How to create a Kanban Board

How to Create a Kanban Board: A Practical Guide

Visualization of your workflow is one of the primary practices of Kanban. A good Kanban board helps you track your progress and spot blockage points in your workflow at a glance. This transparency will enable you to improve your work stages, your workload, and your efficiency. However, if you search for Kanban board examples, most of the time they are not a good fit for your specific needs, especially if you are working in a non-IT area.

How to design your Kanban board

The very first Change Management Principle of Kanban states, “start with what you do now.” However, this can be overwhelming if you own multiple different types of projects and tasks. 

Recommended for you: Kanban Foundations online course

It’s always a good idea to collaborate with your team members and utilize the group’s wisdom. A quick guided brainstorming session will help you gather the information you need, so you can reflect this on your board effectively and creatively. Keep in mind that the board will be an essential part of your working day, and it needs to be updated regularly by your team members. That’s why it’s crucial to come up with a board that is easy to understand and update. If you overcomplicate things, it will have a negative impact on efficiency and discourage your team members from using it correctly. However, don’t worry if you don’t get it perfect the first time: creating a Kanban board is an iterative process and you will be able to improve it over time. 

Step 1: Ask the key questions

Before starting to lay down your daily tasks and processes, first, align on some key questions.

  • For whom are we designing the board? Is it only for our internal purposes, or will our stakeholders also benefit from it? 
  • What are the most critical points for us? What do we want to see with the first look? The workload? The blockers? Status of individual tasks?
  • How detailed shall the individual cards be?
  • How frequently are we going to update the board? As soon as a task changes the status or is it acceptable for us to update it daily?

Kanban online course

Step 2: Discuss the processes and tasks

After aligning on those answers, you can move on to the next step and start talking about your processes and tasks. Ask everyone to think and write about their steps after a task appears.

  • Where do you collect information and the tasks?
  • Are there any waiting points? Any approvals? Any dependencies where you can see patterns?
  • Do you have team members who have different roles? 

Depending on the nature of your tasks, you may have different steps. It will be easy if you draw a flowchart. If you are a customer care team, your flowchart is probably similar to this one:

Step 3: Group the tasks and start to visualize the process

You may want to group some of the steps under a single column. One thing to keep in mind, avoid back and forth travel of the tickets. They need to always flow in one direction. If you’re going to visualize the status of each customer request, your board can look like this:

You can choose different colors for different people and use initials or avatars to indicate the task owner. It’s also another Kanban practice to limit the work in progress (WIP), to finish the tasks at a certain pace without creating a crowd in specific steps. Monitoring the times of the individual cards will help you to improve your cycle and lead times.

Recommended for you: Make the process fun with the Kanban Pizza Game

If all your team members are doing their tasks in a similar pattern, it’s easier to visualize this. But if you have different responsibilities within your team, recommend grouping them. For example, you may use different “swimlanes” for different roles or subteams. 

It’s also possible to create consecutive blocks, which is helpful if your tasks are more complex and need to be segmented. 

It’s a good practice to indicate blocked items, for example with a different card color or with an extra marker, as indicated below.

You don’t always have to use columns and rows. You can get creative and design your board as it will suit you best. Let’s say it’s essential for you to see the distribution of the workload for equally important, parallel tasks. In that case, a pie chart may represent your workflow better than a table would. 

Of course, you may combine them, too. If you can utilize physical boards or walls, it will give you more flexibility compared to a standard tool like Jira or Trello.

Download our free Miro templates to copy and modify for your needs.

Want to learn more about Kanban?

Kanban is a workflow management system that can help you visualize, streamline, and improve on your processes in the workplace. But there’s more to it than simply creating a board. Learn about it in our Kanban Foundations online course, or take a look at our webinars, which cover a broad range of topics on Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and just about anything else that relates to improving the workplace. There are also a number of agile42 training options, both in-person and remotely, which can transform the way you work: 

If you need some more help getting your team started in Kanban methods, check out our Kanban Start-Up Package, which includes dedicated in-person coaching as well as Kanban training. 

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Step up your Kanban game

With the growth of knowledge work, such as professional services, creative industries and the design of physical and software products, there is a growing interest in managing work using the Kanban method. The focus of Kanban is the delivery of services by an organization – one or more people collaborating to produce (usually intangible) work products. Even where there is a physical product from services, value resides less in the physical item itself, and more in its informational content (the software, in the most general sense).

The method is based on the concept of a kanban system – a delivery flow system that controls the amount of work in progress using visual signals. The challenge is moving from a so-called “Proto-Kanban”, where teams just put work items on a board, towards a true Kanban organization.

A number of agile42 coaches are Accredited Kanban Trainers (AKTs) from the Lean Kanban University and will deliver training classes in the upcoming weeks that put the participants on the path to be certified as Kanban Management Professionals (KMP). The KMP I class is the first step toward the credential showing you have had top quality Kanban training in order to launch and manage Kanban initiatives.

