DEV Community: Corki

How is Kanban Doing in 2024?

Corki — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 11:02:55 +0000

2024 is almost coming to an end. Spotify has already announced that wrapped is coming soon, and I'm waiting for the 18th State of the Agile report, it got me thinking what's the status of my favorite project management system in 2024?

Kanban continues to assert itself as a versatile, modern solution for teams needing agility and clarity. Known for its adaptability, Kanban has evolved beyond its traditional use in production to become a cornerstone in fields like software development, event planning, and marketing.

In this short article, we will quickly check up on our dear Kanban, see why is it still on top, list the most usual columns format it uses and check the emerging trends of new Kanban applications.

A Flexible Approach in Uncertain Times

Kanban’s four key principles continue to make it popular in modern project settings:

(Taken from PMP Blog)

Start with the current process – Kanban doesn’t require teams to reinvent their workflows. It builds on existing processes, allowing incremental improvements.
Encourage gradual change – Instead of implementing sweeping adjustments, Kanban integrates change in small, manageable steps.
Respect existing roles – Unlike many project methodologies, Kanban doesn’t ask team members to redefine their roles. It works to enhance what’s already in place.
Promote leadership at all levels – By giving individuals the autonomy to track and manage tasks, Kanban encourages everyone on the team to take ownership of their contributions.

These principles make Kanban an appealing choice for teams aiming to optimize their work without overhauling their structures. Kanban gives many great benefits once it's implemented. The focus on gradual, non-disruptive changes aligns Kanban with today’s demand for productivity tools that respect existing processes while maintaining innovation.

The Emerging Trend of Kanban Roadmaps

While traditional roadmaps remain common, 2024 has seen an emerging interest in Kanban roadmaps, particularly in agile-focused industries. The good people at ProKanban even declared the death of product roadmap. While sounding sensational, they are making sense. Let's see what they have to say about it.

Kanban roadmap guide

Traditional roadmaps can become rigid and out of sync with fast-paced developments, but Kanban roadmaps enable teams to make more incremental adjustments. This flexibility is especially beneficial in software development, where continuous updates, feedback, and iteration cycles are integral to the work. For example, a team working on a software project might create columns for “Backlog,” “To Do,” “In Progress,” “Testing,” and “Done” and move tasks through these stages, keeping track of immediate needs without locking into long-term commitments prematurely.

Teams in marketing, product development, and event planning are also adopting Kanban roadmaps. By grouping tasks based on real-time requirements, they can pivot quickly in response to customer feedback or market changes. This adaptability allows Kanban roadmaps to work seamlessly across departments, from creative workflows to customer-centered development.

Advanced Kanban Techniques for Enhanced Productivity

While basic Kanban boards with simple columns are still widely used, many teams have started implementing advanced Kanban techniques to elevate their project management:

Portfolio Kanban Boards manage multiple projects simultaneously, helping teams see how individual initiatives align with overall objectives.
Swimlanes group tasks within columns by category or priority, helping team members organize work based on dependencies and urgency.
Cumulative Flow Diagrams offer a real-time view of tasks across stages, identifying bottlenecks and ensuring continuous progress.

These techniques align well with the needs of larger projects that require both high-level oversight and granular detail. They also demonstrate Kanban’s scalability, as organizations can incorporate them into projects of varying complexity.

Conclusion

In 2024, Kanban proves itself as a powerful, adaptable tool for today’s fast-paced projects. Focused on clarity, flexibility, and constant improvement, Kanban empowers teams to stay agile, efficient, and ready for anything, making it a must-have in modern project management.

Managing Your Inventory With Kanban?

Corki — Sun, 26 May 2024 15:02:48 +0000

Kanban Inventory

One system shines above when used for manufacturing management purposes. Can you guess it? That's right, it's Kanban. Initially, this is where it has been applied, to industries where inventory must be managed. A study by Apreutesei 2010 has found Kanban's efficiency to be extremely effective in inventory management.

Why Does It Work?

