Kanban is a lean method to manage and improve systems and process across an organization. The methodology balances the demands with available capacity, and improves the handling of system level bottlenecks. The Kanban board is a tool within the methodology which will allow the visualization of any process. The goal of a Kanban system is to limit the amount of work in process so the work flowing through the system matches its capacity.

Check out this informative video on the Kanban Board!     

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Push and pull models of manufacturing are two major approaches implemented by organizations. The decision on which approach to use is often based on their business strategy. Push and pull-based models in manufacturing starts at the planning phase and continues through the execution stage.

Watch this informative video on Push/Pull Production!

https://youtu.be/a7YvJB0n16I

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The Kanban board is a lean tool for managing flow in a process. From simple processes to the most complex, the board will visually represent a every step in a process process and show the status at any given time. During the late 1940’s, the line workers at Toyota displayed colored Kanbans to notify downstream workers that a demand existed for parts or assembly. As early as 2005, the Kanban board tool started being applied to knowledge work, where processes are typically more opaque than in the manufacturing sector.

When a process is mapped out on a Kanban board and Kanban cards properly represent the work, the process becomes visible and hidden aspects of the work becomes more clear. By mapping out the process, the entire team process is visible to every member and provides more clarity in their sense of purpose. The information displayed will answer the basic questions of who, what, when, where, why and how. There are three basic steps in establishing your Kanban board.

Map Your Workflow – Documenting the steps of a process. The starting point is exactly what it is in the real world. For every step, consider the tasks required to complete the step. Now it is time to build your Kanban board.

Visualize Work in Process (WIP) – Once your process is mapped on the Kanban board, start adding the tasks. Every task that should be done or worth doing, name them so everyone understands and put them in place.

Set Your WIP Limits – Early on, it will be a challenge to understand the ideal amount of work in a process. Start with your best guess. With your WIP limits in place, put them on the Kanban board.

It is important to remember, Kanban is a pull’ concept. This means when someone is ready to do work, they look on the board to see what needs to be done and will pull the task into the next column. The task is then their responsibility until it is complete and someone pulls it to the next step. The natural process of the Kanban board will start revealing bottlenecks in any process and quickly identify inefficiencies. Learn from mistakes and move your processes forward!

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In Lean production, it is commonly understood to use pull production instead of push production, which is implemented with a Kanban system. But what makes the pull production system the way to go?  Why not use a push production system? For most, the answers are about as clear as muddy water.

A pull production system simply limits the amount of work in a process which can be in the system. Work methods that use pull systems allow people to manage the flow of resources by limiting work in progress and allowing those doing the work to focus. They are driven from a high level that strictly focuses on capacity and material based on actual customer demand. Pull production design is perfectly balanced due to the demand placed on the organization. They are designed to be agile, with the ability to quickly respond to any changes in customer demand. It is often referred to as a Kanban’ system, which is a method for planning, executing and replenishing inventory that allows for greater control.

Push production revolves around extensive planning and forecasting. It does not have limits on the amount of work that can be in the system. The common assumption in a push production system is that everything remains constant. Everything that is required for capacity is on hand, which includes inventory and support staff. Even though it seems agile and proactive, in reality it is not. Often, pull production becomes obsolete before being executed because of the every changing market environment and customer demand. It is slow to adjust to these variations in a manufacturing environment.

While push production is heavily front loaded with planning and forecasting, pull production is agile and customer demand focused. It remains flexible enough to meet ever changing market adjustments and customer demands.

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Work In Progress (WIP) sometimes also referred to as Work in Process refers to any work within a business process which has been started but is not yet complete. It is fairly obvious that any work only offers value to a company or its customers once it has been completed. With this in mind, it is a no-brainer that limiting the WIP within a team or system should lead to increased value. While the idea is, on the face of it, simple enough to understand, few work teams place the necessary emphasis on limiting of WIP or utilize methods of controlling WIP that simply do not work.

Why Is It Important To Manage WIP?

While most people like to believe that they are good at multitasking, the reality is that working on multiple things at the same time is less effective than placing focus on one task at a time. Also, when someone works on several tasks at the same time, they will need to jump from task to task often, resulting in a loss of productivity whenever they take time to refocus on the previous task.

Placing a limit on the work that can be handled by one worker or team at a time will prevent workers from starting new tasks when they still have unfinished tasks. Instead of having people start work on a new task if their current task is blocked or too difficult, the WIP limit will force them to examine why the current task is not moving forward. By establishing the reasons, they can then focus on finding a solution and finishing the task to allow more work to come in and resume the flow of work.

Getting Started With Management of WIP

Among the key principles followed by teams working within the Agile methodology is focusing on making continuous improvements to processes. This continuous improvement is often the result of team members inspecting processes, experimenting with them and then adapting.

Managing WIP for a team is no different. When the team commences on any project, especially without much experience in Agile, managing work in progress and setting up of WIP limits can be a somewhat tricky affair. If WIP limits are made too stringent at the start, people start to get worried, frustrated or even discouraged. On the other hand, if the limit is too big, people will start to work on to many tasks concurrently, defeating the purpose of managing WIP in the first place.

To start managing WIP in business effectively, teams need to pick limits that they feel comfortable with at the start and commit to them for a given period of time. At the end of this period, the team can meet to discuss the efficiency and effectiveness of their initial approach. They may then decide if it is necessary to revisit the WIP limits they set. In time, and with maturity of the team, the WIP limits will naturally get smaller.