In this round of classes we meet our future KMPs in new locations, including our first ever certified Kanban training in Rome and in Toronto:

and more dates available soon. Students from KMP I classes can proceed to the KMP II class that delivers the KMP certification. At the moment we have one class scheduled, with more to be organized later in the year:

As always, check our full list of training classes for an opportunity near you.

Lean Kanban Benelux 2016 Conference

The Lean Kanban Benelux conference is part of the series of Lean Kanban conferences which are organized around the world by Lean Kanban Inc. to support organisations in adopting Modern Management Methods. agile42 has sponsored many of these conferences and this was the case as well this year for the Lean Kanban Benelux 2016 edition.

Lean Kanban Benelux 2016 Sponsor T-Shirt

Are you interesed in Kanban? On November 28 and 29 agile42 is organising a Kanban System Design (KMP I) training in Amsterdam.

 Lean Kanban Benelux 2016

The day started with the keynote by Erik Jan Kaak, a Dutch man living abroad in Austria for 29 years, but who grew up near the conference location. He shared his experiences as a CIO of Blizzard Ski and Tecnica Group. The title of his keynote was: “To turn your product into a service, you need to turn your service into a product“.

Keynote

By taking advantage of continuous delivery organisations can offer new functionality frequently and in controlled increments, in order to manage risks. Unfortunately for them Internet-of-Things (IoT) projects often have different requirements in comparisson to pure software projects. Which is why it is not always practical to deliver continiously when harware elements come into play. But you still want to control risk and create focus, so how do you do that?

By using the latest state of the art elements from Smart Factories you can create a lot of flexibility automation you can get releativelt close to the advantages continious delivery offers. There are companies who are using single piece 3D print production techniques to deliver to customers imediately This is hapening on a small scale, but the technology is improving fast and China and the US are already taking advantage of this. The European market is surpisingly far behind on this.

After the keynote the attendees could choose various sessions in three program tracks, ranging from Kanban for Portfolio management to various case studies and kanban simulation games.

Deelnemers aan de agile42 Kanban Lego Game

Gaetano Mazzanti and Niels Verdonk of agile42 were present to run the lastest version of the new agile42 Kanban game: de Kanban Lego Game. This game builds on the elements of the popular agile42 Kanban Pizza Game. De Kanban Pizza Game is often used to introduce Kanban, however the Kanban Lego Game is targetted at provinding deeper insights in the Kanban principles and practices.

agile42 Kanban KMP I competitie

During the conference attendees could win a free pass to the Kanban System Design (KMP I) training in Amsterdam by agile42. The happy winner was: Martijn van Asseldonk, congrats!

 

Agile Business Day e novità certificazione Kanban

Sabato prossimo, 17 settembre, parteciperemo a Venezia alla prima edizione dell’Agile Business Day. La giornata purtroppo è già tutta esaurita ma abbiamo avuto notizia che buona parte del programma e in particolare le nostre presentazioni saranno disponibili in streaming live sul canale YouTube di Ca’ Foscari.

Parlerò alle 10:55 su Organizzazione e processi si possono cambiare in una notte. Le teste no. La maggior parte delle iniziative di cambiamento falliscono. Sono due le ragioni principali, trascurare il peso e l’inerzia della cultura aziendale, e l’illusione di poter raggiungere un punto di arrivo predefinito, lavorando solo sui processi e sull’organizzazione, magari copiando struttura e “pratiche” di altre aziende. Nella talk si esaminerà in breve il secondo punto ma il focus principale sarà sul primo.

Proseguendo su questo approccio, con l’occasione siamo molto felici di annunciare il primo corso Kanban in Italia certificato dalla Lean Kanban University (LKU). Soddisfa i requisiti KMP I (Kanban Management Professional I) e abilita a frequentare il corso KMP II al termine del quale è possibile ottenere la Certificazione di Kanban Management Professional.

Il corso KMP I si svolgerà a Milano il 10 e 11 novembre 2016. Come senior coach agile42 e unico Accredited Kanban Trainer nonché unico Kanban Coaching Professional italiano terrò in prima persona le due giornate di training, per un numero limitato di partecipanti. Il prezzo promozionale Early Bird, di € 600 + IVA per persona, è valido fino all’11 ottobre prossimo. Contattaci per ogni informazione aggiuntiva e per la partecipazione di gruppi di persone della stessa azienda (molto consigliato per le dinamiche di team).

Molte aziende si scontrano con problemi quali ritardi, piani sconvolti da attività non pianificate e emergenze continue, lentezza a reagire, persone sempre in sovraccarico, qualità non adeguata e clienti insoddisfatti. Vi suona familiare? Venite al corso e portate i vostri problemi e le vostre domande!

Talk at Lean Kanban North America 2016

Together with Kevin Tidball I will present a session “Coaching Opposing Sides: A Transformation Journey” at Lean Kanban North America in the Techniques Track on May 17th. LKNA16 will be hosted at the Catamaran Resort Hotel and Spa in San Diego, California.

