Working with Kanban boards

How to create a Kanban Board explained in 5 easy steps:

Step 1: Visualize your workflow

To create a Kanban Board, get a whiteboard, then break down the flow of work from the moment you start it to when it's finished into distinctive steps and draw a column for each.

Step 2: Identify the types of work you do

Decide what kinds of work items you are usually working on. These may be, for example, customer orders, support requests, or maintenance tasks. Assign a distinctive color to each of them, and get a bunch of sticky notes in these colors.

Step 3: Write down tasks on cards and place them on the board

Write down each thing you are working on on a separate color-coded sticky note, and put it onto the board into the respective column. The order of cards in each column should represent their relative priority, with the most urgent ones at the top.

Step 4: Start working with your Kanban board

Work on tasks starting with the ones at the top. When a task is ready to be moved to the next column, place it at its bottom. Such a method of working will help to maintain a high flow of work on your board.

Step 5: Improve the flow of work

Kanban is all about maintaining a high and consistent flow of work. With your board, you should be able to see the overview of work status and instantly identify any problems or bottlenecks. No work item should lag behind, and columns should not be overloaded with tasks. The most straightforward technique to ensure consistent flow is limiting work in progress.

Limiting Work In Progress means placing a limit (WIP limit) on the capacity of a column on a Kanban Board. For example, you may decide that you should not be working on more than two things at once. So once you have more than two items in a column, you stop accepting new ones and focus all your efforts on getting at least one item from this overgrown column done first. Limiting WIP helps to keep in check the number of unfinished things you have on your plate, before accepting new ones. Keep in mind that Kanban Boards are part of a larger Kanban method, which offers many other techniques to keep the work flowing.