Kanban Essentials: Improving How We Work
by Alan Zucker, PMP, PMI-ACP
Agile practices are sweeping through the project management industry and are being used in software development, organizational leadership and even news reporting. According to the Standish Group, agile projects are 4-times more likely to be successful than traditional waterfall projects.
Lean and Kanban practices are at the heart of many Agile projects. Lean is a set of principles and practices for achieving quality, speed and customer alignment. A Kanban Board supports this and is a visualization tool that enables improvements to the flow of work by making bottlenecks and work quantitiies visible1. These practices are most often associated with Toyota’s manufacturing model. However, they are broadly applicable to project management in that these practices allow us to improve how we manage our projects work. Implementing the Kanban board and daily stand-ups will:
· Improve transparency to the team’s work and its status;
· Increase individual accountability to assigned tasks; and
· Promote collaboration among team members.
1. Agile Practice Guide Glossary, Pg 152