Use of the Kanban System

In the modern workplace, it often feels that each employee’s to-do list on a day-to-day basis is a mile long. With people having so many tasks in their work queues, it is very tempting to jump from task to task while attempting to tick off as many work items as possible off the list. However, when someone dives into new tasks before they have had a chance to complete their previous work, it can result in the employee getting overwhelmed by a deluge of work, lengthening the lead times for the projects they are working on. In this case, a kanban board system could prove to be an invaluable tool to help manage WIP.

The kanban board (roughly translated from Japanese to mean card you can see’) offers a simplified way for workers to visualize their workflows and stem the chaos which may cloud busy projects. This solution works in management of work in progress by making it simpler for team members to graphically visualize project workflow in one place, offering convenience and transparency.

Conclusion

While it is simple enough to understand WIP limits, teams will all too often misuse or ignore them. No matter the process improvement method used Lean, Agile, Waterfall or any other process if individuals or teams can focus on completing a task at a time and move on to the next, more will get done faster.

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How to Maintain Kanban Systems

Kanban means visual card’, or simply, sign’ in Japanese. In manufacturing, there are two types of Kanban: the move’ Kanban, which tells the receiving department when to move parts to the assembly line, and the make’ Kanban, which instructs suppliers to manufacture parts or products. As part of the Lean Six Sigma methodology, Kanban cards can be used in all business industries (not just manufacturing) to streamline tasks, improve operational processes, and encourage better communication within the workforce.

Kanban cards and systems are designed to cut waste, reduce time wasting, and improve collaboration on projects. But, Kanban cards are not magic; they won’t transform your business efficiency levels on their own. You must properly maintain them and utilize their full potential.

So, how can one effectively maintain a Kanban system? Here are five key ways.

1.      Remove Completed Tasks Immediately

When business operations are in progress, Kanban systems come in extremely handy for tracking the status of work tasks, delegating jobs, and collaborating as a team to produce the finest results. But only when Kanban boards are used regularly, as it’s imperative to keep them up to date. Failing to switch completed tasks over from your board to the done’ list will make it harder to find ongoing operations quickly. This will slow your colleagues down, instead of making their job more convenient.

Don’t put off removing tasks until tomorrow, your Kanban board should always be up to date.

2.       Color Coding

The purpose of a Kanban system is to allow you easy access to information about tasks in progress. Make use of a color coding system that allows you to effortlessly navigate the Kanban board. Whether you use a digital or physical system, contrasting colors ensure urgent jobs stand out, enable you to keep track of team members’ progress, and ensure projects are completed punctually.

A coding system where different colors have different representations, (for example, Red = to do, yellow = doing, and green = done) is a simple, straightforward way to utilize colors for your Kanban board.

3.      Move Cards Between Columns

Moving Kanban cards between columns is imperative if you want to make the most of your Kanban board and system. In general, this is the feature that is used the most. There’s a high likelihood that you’ll be moving cards around more frequently than you create new ones.

If you’re using a Kanban board app, you will be able to easily move cards within seconds. Apps and similar digital Kanban systems allow you to change the placement of a card at any time, for example to move it from the to do’ column to doing’.

Physical Kanban board users should also get into the habit of moving the card as soon as the status of a project changes. Moving cards around on a physical board is not quite as effortless as when using an app. Use magnets and sticky notes, as they are popular solutions for improving the efficiency of this process.

Which one should you use, physical or digital?

4.      Add Notes

When you’re using your Kanban system to track the progress of multiple projects, not including details about the task could land your team in a sea of confusion. Vague information can cost you dearly. If your employees become muddled when completing tasks, they will make mistakes. 

Adding notes to cards in a digital Kanban system should be a quick and easy process. If you are using a Kanban app, there will be an add note’ function handy. If you’re using a physical board, use cards that are large enough to add detailed information to.

5.      Attach Checklists

Both digital and physical Kanban boards support the use of checklists to track operations progress. A checklist is a simple, efficient way of making sure that everything gets done, so they are widely utilized in Kanban systems.

If you’re using a Kanban app, you will likely have access to a feature allowing you to create a quick checklist for any given task. This will allow you to break one large project down into a series of smaller tasks, while only using up the space of one card on the board. Ensure that each project is checked off immediately on completion, to avoid the risk of wasting time working on something that’s already been done.

To Conclude

Working with a digital or physical Kanban system can help you to transform your business operations from sluggish and slow to fast and efficient. However, many people get wrapped up in the structure and look of a Kanban system, and overlook the discipline and consistency that is more critical for success. Make a habit of using these Kanban system maintenance strategies. so that you don’t miss out on any of its useful features. 

Learn more about Kanban >>>

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Different Types of Kanban Boards and Card Holders

Since it was introduced in the 1950’s by Toyota Production System founder Taiichi Ohno, Kanban has been adopted by thousands of companies in pursuit of success.

Kanban cards exist to track progress. Doing so helps each member of a business team stay up-to-date, allowing them to easily determine which strategies are useful and which aren’t. But, if you’re using Kanban cards to track progress, then you will need a way to display them. This enables your team to see the progress status on various projects or on the overall business. There are many methods to choose from when it comes to displaying Kanban cards in the workplace.

Here are some of the different types of Kanban boards and card holders explained.

