What Is Kanban?
Kanban is a system for visualizing and managing the flow of work through your organization. It is based on the idea that your business cannot do all of its work at once, and as you produce more products, it will take longer to complete each one. The goal of Kanban is to make sure that you are always working on the most important things first so that they get done quickly.
Kanban is not just a way to organize things — it is also a way to help your team focus on what matters most, which makes it easier for everyone involved! It helps teams organize and manage their workflow by visualizing their work and organize it into manageable chunks. It is also a great tool to use when you are working on multiple projects at once, or if you want to change up how you get things done. It is used by companies like Amazon, Walmart, and Toyota to optimize their processes and increase efficiency.
What Does the Kanban System Look Like?
Kanban uses a series of cards — or "kanbans" — to communicate what tasks need to be done and when they need to be completed. Each card represents an individual task, like "create new website" or "order more paper towels." Then, you put these cards in specific columns that represent different tasks in your business’s process.
If you are working on an app, for example, and have three steps — designing, coding, and testing — you would create three columns on your kanban board: Design, Code, Test. Then you would put cards in each column showing where each task stands in terms of completion percentage (e.g., 50% done). This gives everyone involved in the project an easy way to see where things stand at any given time so they can adjust accordingly if needed.
When there are too many cards in the system, it is time for your team to take on more projects. When there are too few cards, it is time for your team to slow down and focus on completing their existing work.
How Do I Implement the Kanban System in My Business?
Here are some tips for implementing Kanban in your business:
- Get your team together and chat about what you want out of this system. What do you hope it will help you do? How will it make things better? Keep this goal in mind as you start using Kanban!
- Set up a board with columns for each step in the process: idea generation, design, development, etc. Put cards on top of each column so that everyone knows what needs to be done next.
- Calendar time for each step into smaller chunks so that everyone has an idea of when things need to be finished by (and also so it does not feel like too much at once).
- Move cards to another column when they are completed and ready to be moved forward in the process.