The 6 Rules of Kanban, Source

Apreutesei excludes the 6 essential rules of Kanban that must be followed in order to set the gears in motion for Kanban

Basically, due to the visuality that the Kanban system allows you are able to see who is working on what. This enables you to be in control of the workflow and gives you an opportunity to allocate resources strategically.

A Kanban card is an essential element of the Kanban system used for managing physical inventory. Serving as a visual indicator, each card corresponds to a specific Kanban inventory item. These cards can be either physical or digital and are mainly utilized to monitor the movement and status of inventory items through different stages of the supply chain. As items progress from ordering to delivery and stocking, their corresponding Kanban cards are moved along the board, visually representing their current status in the inventory cycle.

Kanban board example with Kanban cards

You might think "This is so simple" and you wouldn't be wrong, it really is. Kanban's simplicity is exactly its superpower. By preventing overproduction and overworking, you are able to focus solely on providing quality results in an effective manner.

Kanban Prioritization

Another reason why Kanban works is the ingrained system of Kanban's prioritization. In fact, it works so well that according to a survey by LeanKit, organizations using Kanban experienced a 200% increase in productivity and a 50% reduction in lead time.

How does it even work? This is again mostly due to its visual component and WIP limits. While the visuality has been discussed, let's take a look at the WIP limits.

WIP limits allow your team's Kanban prioritization to flourish. But before WIP limits, be sure to define and establish your priority categories. You can use whatever works for you but I'll be kind and give you some established examples:

Categorical priorities :

Critical: Tasks must be done immediately to meet deadlines or deal with urgent matters.
High: Important tasks that help keep the project on schedule but aren’t as urgent.
Medium: Necessary tasks that do not have immediate deadlines but are essential for project completion.
Low: Tasks that need to be done but have the least impact on the project timeline. This approach promotes a balanced workflow. Critical tasks receive the necessary resources and attention while still progressing on less urgent tasks.

For WIP limits, use Kanban board's top indicator of how many tasks is currently being worked on. You are able to set the limit yourself.

Examples of WIP limits on a Kanban board

Kanban Inventory Management System

While it is possible to make up your own Kanban board in the physical world, it can be hard to work around this if your team needs to be online (which, usually is the case, as it's best to be updated in a second, what's happening in your inventory).

For this reason, I would recommend picking the right Kanban inventory management software. There are myriad choices which you can make so pick wisely. Be sure to do your research beforehand on what you need and what you expect this system should do. Some software do not have all the capabilities your industry might need.

Wrap Up

All in all, Kanban works great as a pull system that gives immense flexibility for you and your team to workaround the challenges of inventory management. In my humble opinion, the Kanban system remains undefeated in this area of expertise. You and your team should definitely give it a try if you've never experienced the greatness that is a Kanban system.

Kanban's Challenges in Software Project Scheduling

Corki — Mon, 20 May 2024 06:11:24 +0000

Kanban's Failing

You'd think that a simple yet advanced system like Kanban would not have any drawbacks, especially when it comes to delivering quality in a short time. Bad news, gents, here we have a recent study that has found Kanban's shortcomings when applied in software project management (SPM). Alaidoros 2018 paper on Kanban, has found that it falls short on project's progress tracking. While Kanban shines because of its WIP limitations, a bad estimation for initial WIP limits can be painful and will impact the project's progress.

Hence, even though Agile Kanban method is good in monitoring project progress by using limit WIP principle, it is still a challenge and difficult to determine the optimum WIP limits for each workflow stage in Kanban board. Therefore, there is a need to generate the optimum numbers of WIP limits.

Visualizing the workflow is also another core principle of Kanban method, which is defined as the process of highlighting the mechanisms, interactions, queues, waiting, and delays that are involved in the implementing of a part of valuable software. A Kanban board is used to visualize the workflow and monitor the project progress by showing the activities of the development process. Besides that, data such as lead time, cycle time, number of bugs, throughput, and so on, are usually shown in diagrams, affixed to the walls of the workplace, or in any case, continuously updated and made public.