Online Kanban Boards

In today’s digital world, online Kanban boards are a must in any office practicing the Lean Six Sigma method. With an online Kanban board, you can use your laptop, tablet or smartphone to visualize, manage your workflow, and engage in real-time collaboration on various projects with your team members. Online Kanban boards emulate their offline counterparts using apps, but they offer so much more: faster work completion, better efficiency, improved flexibility, and more transparency.

One of the biggest advantages of opting for an online Kanban board is that they offer easy customization. Using your device, you can effortlessly change the ways in which you deal with the designation of lanes or columns. You can also easily adjust the Kanban card to fit in with the details of your project.

Read about the pros and cons between digital and physical kanban boards >>>

Agile Kanban Boards

The term Agile’ was first coined in relation to Kanban almost twenty years ago, in a manifesto written by a 17-strong authorship team of independent software developers. Agile offers a flexible, interactive approach to using Kanban cards for business. The methods allow teams to divide the development process into smaller, manageable segments, enabling easier changes as work progresses, and minimizing the risk of a stand-still.

Although Agile teams are likely to need a more complex set of options than the to do, doing, done’ of basic Kanban, the adaptability of the system is what makes it so popular. Using Agile Kanban boards, teams can accept incremental changes, visually present complex tasks, workflows and progress, and improve the transparency of their workplace projects and collaborations. Using Kanban in Agile development allows you to visually track where work is becoming backlogged in any lane. You can then take more informed action steps when setting limits, ensuring that the workflow runs smoothly.

Excel Kanban Boards

One of the simplest ways to present your Kanban cards is to create a board using Excel, a software program that all Microsoft Office users have access to. If you do not use Microsoft Office, you can create Kanban boards for free online using Google Sheets.

To create a Kanban board in Excel (or Google Sheets), name the columns of your sheet to reflect each work progress stage: To-Do, Doing, Done, along with any further stages relevant to the project. This Kanban board method is popular, as it not only allows you to retain all the functionality of tracking a project using Excel, but it also allows for enhanced flexibility and visibility, which takes advantage of Kanban principles.

An alternative to using Excel is to use PowerPoint. This popular slide show software makes it easy to showcase or present your Kanban cards to staff, clients or stakeholders.

Kanban Bin Systems

In certain workplace settings, 2-bin and 3-bin Kanban systems can be used to track inventory. Used for replenishing items in a supply setting, such as a production line or other kind of factory, a worker will pull tasks from bin number one until the last task is complete.

Once the bin is emptied, the worker will flip the Kanban card (or the bin, in some cases) and begin on the tasks in the second bin, while the first one is replenished. When using a 3-bin Kanban system, one bin should be kept at the supplier’s location for inventory.

Wall Mounted Card-Holders and Racks

Wall-mounted racks or card-holders provide a traditional, yet effective, method of using Kanban cards to improve efficiency and productivity. Ideal for material handling environments, these racks or card-holders can help with the smooth flow of both projects and communication.

Rather than the usual signal cards, which represent capacity or demand on a task, Kanban cards in wall-mounted holder utilizes items such as magnets, sticky notes, or push-pins for representing each work item. As it travels around the board, each object correlates to a business process such as an item in production.

Kanban cards are one of the most versatile aids for business process improvement. The large assortment of methods available for displaying Kanban cards in the workplace allows any company to successfully adapt them to their needs.

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Digital vs Physical Kanban Boards

The physical vs. digital debate has been around since the internet was first conceived. If using Kanban cards to improve business efficiency, you can choose to use either a digital or physical board to speed up operational processes and encourage workplace productivity.

The decision to use either digital or physical boards should not be taken lightly. Although both work to track tasks in much the same manner, each have their own distinct set of advantages and disadvantages for business.

Here are some of the main things to consider when choosing between a digital or physical Kanban board.

Pros of Digital Kanban Boards

In today’s digital age, it makes sense to ensure that your business is up to date with all the latest technologies. So, if you’re using the Lean Six Sigma methodology, one of the most obvious ways to do this is with a digital or online Kanban board.

Digital Kanban boards can be made quickly using everyday software packages such as Microsoft Excel, or, you can download specialized software to design and keep track of Kanban cards, such as Trello, Kanban Tool, or Cardsmith. Since tasks can be easily updated in real-time online without the need to hunt around for board markers or sticky notes, choosing this option can create better efficiency for your business and significantly streamline tasks.

Another advantage to consider when opting for a digital Kanban board is that they can usually be accessed from anywhere, providing the user is connected to the internet. Using a cloud solution such as Google Drive, you can save your Kanban cards easily online where any employee with login credentials can easily get to them. This can help to improve workplace efficiency by giving employees access to progress data before the working day even begins. This works especially well when you have a remote team that cannot easily meet in person.

Cons of Digital Kanban Boards

There may be an assortment of great benefits to be had by using a digital Kanban board, however, that’s not to say they don’t come without their drawbacks. Since digital Kanban boards require a computer screen or device to be viewed on, they can often have your team squinting at the monitor. Additionally, it can be difficult to ensure the constant visibility of a digital Kanban board when using it to monitor progress in the workplace, for example, if the user is automatically logged out after a certain time period.

That’s not all, either before you choose a digital Kanban board, consider the possibility that it could slow down your employees, rather than motivating them to work harder. This is especially true in an office setting, where a digital Kanban board could have the opposite effect and minimize communications. This is because workers can simply stay in their seat and pull up the Kanban board online rather than heading over to discuss their idea with a colleague.