Lean Kanban North America 2016

 

The session is about managing a large program where the organization is in the midst of Agile transition. There are some Scrum teams and many traditionally managed resource pools. How do you manage a large program when there are incremental and iterative agile teams that are working alongside traditionally managed resource pools? Using a magic wand to wish all traditionalists will start “being scrummified” auto-magically is not an option. How do you work through the real-world challenges? Can evolutionary change “habits” trigger changes in both traditionalists and scrum-mers?

The session is about discussing our journey, practices and Kanban method principles that have enabled us to operationally manage complexity of program management that is indifferent to the actual project delivery mechanism (scrum or traditional) used by individual teams. In this session we do not trivialize the people challenges of negotiating organizational change and managing a challenging program that is intended to spin-off an entirely new insurance company.

This is a narrative style talk, where we will walk through our journey. As an external coach, I will be presenting major challenges and steps/mis-steps. We will share our evolutionary change-management philosophical approach in working with people who are on opposing sides regarding their affinity and understanding of Agile. We will explain guiding principles and provide examples of practices that we employed to increase program level transparency and improve accountability for overall program. We will share our artifacts and flow oriented measurements that have helped us to drive program level results and make realistic trade-off decisions for overall program success.

While it is tempting to ask for the end-state as a solution that applies to all situations, we hope to illuminate the importance of coaching and getting people on board to truly internalize and operationalize significant change in its habits and procedures. Evolutionary coaching approach triggered many unintended dominos and people found new ownership in overall program objectives took this over and beyond our expectations.

Hope to see you in San Diego, we will post further impressions after the event.

Workshop PMI Lean/Kanban Portfolio Management, Milano 9 maggio 2015

Sabato prossimo sarò ospite del PMI® Northern Italy Chapter per un workshop dal titolo “Dialoghi con… Gaetano Mazzanti: Lean/Kanban Portfolio Management”. La giornata si svolgerà a Milano sabato 9 maggio 2015 presso il SIAM in via Santa Marta 18 dalle 9 alle 17:30.

Obiettivo del workshop è introdurre i partecipanti ai principi e alle pratiche Lean/Kanban e alla loro applicazione al Portfolio Management. Si vedrà come l’approccio Lean/Kanban consente di affrontare in modo trasparente i problemi del bilanciamento e della distribuzione del carico di lavoro, della selezione dei progetti e iniziative da avviare, della massimizzazione del valore generato ottenendo maggiore rapidità e qualità. Saranno inoltre illustrati strumenti quali Lean Project Canvas e tecniche alternative di stima, monitoraggio e previsione.

Maggiori dettagli sono disponibili nella brochure da scaricare. Purtroppo la sala è già al completo, per maggiori informazioni potete contattare il sito dell’associazione all’indirizzo www.pmi-nic.org, sezione Eventi.

Organizzeremo al più presto altri eventi a Milano, contattateci.

All videos from Lean Kanban Southern Europe 2014

Lean Kanban Southern Europe 2014 has been a great success in Bologna on May 30th. A packed room of attendees that gathered in the Italian town to listen to the top presenters of the Lean and Kanban movement – and they also played Kanban Pizza Game with agile42 coaches!

agile42, as the organising sponsor of the event, has produced video recordings of all session that you can watch here (using a YouTube playlist) or in a specific page together with slides.

agile42 invites you to Lean Kanban Southern Europe 2014

We are happy to welcome the Lean Kanban global conference series to Italy! The Lean Kanban Southern Europe conference brings together professionals who realize the value of Lean thinking. This is the event for technology managers, business leaders, and change agents who want to build quality, predictable delivery, and a culture of continuous improvement into their organizations.

Part of the Lean Kanban global conference series, it’s been scheduled on a one-day format that will accommodate networking and participation from a diverse set of attendees.

The program is under development but already includes David J Anderson, Bjarte Bogsnes, Jabe Bloom, Joakim Sundén and many other speakers. This will also include the Lightning Talk presenters that are replying to our ongoing Call for Participation. Join us to share your experience on stage!

Looking forward to seeing you in Bologna on May 30!

Evento Lean Kanban in Italia il 30 maggio

Abbiamo il piacere di invitare al primo evento in Italia dedicato a Lean Kanban organizzato sotto l’egida della prestigiosa Lean-Kanban University. Lean Kanban Southern Europe 2014: Modern Managament Methods si terrà a Bologna il 30 maggio per una platea internazionale con la partecipazione dei migliori speaker internazionali che promuovono i valori Lean e il Kanban Method.

È la prima volta che questa conferenza si tiene in Italia ed è un’occasione unica per ascoltare e incontrare personaggi di rilievo mondiale. La conferenza è stata organizzata in una giornata singola, in una location facilmente raggiungibile, per consentire di partecipare e godere di personalità di discussione e networking con un gruppo limitato.

Tra gli speaker:

  • David J Anderson, punto di riferimento della comunità Lean Kanban e autore del libro Kanban
  • Bjarte Bogsnes, VP Performance Management Development in Statoil e Chairman della Beyond Budgeting Round Table Europe (parlerà proprio sul tema Beyond Budgeting)
  • Joakim Sundén, Agile Coach in Spotify, che ci parlerà della loro evoluzione Lean da piccola startup a azienda in crescita rapidissima