Guide to Kanban

What is Kanban?

Kanban is a visual workflow management tool originating from the Toyota Production System. It is an agile framework often used in software development processes to manage work in progress (WIP) levels and to increase efficiency.

The important components of a typical Kanban board are:

• To Do: These are tasks that need to be executed.
• In Progress: These are tasks that are being worked on.
• Done: These are tasks that have been completed.

Importance of Kanban

Kanban is important as it can help teams visualize their workflow, limit work in progress, and effectively identify and manage bottlenecks. This leads to improved productivity, efficiency, and quality.

How Does Kanban Work?

The core mechanism of Kanban is to pull work from a backlog as capacity permits rather than tasks being assigned. This follows the principle of demand-based flow, ensuring that team members are never overloaded with tasks beyond their capacity.
WIP limits are set to ensure the team focuses on a limited set of tasks at any given time, reducing waste from multitasking and ensuring quality.

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Kanban

• Understand the Fundamentals: Be able to define Kanban and explain how it works, including the role of visualizing work, limiting work in progress, managing flow, explicitly setting policies, and implementing feedback loops.
• Practical Understanding: Be able to discuss how Kanban might be implemented in a real-world scenario, such as in a software development team or in managing any kind of project.
• Examples: Be prepared to give examples of Kanban principles in action. If possible, draw from your own experience, or otherwise, draw from common use-cases of the Kanban method.