Since digital Kanban boards are so easy to update and expand, they can quickly become an idea dump’, overloading your workforce and making it harder to determine which ideas are worth the pursuit.

Finally, the discipline of updating and discussing changes on the board is best learned in person, so in the long term, the kanban boards may fall apart when the discipline hasn’t been established.

Pros of Physical Kanban Boards

Unlike their online counterparts, a physical Kanban board does not require an internet connection. An old-school’ way of doing things (physical boards, racks and card holders) have been used for Kanban cards successfully since they were first invented back in the 1950’s.

Physical Kanban boards utilize items such as colored magnets, sticky notes, and push pins to represent tasks at various stages of to do, doing, or done. Physical Kanban boards can be used to encourage communication in the office. Since employees need to get up and walk to the board to update it, this facilitates more conversations between employees. You may even notice an improvement in workplace morale as your employees get away from their desks regularly, improve their productivity, reduce ergonomic issues, and strengthen workplace relationships.

Physical Kanban boards are highly customizable, and there are many examples of them being used to improve employee satisfaction. For example, some businesses have their employees pick their favorite color or even a cartoon figure to represent their tasks on the board. A small gesture, with big results!

Cons of Physical Kanban Boards

Perhaps the main problem with physical Kanban boards is that unlike digital boards saved to the cloud, they are not indestructible. Accidents can happen, and if your workplace is damaged by a natural disaster or break-in, damage or loss of your physical Kanban board could set your business’ productivity back even further.

Additionally, it is more difficult to expand a physical Kanban board. When working digitally, it’s easy to add new cards and tasks to the board with little effort. On the other hand, physical Kanban boards must also be added to physically. For a business that uses physical Kanban boards often, a magnetic board is ideal, since this will help to reduce paper waste.

Lastly, consider the number and type of tasks that your business carries out. If the workload is very high, an interruption or restart often means making the effort to tear the Kanban board down and start all over again.

Final Thoughts

Regardless of the type of business you run, there are many ways that you can benefit from using Kanban cards and boards to track your tasks, improving efficiency and productivity. Keep in mind the pros and cons of each Kanban board type to make the right choice for your workforce.

Learn more about kanban boards >>>

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How Do I Know When I’m Ready to Implement Kanban?

Before implementing a new tool or a new methodology, you need to make sure you are ready to do it well. If you are not ready for it, you risk doing more damage than good, and implementing something like Kanban improperly might actually hinder your own or your organization’s productivity.

This is why we have compiled a list of indications to help you make sure you are ready for Kanban:

1.     You Understand the Terminology

Before implementing a methodology or a tool, you need to understand them, and be familiar with all of their underlying concepts. A good litmus test for determining if your knowledge has the required depth is by checking if you are familiar with the core terminology. If you don’t know what WIP limits, bottlenecks, pull/push systems, flow efficiency, the PDCA cycle, or swim lanes are, you probably need to learn a bit more about Kanban in order for you to be ready to implement it well.

2.     You Can Involve Everybody

When implementing Kanban in an organization or a team, it can only work if everybody involved in the actual work is invested and ready to get involved. If there are team segments or particular individuals that are involved in the process who are not going to be involved in the Kanban implementation, you are most likely going to fail. Kanban needs to be a common priority for everybody, not just to be effective, but to work at all. So if you can’t ensure that, you are simply not in the position to implement it yet, and you should look to expand the support for it first.

3.     You Have Studied the Particular Process

It doesn’t matter if you want to implement Kanban to manage a particular business process, an entire organization, a team or your personal workload – before you can implement the system, you need to study the actual process or set of processes you are going to use it for. As simple as Kanban is, designing a suitable Kanban board and/or Kanban cards requires the person in charge to understand the needs of the organization, and all the little specificities that are part of the process. Since Kanban focuses on the flow, the actual steps of the process need to be clearly understood, so they can become part of the implementation. Otherwise, you risk having the system as a hindrance instead of a valuable solution to problems and a source of improvement and efficiency.

4.     You Have a Clear Vision for the Implementation

You shouldn’t start putting Kanban into practice until you have a very clear idea of why it is going to be beneficial, and how exactly it is going to work. This means that you aren’t ready to implement Kanban until you have a clear vision for it. As mentioned above, Kanban might not be too complex, but in order for it to function correctly, it needs to be properly implemented. There are a few different things that you need to consider, such as: what you are going to have on the Kanban cards, what steps of the process you will use as columns, what WIP limits will be imposed, and if or how your swim lanes will be implemented. If all of that is clear, you are ready, otherwise you need to work on your vision more.

5.     You Have Though About What Could Go Wrong

Before you can claim you are ready to go through with any major transformation, ask yourself what could go wrong. You should do that before you implement Kanban. Try to think about any weaknesses in your plans, possible failures and obstacles, and how you are going to handle them. You are not ready to go through with a plan until you have considered the worst case scenario, as well and feel confident you know how to avoid it.

So Are You Ready?

Proper preparation is always a crucial part of success, so don’t rush anything. Implementing a new workflow management tool is not a small step, and you shouldn’t overlook any of the five indications on this list. Skipping any of them will put your project at a higher risk of failure, so the prudent thing to do would be to make sure you are thoroughly prepared. But if you have covered all your bases and you feel ready to succeed with Kanban, go ahead and enjoy it.

