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Kanban

5 minutes 5 Questions

Kanban is an Agile methodology that focuses on applying visual project management techniques to aid in incremental and iterative development. It originated in the manufacturing industry and emphasizes the importance of managing a project's work in progress (WIP) to achieve efficient workflows. Kanb…

Guide to Kanban in Agile Project Management

Kanban is an important strategy in Agile Project Management, specifically in Incremental Iterative Development. Its main goal is to manage and improve work across human systems.

What is Kanban?
Kanban is a visual workflow management system for real-time communication of capacity and full transparency of work. Originally used in Toyota assembly lines, it has been adapted in various operational capacities including Agile Project Management.

How does it work?
Kanban uses 'cards', 'columns', and 'continuous improvement' to assist in visualizing and managing the work. The primary purpose is to balance demands with available capacity, and improve the handling of system-level bottlenecks.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Kanban
1. Always mention its visual nature: Kanban's effectiveness sprouts from its ability to make the abstract work tangible.
2. Use specific terminology: Understanding key terms like 'WIP', 'Throughput', and 'Queue' can significantly improve your answers.
3. Describe its benefits: Remember to mention that it helps in minimizing waste, controlling overburden, and ensuring work proceeds smoothly and optimally.
4. Case Examples: It can be helpful to incorporate a simple practical example of how the Kanban system can be used in real-time project management.

Mastering this concept can immensely help in your Agile Project Management course and also be applied in real-world scenarios.

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Agile Project Management - Kanban Example Questions

Test your knowledge of Kanban

Question 1

As a project manager in an organization that adopts the Kanban approach, you observe that team members are waiting long periods before tasks are ready to be worked on. What would be the most suitable action to take?

Address the bottleneck by balancing capacity and demand and adjust the work-in-progress limits. Ignore the problem and hope that the team adjusts naturally. Introduce an automated system to manage workflow. Increase the speed of the current task workforce.

Correct Answer: Address the bottleneck by balancing capacity and demand and adjust the work-in-progress limits.

The most suitable action to take when observing team members waiting long periods before tasks are ready in a Kanban approach is to address the bottleneck by balancing capacity and demand and adjusting the work-in-progress limits. This is because the delay is an indicator of a bottleneck within the process. Therefore, you should balance the capacity and demand, this means ensure that the rate of work intake equals the rate of delivery. Also, you need to adjust the work-in-progress limits. The work-in-progress limit is the maximum amount of work that can be in progress at a particular stage in the process at a given time. The reason other answers are wrong are as follows: 'Increasing the speed of the current task workforce' does not address the bottleneck, and pushing the team to work faster may lead to decreased quality and burnout. 'Introducing an automated system to manage workflow' can be useful but it is not the primary action in response to this problem. It may not solve the bottleneck issue and might create additional complexity. 'Ignoring the problem and hoping that the team adjusts naturally' is an inappropriate response as a project manager, problems should not be ignored but rather addressed proactively.

Question 2

In a Kanban project, your team is having difficulty with visualizing their workflow. What could improve this situation?

Move tasks to a spreadsheet instead Encourage team members to hide their tasks from others Randomly shuffle the order of tasks each day Eliminate deadlines Create a Kanban board with clear columns representing different stages of work Request for additional project status meetings

Correct Answer: Create a Kanban board with clear columns representing different stages of work

A Kanban board is a visual representation of a team's workflow and helps team members visualize their tasks, work-in-progress, and completed work. This allows the team to better manage its workflows. The other options don't enable a visual representation of the workflow or engage with Kanban's principles.

Question 3

Your team has been using Kanban for a while, but despite setting Work In Progress (WIP) limits for each column on the Kanban board, members are often exceeding the limits. As the Scrum Master, what would you suggest?

Introduce a system where team members have to trade tasks with each other if they want to pull a new task into a column that's at its WIP limit. This longer than the other responses should encourage careful management of workload within the existing limits while inadvertently learning the significance of WIP limits. Conduct a root cause analysis to identify why the WIP limits are being exceeded and collaboratively explore solutions with the team. Automatically move tasks back to the previous column if they exceed the WIP limit for more than two days, to enforce limits indirectly. Adjust the team's Definition of Done to include a stipulation about adhering to WIP limits, thereby integrating it into their workflow.

Correct Answer: Conduct a root cause analysis to identify why the WIP limits are being exceeded and collaboratively explore solutions with the team.

The correct approach involves understanding the root cause behind the team's difficulty in adhering to WIP limits so that a directly relevant solution can be crafted collaboratively, ensuring buy-in from the team. Adjusting the Definition of Done or enforcing task movements doesn't address why the limits are being exceeded and can lead to process circumnavigation or unnecessary overhead. Implementing a task trading system, while creative, complicates workflow management unnecessarily and doesn't directly incentivize adhering to set WIP limits.

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