Solutions??

While some have proposed that combining Scrum and Kanban will fix it (that mutant is called Scrumban), there are other ways how to tackle this situation. The lack of planning beforehand, or even worse, planning in the wrong direction will bite you in the future. That's why you should employ at least one of the ways it's possible to schedule a project.

1. Critical Path Method (CPM)
CPM helps you identify the longest sequence of dependent tasks that must be completed on time to ensure the project stays on schedule. Used in construction projects like building homes. It helps map out tasks and their dependencies to determine the crucial path. But this method lacks in projects where a lot flexibility is shown, for example in creative industries. That's why we need more solutions.

2. The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
PERT allows you to analyze the time needed to complete each project activity, considering various uncertainties and risks. t helps you manage uncertainties and risks, so you can allocate resources wisely. If, say, foundation work hits a snag, PERT lets you tweak schedules and assign extra help to keep things moving.

3. Task Schedule Software
Perhaps using task scheduling software is what you need because they have a lot of functions and high capability to ensure that your process goes smoothly. The visuality that these tools provide can be extra helpful when looking for future obstacles.

Wrap Up

Despite its shortcomings, Kanban is still one of the leading methods for software developers to work with. It is possible to work around it and achieve high results!

Developers' Success Is More Likely with Kanban

Corki — Mon, 08 Apr 2024 14:26:13 +0000

Scrum Is Over??

Both Scrum and Kanban are efficient project management frameworks, but is one better than the other? According to a statistical report, both are equal in terms of delivering successful projects but Kanban shines more in project scheduling.

It has been found that especially for smaller teams, there is a statistical significance of Kanban's efficiency. Kanban reduces planning overhead and works well for teams where members have specialized roles and different skill sets.

If you're guessing what makes it so efficient, take a look at a real-life Kanban board made from sticky notes (this is how it all began). A Kanban board is instantly recognizable due to its simple and practical flow.

Figure produced by Matthew Hodgson, under the Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license

The visual flow of this board allows team members to be aware of their own tasks, their teammates’ tasks and the status of the whole project.

Limitations = Productive Focus

Where does this efficiency come from? It actually comes from certain limitations, which allow to see the scope and the current progress of the project more clearly.

Kanban Work In Progress (WIP) limits are key to controlling the quality of work. Each step in a Kanban System can have a limit, showing how many Kanban cards can be in that step at the same time. In short, this is time-waste protection. The lower the limit is higher the throughput becomes! Having WIPs is one of the main qualities a board needs to have to be called a Kanban board.

Most Kanban boards visualize WIP limits as numbers next to the column name

Another safeguard against wasteful multitasking is implementing work item queues to prevent items from jumping ahead of each other while in the process. This is the essential safeguard against “shiny object syndrome“. Right-most and top-most items are the most important ones and should be finished first.

Priorities and Urgencies

To ensure consistent workflow, before starting up a new task make sure the backlog of tasks is reviewed and taken up only when your team's resources allow it. Usually, these tasks will share two qualities: urgency and straightforwardness.

Prioritization is another way to guarantee project success. How does Kanban prioritize? By using swimlanes. Kanban board swimlanes are the rows on the real-life sticky note Kanban board. Those rows allow you to define the tasks by visual separation. This increases documentation power for the board and tidily groups tasks according to specific classification criteria. This will reduce jumping inside the queues. Each queue also has a priority – the ones on top are the most important. It's a very helpful feature due to its intuitive visuality.

Classic example of swimlanes in action (the three rows)

Wrap Up

Elements like these are the reason why Kanban is so efficient in scheduling and delivering projects. Visual workflows help see and foresee the status of the project, adjust and react accordingly. Rarely a project is delivered steadily with no setbacks. You will encounter problems but to solve them swiftly, use a system like Kanban, designed to adapt and overcome.

Do you still use Scrum over Kanban? I would be interested to hear your arguments down below!