Learn more about Kanban >>>

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When Not to Use Kanban Swim Lanes

Choosing the best tool for a particular task is not always easy, and we are often biased towards the wrong solution. This is especially true when we consider our positive bias towards complexity. A more complex tool might often look more appealing just on the merit of the fact that it supposedly has more features. Unfortunately, we often fail to realize that redundant features are almost always a hindrance. In Lean, we call this Overprocessing.

Such is the case with Kanban swim lanes. Many of us view them as a bonus and a feature, without taking into account that one of Kanban’s main advantages is its simplicity. This means that simplicity should be sacrificed only when this leads to a real benefit.

Undeniably, using swim lanes on your Kanban board might often be quite beneficial. After all, the concept was developed to add value, depth and utility when needed, and there are many implementations that are extremely successful. But the fact that we have the option to use swim lanes doesn’t mean that we should.

So here are a few cases when using swim lanes would actually be the wrong thing to do:

Each Team Member Has Their Own Swim Lane

Broadly speaking, having a separate Kanban swim lane for each team member defies the purpose of having a Kanban board altogether.

First of all, a Kanban board is supposed to simplify communication and teamwork. Separating each individual team member into their own swim lane inhibits collaboration on both a psychological and a practical level. First of all, in any industry that might benefit from having a Kanban board, there will often be tasks that are handled by more than one individual. Per-person swim lanes make this impossible to visualize, so the task ends up with one individual, possibly creating tension while making the board less informative and useful. On top of this set of practical problems, having this setup will lead to individualism, and most team members will start caring about their own tasks and success, instead of fighting for the team.

Secondly, individual swim lanes per team member usually destroy the concept of WIP limitations. When the allowed number of tasks in the Work in Progress column is lower than the number of team members, people are going to have to work together, collaborate and share experience. In this way, everybody will have to view the team as a unit, and would be compelled to act in the team’s best interests, not their own.

Swim Lanes Represent Different Phases

The main purpose of a Kanban board is to visualize the process in question in a comprehensive way. Each task should start on one side, and move through all the steps in the process, so it can reach completion on the other side. Swim lanes are a bit dangerous, because they allow for forks in the road, and often get misused. One of the most common mistakes while implementing them is having different phases of the same process represented as different swim lanes.

A tell-tale sign of this problem is when tasks reach the end of one swim lane, and then instead of going to the “Done” column, they start their journey all over again in a different swim lane. For instance, a software development company might have a Kanban board with the standard three columns To Do, Doing, and Done, and three swim lanes Design, Development and Testing. Obviously, each task will start in the Design swim lane, and then move through Development and then Testing before it lands in the Done column.

This will obviously create problems and is not a good way to visualize the flow. Swim lanes should not be sequential but parallel, and if they aren’t, they are just obscuring the big picture. Our development company example needs to expand the number of columns to properly represent the sequential nature of design, development and testing, and eliminate the pointless swim lanes from their Kanban board.

Swim Lanes Don’t Need to Be on the Same Kanban Board

A Kanban board should be practical and easy to use, so the larger a board gets, the more impractical it can become. When trying to implement a Kanban board in a large or diverse organization, it can become too cumbersome. That often gets handled by adding more and more swim lanes for different teams. That can sometimes benefit the organization by making the big picture universally visible, but most of the time, it only creates clutter. This happens when each swim lane actually represents a distinctly different process handled by a different team. If this is the case, it might often be a much better idea to create multiple Kanban boards for the different parts of the organization.

Generally speaking, a board that attempts to encompass disparate processes is unlikely to do a very efficient job. If there isn’t a good reason to keep the processes together on the same board, separating them will allow each department to use their own board with a heightened level of efficiency. In this way, each Kanban board can be customized to better represent each team’s workflow. This will lead to faster process improvement and tighter collaboration. If the organization still requires interdepartmental communication and coordination, an additional Kanban board can be created to handle that task explicitly.

So Should You Use Swim Lanes?

In the end, each organization is different, and the Kanban boards they implement should reflect their specific needs and workflows. While the recommendations or warnings in this article should help you avoid overusing Kanban swim lanes, the final decision should be based on achieving the best results in your specific situation. Just make sure you are not using swim lanes from the sake of complexity, and implement them only when they are adding real value to your Kanban implementation.

Learn more about kanban boards >>>

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Simple Kanban Systems to Setup at Home

Kanban and Kanban boards have proven themselves to be both efficient and effective in the business sphere, but you don’t have to be a business to take advantage of Kanban and its principles. There is a wide variety of applications for personal Kanban, and you can use this list of ideas at home as inspiration, to make your home more organized, efficient and fun.

The Personal Kanban Board

The personal kanban board is probably the simplest and most popular application of Kanban on a personal level. It’s a simple Kanban board with just 3 columns To Do’, Doing’ and Done’. It is really up to you if you want to use a digital solution to work with your personal Kanban board online, or if you’d rather have a physical board on the wall of your study or bedroom at home.

Some free electronic kanban tools are Kanban Tool, Trello and Cardsmith

Either way, this simple yet powerful visualization tool will allow you to handle your personal tasks in a more organized way, allowing you to increase your personal productivity. Just don’t forget to implement a limit on the Work in Progress allowed in the Doing’ column, so you can stay focused and remain efficient.

