of progress with the team. Each part of the workflow is restricted and this increases efficiency.
- Manage the workflow: The main reason for implementing Kanban is to bring about positive change in the system. If the workflow isn’t managed, then the whole point of Kanban is defeated. You figure that out by looking at how value is currently flowing through the system, analyzing problem areas in which value flow is stalled and defining, then implementing, changes. Kanban is a journey that never really ends and it will help a lot if it is properly managed at each point.
- Explain the processes clearly: You can’t improve what you don’t understand. The whole process needs to be properly defined, published and explained explicitly. If the system isn’t understood, then the work can’t be done more efficiently. If they are understood, then the choices will be more rational, empirical, objective discussion of issues.
Benefits of Kanban.
There are several advantages to using Kanban:
- Faster delivery of assignments.
- Responsiveness to Change.
- Kanban effectively deals with shifts or changes in priority.
- Requires fewer organization to get started.
- Removes activities that don’t add value to the team.
- Instant feedback which gives the opportunity to fix and improve loopholes within the system.
Overall, Kanban is an effective way of organizing your team so as to get effective results.
