Basic components of Kanban 

Kanban is one of the best project management tools in the industry. You can check, track, and monitor the workflow management by using the Kanban tool. It consists of a Kanban board or billboard and the cards arranged in sequence and priority in the 3 columns such as the "To Do" lists, "Work In Progress" and the "Work Done" columns. The Kanban cards are the tasks that contain details like the sequence number, the work assignee, due date, and “what” details of the work. The cards move from the left to right in the columns until it reaches the "Work Done" column. Before we go ahead if you are interested in Kanban certification training you can take up the Kanban course at StarAgile.

The features of the Kanban cards are as follows,

• Work items are written in the cards and represented in each card for each type of work.
• The processes such as the "To do" lists, "WIP - Development", "WIP - Testing", and "Work Done" are represented by the vertical columns.
• A Kanban Board represents a particular type of project in action for particular objectives or goals or requirements or actions.
• The work items move from left to right till the tasks are completed in the last column
• The first lane is the "Work Backlog" column middle lane is the WIP or Work In Progress column which can have multiple lanes depending upon the work that is development and testing etc. The last lane is Work done based on the definition of Work done agreed to the customer.

We strongly recommend the Kanban management professional certification at StarAgile for developing your career in the field of project management

The things that we can achieve by Kanban system are

• To increase the visibility of the workflow
• To manage the workflow
• To assign work to the resource as per the priority
• Connect all the different lanes as per the requirement of the project on the board.  

3 Kanban system examples

1. Kanban examples – From a project manager perspective 

Kanban has evolved from 1960 to today’s digital and computerized Kanban. The Kanban software such as Trello, Monday, Kanbanize, SmartSheet, and others comes in a variety of flavors to help the project manager. 

The project manager can visualize the complete workflow management in one application with the help of Kanban software. You can see who is assigned what, what is the duration of the individual tasks, what is the sequence and set priority, how many items are there in the backlog, and the WIP.  Set WIP –Limits to stabilize the workflow and also see what the status is of progress overall for the projects. 

The workflow visualization helps the project manager to control, manage, track, and monitor the workflow. This helps the project manager to share files and documents, communicate the meetings and status with the team members, and effectively collaborate between the teams. 

Reporting is one such feature in the tools that helps see the progress and complete the projects successfully. One of the important features is to assign work or the tasks to the team. 

The Kanban board helps the project manager and product owner to realize the cost and meet the budget requirements with the help of delivering the project on time or within the team agreed to the customer. 

To know more and explore the topics of Kanban with examples register for the KMP 1 certification at StarAgile. The flow management example is shown in the diagram below,

2. Kanban board example – How to get work done from the QA team 

The support team such as QA can be assigned a ticket by using the Kanban cards and assign them to the QA resource. You can share the problem screenshot or client emails and share them with the required team. The QA resource gets the ticket to work on. 

For example, in the website development, the customer has found an error, to fix this the customer sends the email to the project manager, the project manager along with the screenshot and customer's email attaches to the Kanban board makes the ticket and then send it to the development resource. 

The development resource at the other end receives the ticket and the document and corrects the error. This card is then passed to the QA resource for testing and quality. Once it is done the card is then moved to the work done after the client reviews the work. 

Here the Kanban supports the team transparency and everyone can get involved and solve the errors as soon as possible. The priority of the card can be set in the Kanban such as Urgent, Important, Normal, etc. 

Thus the customer inquiry or the complaint can be converted into the task and put in the card for the action

3. Kanban system examples – How to connect works using the system across all boards 

Once you are familiar with one of the Kanban software you will know that the Kanban system can connect the tasks, the assignees, the due date, and work across the boards. 

For example, lets us think that there are 2 projects in 1 board going on by having the swim lanes on the board. You will know when the tasks are getting completed, whether the resource is free to take up the next job or not. 

The complete workflow can be managed on this board. If there is inflation in the WIP then you can set the WIP-Limits which can control the amount of task that can reach the WIP from the To-do lists. 

Also if a particular task says a feature in the website development is a show stopper then it needs further verification and can be moved to the blockers lists. The blocker card can then be addressed by the product owner or the project manager in resolving the issue by further breaking down the tasks and clearly understanding the requirements. 

If a resource is free from one task then another task can be assigned by the project manager on the same board across the swim lanes. Swimlanes are the feature in Kanban board that divides the board in a horizontal line to address multiple projects, features, or a different set of tasks, etc. 

Drive your career ahead with Kanban training online at StarAgile and reap the benefits of an important and critical project management certification.

Conclusion – Where to find more Kanban examples in real-time 

To start with you will find Kanban examples on our website as well this is explained in our Kanban training course at StarAgile. You will find the Kanban course online is interactive with roles, case studies, games, and simulations with real-time examples to learn and implement the Kanban system. If you are aspiring project managers then we recommend you take up the Kanban certification training with StarAgile. StarAgile has excellent faculty who have vast industrial experience and who are themselves certified in Kanban. 

If you want to read more blogs then browse through the StarAgile blog contents for various topics for getting trained. What are you waiting for to register to click on the registration link provided? Keep Learning!!!