Learn more about Kanban boards >>>

A Kanban-Based Chore Board

No matter if you are living with your family, some friends, roommates, or even by yourself, creating a dedicated Kanban board for the household chores might save a lot of time (and often prevent a lot arguments). When you are living with people, it’s often harder to divide the tasks, and people might feel like they are doing more than the rest, even when that is not the case. Making the list of chores, and who is doing what, visible to everybody allows everyone to understand their own part, and to see that others are putting in an effort as well.

Additionally, explicit Kanban rules might be used to keep each person from having to do too much, while everything gets done on time. You can also create individual swim lanes for each person in the household, or use additional stickers to signify who is taking care of which task.

Kanban Inventory Management for Your Fridge and Pantry

The first Kanban implementation in Toyota didn’t really include a central visual Kanban board, but an integrated system that utilized signal cards that allowed demand to pull production. An extremely simplified version of that can actually make the creation of a grocery list an effortless and virtually automatic process. The idea is actually very simple, and the only thing you need to do is create a Kanban card for each product that you use on regular basis.

When you buy groceries, you stock them in your fridge or pantry, together with their respective Kanban cards. While you keep consuming the items, you take the cards of the items that have run out, and stick them outside your fridge with magnets. This will provide you with a very clear visual indication of when you are running out, and what you are running out of. In this way, the system will be able to alert you when you need to go shopping in a straight-forward visual way. Before you leave, just take out your smartphone, and take a picture of your fridge, and you have a ready-made grocery list in less than 2 seconds. Or you can use paper cards, and when you run out of the item, remove the card for that item (usually taped to the product), and put them into a basket, then take the cards to the store with you. Each card should contain the name of the product, brand, size, and any other pertinent information (flavor, ingredients, etc). This worked really well for me personally, when trying to manage dog food. I setup a min-max level, so when I was down to 3 cans of dog food, I had a card on the 3rd can that told me to buy 6 more cans (min of 3, max of 9).

Manage Your Children as a Team

Being a parent means that you have to teach your children to be independent, organized and responsible, while still being in control, and providing them stewardship and guidance. Striking the right balance between a hands-on and a hands-off approach can be a very difficult task, and Kanban can be a tool to help you achieve that.

You can create a dedicated Kanban board for your children and the tasks they have. It might include house chores, schoolwork, their hobbies, playtime and important appointments and tasks. You can have explicit rules and WIP limitations to make sure they cannot get to playtime before they have completed their schoolwork. Having a visual board will allow you to exercise control and supervision, without robbing your children of a sense of independence. This also teaches them to prioritize and organize on their own.

Event Management

You can also use personal Kanban to manage larger events you might have coming up. As Kanban is an effective and efficient way to manage large workloads, it can be extremely helpful when planning weddings, anniversaries or other large events that are more than a simple party.

If we look at a wedding as an example, we’ll see that there is a myriad of different tasks to be handled by a variety of people. While most of the work usually weights on the bride’s shoulders, there are always a lot of other people involved, and all of their efforts need to be coordinated. As the huge workload of organizing a wedding can be quite stressful, having a nice Kanban board to make everything organized can alleviate some of that pain. It will also make communication between everybody involved much easier, so more will get done, and fewer tasks will fall through the cracks.

Be Creative

As you can clearly see by all the ideas above, personal Kanban has more than one way to help you live a better life, and there are so much more examples that we haven’t mentioned. Everybody can find their own unique way to implement it at home. You can be as creative as you’d like, as the Kanban approach is quite flexible, and can be applied to everything we do.

How have you applied Kanban in your personal life? Add your comments below…

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What Are the Principles of Kanban and Why Do They Work?

Kanban is both one of the simplest and most efficient tools to manage workflow in a visual way. It’s one of the important tools used in more complex process improvement methodologies (such as Lean), and its wide-spread adoption is a testament to its flexibility, utility and effectiveness. Kanban is based on a few core principles that ensure successful implementation at scales ranging from the individual to organizations with multiple departments and teams that need to be coordinated.

Let’s explore the 4 core principles that the Kanban approach is based on, and why following them is advantageous.

1.     Visualize

Our brains are wired in such a way that processing visual information is what we are best at. For instance, looking at charts or graphs gives us a much better understanding of a large set of numbers than looking at the raw data ever could. Kanban takes this visual approach and applies it to the workflow.

In Kanban, each task and each step of the process has a clear visual representation that also includes the most vital information. This is an extremely efficient way to make the current state of affairs in an organization visible and understandable by all. Everybody can infer what they need just by a quick glance at the Kanban board, and all workflow impediments like blockers or bottlenecks become obvious right away. This is extremely beneficial by making communication within the team easier and more efficient, and by uncovering problematic areas that need to be fixed.

2.     Limit the Work in Progress

One of the few rules that Kanban imposes is limiting the number of pieces of work that can be worked on at any given moment. The actual limitation depends on those that are managing the particular Kanban implementation, but the simple act of imposing a limit is quite advantageous.

This limit fosters focus and forces proper prioritization. This allows an organization to be efficient in how it utilizes its workforce. Additionally, it eliminates decision paralysis, as it doesn’t allow individual team members or managers to be destabilized by the sheer amount of tasks that have piled up, and prevents the common mistake of trying to do too much all at once. On top of this, having a WIP limitation also ensures that each piece of work will go through the workflow process as quickly as possible, which helps productivity.

