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Could someone please expound upon the term "Kanban board", as used in this article? I am not understanding the connection between Kanban and what the author is

by tjr 15y ago

Could someone please expound upon the term "Kanban board", as used in this article? I am not understanding the connection between Kanban and what the author is describing, though I would like to.

nreece 15y ago
In brief, Kanban boards are used in Agile (and other type of) projects to visualize and share project status. Read more: http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-kanban-boards http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-kanban-boards
Stormbringer 15y ago
It's some kind of sticky-note board / to do list thingy. Have a look over at JoelOnSoftware (?? Or was it the Fog Creek Site?) They have a free online version of something similar that they are trying to hit the big time with. I forget what it is called though.
- benregn 15y ago
  You are talking about Trello from Fog Creek.
simcop2387 15y ago
That would be Trello https://trello.com/ https://trello.com/
bbrizzi 15y ago
Exactly. I just spent 20 minutes reading the Wikipedia article on Kanban but I don't see what sticky notes have to do with JIT manufacturing...
- city41 15y ago
  This is one confusing thing about Kanban. The Kanban JIT manufacturing process that Toyota developed is different from the agile Kanban process used in software. The latter was inspired by the former, but they are very different. Here is the Wikipedia article talking about Kanban as an agile process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development)
city41 15y ago
Kanban itself isn't key, but rather I think the key is having a plan. Kanban is a process where you divide your work into stories, and place them on a visual board. You pull stories across the board into different columns as the story progresses. Typical columns are "ready to pull" (first column, this story is ready to begin work), "in progress", "in test", "complete". The idea is to focus on getting cards across the entire board, and having few cards in flight at a time. This is generally believed to increase productivity by avoiding the urge to multitask too much. It can also reveal bottlenecks in your team's process and generally is good at visualizing how your team gets things done. Which can be eye opening. Since I'm all by myself, my kanban board is really just a fancy todo list. I am using http://www.agilezen.com http://www.agilezen.com for my board. Trello is a more well known app along these lines, but purists disagree that Trello truly accomplishes Kanban because it's missing a few key Kanban concepts (whether that really matters is up for debate).

by tjr 15y ago

Could someone please expound upon the term "Kanban board", as used in this article? I am not understanding the connection between Kanban and what the author is describing, though I would like to.

nreece 15y ago

In brief, Kanban boards are used in Agile (and other type of) projects to visualize and share project status. Read more: http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-kanban-boards http://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-kanban-boards

Stormbringer 15y ago

It's some kind of sticky-note board / to do list thingy. Have a look over at JoelOnSoftware (?? Or was it the Fog Creek Site?) They have a free online version of something similar that they are trying to hit the big time with. I forget what it is called though.

benregn 15y ago
You are talking about Trello from Fog Creek.

simcop2387 15y ago

That would be Trello https://trello.com/ https://trello.com/

bbrizzi 15y ago

Exactly. I just spent 20 minutes reading the Wikipedia article on Kanban but I don't see what sticky notes have to do with JIT manufacturing...

city41 15y ago
This is one confusing thing about Kanban. The Kanban JIT manufacturing process that Toyota developed is different from the agile Kanban process used in software. The latter was inspired by the former, but they are very different. Here is the Wikipedia article talking about Kanban as an agile process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanban_(development)

city41 15y ago

Kanban itself isn't key, but rather I think the key is having a plan. Kanban is a process where you divide your work into stories, and place them on a visual board. You pull stories across the board into different columns as the story progresses. Typical columns are "ready to pull" (first column, this story is ready to begin work), "in progress", "in test", "complete". The idea is to focus on getting cards across the entire board, and having few cards in flight at a time. This is generally believed to increase productivity by avoiding the urge to multitask too much. It can also reveal bottlenecks in your team's process and generally is good at visualizing how your team gets things done. Which can be eye opening. Since I'm all by myself, my kanban board is really just a fancy todo list. I am using http://www.agilezen.com http://www.agilezen.com for my board. Trello is a more well known app along these lines, but purists disagree that Trello truly accomplishes Kanban because it's missing a few key Kanban concepts (whether that really matters is up for debate).