Five practices of Lean Kanban Management

  1. Limiting work-in-process: Accelerates flow, exposes problems, and stimulates collaboration
  2. Manage the flow of value: Identify and deal with problems and blockages in a timely and effective manner to keep the team running smoothly
  3. Establish measurement system and continuous improvement: guide deep improvement and progressive evolution
  4. Visualize value Streams: Visualize end-to-end user value, implementation, and delivery processes
  5. Explicit rules: Establish a baseline for team collaboration and improvement

Apply iterative Kanban

Use Kanban as the team’s first tool for managing and tracking daily work items!

All tasks, problems, and risks are visualized on kanban.

Will stand

  • At the same time
  • The same place
  • Fixed length

Before the meeting: Make sure kanban reflects the latest status and issues

The assembly:

  • bottleneck
  • interrupt
  • Focus on the needs
  • Thwarted demand
  • Requirements that are already due or will soon be due
  • The need for a long time without progress
  • Problems not shown on kanban

After the meeting: small discussion of problems that will take a long time to solve

The purpose of the station is to clarify information and identify problems

  • Not just to PO and DM, but to all members
  • Stand in a circle, not too far apart, so everyone can see everyone else, and make it loud
  • If the members are shy and do not express themselves adequately, DM will mobilize everyone to speak out
  • Make full use of the kanban. Everyone should point to the corresponding card on the kanban and update the information in time.

Kanban management

How do different types of kanban management work?

Both development delivery and quick response to production problems or other tasks

  1. For R&D and operations support, it is profoundly possible to distinguish two different value streams (i.e., processes) on a single kanban
  2. A team of two projects, or responsible for r & D and incident response at the same time, different projects/teams, or different nature of the work items on the kanban horizontal underlined up and down, clear at a glance different types of work
  3. Different types of work are separated by different color cards
  4. During iteration planning, reserve appropriate manpower for handling production incidents

Too many teams working in parallel? Long completion cycle

  1. The development and test columns set the WIP to limit the number of concurrent work items for the team at different stages. You are advised to set the WIP to N+1, that is, the WIP developed is the number of developers +1. The WIP of the test is the number of participants +1.
  2. Limit the number of concurrent tasks per person with avatars: maximum 2 or 3 avatars per person to the story or task you are currently working on. If you run out of avatars and can’t start new work, focus on finishing.

How to clearly manage and track everyone’s tasks?

Currently, Agile tools only manage stories

2. Two options:

  • Do not split missions – story cards are tracked in kanban, if multiple people cooperate on a story card, stick multiple heads on the card
  • Split tasks – Story cards are tracked in kanban, DM or the story owner split the multi-task cards, each task card with a picture (not in tools to manage tasks, kanban management is easier and flexible)

Tasks can be split according to front-end, back-end, test case, joint investigation, etc

If you split tasks, fill in the plan to complete the practice in each task card.

3. DM should pay attention to identify stories or tasks that stay in one state for too long (blocking), find the reasons, and speed up the flow; Or note the percentage of completion or remaining practice on the card.

How do development tests collaborate based on Kanban?

  1. On kanban, top-down story cards are prioritized, and development and testing work in that order
  2. Based on the order of priority, the test case should be written as early as possible before the development of each story card, throughout the life of the development.
  3. For each story card, at the beginning of development, fill in the card with “Plan to test practice”. Make it easier for tests to anticipate and schedule their work so that all testing activities don’t end up at the end of the iteration.
  4. From development to test status, be sure to manifest the transferable test standards, prominently posted on the kanban board; Also visualization for test to test completion of DOD;

Incomplete information on kanban, not much use?

  1. Kanban shows what each role is currently working on, including PO, development, and testing
  2. Principle: everyone’s work should be reflected in kanban!
  3. Information that needs to be updated on kanban includes:
  • The story card
  • Task card (optional)
  • Label the current work item for each person (avatar)
  • Note which cards have open defects
  • Label which cards have external dependencies (risk)
  • Team improvement items
  • Problems and risks to follow up

Information on kanban is not updated in time

  1. Establish team discipline by requiring everyone to update his/her billboard at least at the end of the day or before the station meeting
  2. For the newly formed team, DM should remind everyone to update every day, or ask everyone to set a reminder on their computer
  3. Or the team can establish a duty system and take shifts every week to maintain kanban information
  4. At the station meeting, everyone points to the card he is responsible for and tells the progress. If the progress is inconsistent with the board, adjust it immediately.

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