3.     Focus on the Flow

Despite the fact that this can be partially viewed as a function of the first two principles, focusing on the actual workflow is a core value engrained into Kanban as a tool. It should be viewed as an integral part of its proper implementation. Kanban takes the workflow to the forefront of the team’s understanding of their job, and how their organization functions. While Kanban is being used to manage how individual pieces of work are handled as part of the larger process framework, data about what is going on is collected, so the flow can be described and understood using a system of clear metrics. This understanding allows the organization to gain deeper knowledge about its own inner workings, and sets the stage for the last principle

4.     Continuous Improvement

Kanbans have a lot of benefits in the day-to-day operation and management of a team or an organization. It puts you in a position where continuous improvement can be achieved and can become part of the company culture. By making sure everything is visual, and by focusing on the flow and collecting data about the performance of the system over time, Kanban allows improvement opportunities to be identified, and taken advantage of on a regular basis. As this process is repeated over and over again, even the smallest of improvements can start to affect the overall performance of the organization in a positive way. This leads to ever increasing productivity, efficiency and thus competitiveness.

Read more about Kanbans >>>

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How to Implement Kanban Cards

Kanban is a popular and powerful workflow visualization tool, and one of its main selling points is its simplicity. While the design of your Kanban system is important, one crucial factor that sometimes doesn’t get the attention it deserves, are the actual Kanban cards.

When you look at the Japanese meaning of the word Kanban, you’ll find out that it means either card or visual signal. This means that the cards are the actual namesake of this tool, which contains all the relevant information about what to do next. This is different than a kanban board, used to manage tasks in a project or office setting using sticky notes.

What Is a Kanban Card?

Kanban cards are a visual signal used to communicate that action is needed. When you encounter a card in your process, it means some action is needed to take place. On the card is written specific instructions about what to do. If the actions are completed, then the process continues to operate correctly. If the card is ignored, then problems arise over time.

Here is a good example of a simple kanban card system. At the Lean Enterprise Institute offices, they have a supply cabinet for tea. When the tea runs low, a card signals that more tea needs to be ordered. The card contains the relevant information to re-order more. There is enough time between the last box of tea and how long it takes to re-order more, so that they never run.

Read the entire example of kanban used for office tea boxes on Mark Graban’s blog >>>

The Standard Key Features of a Kanban Card

As mentioned above, the most important job of the Kanban card is to make vital information easily accessible. It needs to be visual and easily comprehensible, so the team members that look at it would be able to infer as much of the data it represents at a single glance. On top of this, it should include additional details, so important information will be readily available to everybody.

The Front Side of the Kanban Card

The front side of the Kanban card is what everybody sees at first glance, so it needs to include the most crucial information. It needs to communicate what’s essential without being cluttered. This can also be done through color coding, where each card color represents a different task or responsible person.

The first thing that the card cannot go without is a name of the task or activity it represents, such as “Call customer and request shipping approval”

Additionally, it usually includes the name or names of people responsible for it, and how long they have to complete the task. It might also include the batch size to perform the task (such as “group of 3” but ideally all tasks are done one at a time).

If the cards are part of re-ordering items, it might include part numbers, cost centers, ID numbers, location/department, supplier name, customer name, number of cards in the system, etc. These should be the most relevant information for the person needing to take an action.

The Back Side of the Kanban Card

While the front side of the card needs to make vital information readily available, the back side might include things that are important that don’t need to be visible at all times. Very often the flip side of a Kanban card is reserved for more detailed instructions, if the front of the card isn’t sufficient. It might reference a procedure number, a checklist of tasks to complete, a contact person to ask if there are questions, or any other information that doesn’t fit on the front of the card. Not all kanban cards have information on the back, so this is optional.

Here is an example of a kanban card used to signal that more left-handed smoke-shifters need to be re-ordered from Acme.

Want to learn more about kanban cards? Check out an introductory video from Gemba Academy >>>

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Using Kanban in Your Personal Life

Kanban is a workflow visualization tool that has proven itself to be extremely valuable in the business environment as a way to manage processes of all sorts. It’s simple yet powerful, and it makes a lot of vital information both evident and easily accessible for whole teams, bolstering productivity and process optimization.

But Kanban’s potential is not limited to the fields of business and management. It can be a tool that everyone could use in their personal life to efficiently manage all of their tasks, and to increase their own personal productivity. At its core, Kanban is just an organized approach to treating your list of to-dos. What makes it great and useful is its simplicity that doesn’t diminish its power or effectiveness.

What is Kanban?

Kanban is a method that is used to create a Kanban board. It’s usually a whiteboard, but it can be done on a large piece of paper or through specialized software, or even on MS Excel. Kanban has a few columns that signify different stages a task might be at, starting from the most basic To Do’ state, and ending with the Done’ state. The simplest version of Kanban has just one column in between, which is traditionally labeled Doing’, but there is no limit on the number of columns that can be used, so Kanban boards can get quite complex if need be. Tasks are usually written down on sticky notes, and they are physically moved from column to column when they are at different stages of the task completion process. The idea is to quickly move each sticky from one end of the board to the other end, which means your “customer” gets what they want quickly.

Learn more about Kanban boards here >>>

What Is Personal Kanban?

There are two main aspects of Kanban that make it quite suitable for anybody to apply in their personal life:

1.      Visualization

Kanban is an extremely visual method, which is very helpful for the visual creatures that we are. One of the keys to personal productivity is the ability to get organized without wasting any time. There are many people that use just a simple to-do list on a piece of paper or even people that don’t write down their tasks and expect to hold it all in their heads. Most of them spend a lot of time and effort to decide what they need to do next, what has been done and what hasn’t, and making sure they are not forgetting anything. It’s really easy for it all to become a mess Having a Kanban board with all your tasks helps solve that problem. It presents all of the tasks you have and their progress in an easy to comprehend visual form. When you implement Kanban in your life, you will probably get used to it quickly, as being able to access all the information about the tasks you have at hand at a glance is virtually addictive.

2.      Limited Work in Progress

What leads to a lot of busy people struggling with managing their personal tasks is the fact that they try to do too much all at one. One of the most important principles of Kanban is the limits that you need to impose on the “work in progress” (WIP). You need to decide on a number of tasks that you will allow yourself to be active on at any given time, and adhering to this rule will help you stay focused and avoid stress. It doesn’t sound like a big thing, but it forces proper prioritization, and this has immense results on personal productivity. When you worry about everything all at once, your mind becomes highly ineffective, and this drains a lot of energy. But when you have a Kanban board, you can relax and concentrate on the task at hand without worrying about everything else you have to do everything is clear and manageable. All those items you need to do in the future should be stored in the backlog (‘To Do’ column), but only active projects and tasks are in the ‘Doing’ or WIP column. Start by limiting your WIP to 3 tasks, and see how that works for you. You can always move tasks back to the ‘To Do’ stage if something new comes up, but don’t go over 3 active tasks, or the system will not work.

Where to Start?

Kanban is not a complex system that needs a lot of preparation for. All you need is a few sticky notes and a surface to divide into columns and start sticking them on. It doesn’t require any additional expertise, so you can start from the most basic three-column board, and move up from there. Alternatively, you could look into the many desktop, web or mobile Kanban applications available and give them a go. We suggest you start using Kanbans by hand, instead of electronic solutions, so you learn the methodology and practice it first. In the end, the most important thing is just to start and to stay consistent, and you will start completing tasks more quickly, and not feeling overwhelmed.

Want to learn more about applying Lean to your personal life? Check out the book “A Factory of One” by Dan Markovitz

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Using Kanban to Manage Scarce Resources

Kanban is one of those tools that is simple yet powerful. It’s very easy to understand and to work with, and its visual nature allows for clearer communication between team members and teams, and makes finding problems obvious for everybody involved. Additionally, Kanban can be incredible helpful when managing a project when resources available are tight and need to be utilized in the best possible ways.

A lot of managers find themselves in a situation when they have to achieve lofty goals, and their team needs to juggle a lot of tasks or projects while they can only rely on scarce resources. A typical Kanban implementation puts a restriction on the number of tasks that can be on the Work in Progress’ section of the whiteboard, which forces teams to collaboratively prioritize and move resources around to make sure things are progressing.

You can learn more about Kanban boards for project teams here >>>

Scope and Limitations

It’s important to note that Kanban is basically a tool, and it cannot be a solution that automatically solves everything or makes resource allocation effective all on its own. It’s most useful as a resource planning tool when applied in the right context, usually during Agile or Scrum implementation, which has strong elements of Lean. It’s not just a matter of making a Kanban board for your daily team meetings, but making sure you follow the Lean thinking and philosophy while doing so. There also needs to be discipline about when the meetings are conducted, what updates to obtain from each person, how long can everyone talk, and rules about what allows the sticky notes to move.

Still, Kanban as a tool has its distinct benefits when dealing with resource scarcity and making sure a team constrained by external and internal factors has the highest possible impact.

The Immense Value of Clarity

One of the most crucial factors that foster process efficiency is clarity. This is especially true when a team has too many tasks on their hands without having enough resources and manpower to make all of them a priority. In this type of situations, the more overworked a team is, the more inefficient it becomes. This is what happens during rush hour traffic, too many cars (tasks) overload the available capacity (number of lanes or road structure). This happens specifically because there is a greater amount of time and effort spent in discussions, decision-making on what to work on neat, and communicating with the management about task prioritization. When things start piling up, many workers become paralyzed with the burden of not knowing how to approach the diverse set of problems that require solutions or action. The kanban board makes this more apparent to everyone, and everyone on the team can help solve it. This disperses a lot of the confusion and lack of clarity in managing projects.

Swim Lanes

While the typical Kanban board only has columns, there is also a possible implementation that includes rows. These rows classify tasks according to their priority, department, or other categorization. Those rows are called “swim lanes” (like in a swimming pool), and they might make comprehending and implementing task prioritization even easier and more effective. A Kanban implementation that includes swim lanes allows both the team members and the people in management to set clear direction and clear priorities.

In the example above, the swim lanes are broken out by 3 regions. Each region has their own lane, and the standard workflow across the columns. When one team gets behind or is struggling to complete a task, it will become clear during the reviews. To make sure the customer is getting what they want, Team NY might need to stop some of their tasks (move items back into the To-do column), and move an item from Team LA into their “Do today” column, so Team LA can focus on the item they are struggling with.

This is the power of kanban boards, to make sure the entire project is moving forward to meet customer needs, not just tracking individuals or team progress.

Check out a past interview related to virtual Kanban boards with Lean Kit CEO Chris Hefley >>>

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