Improve Task Organisation: Kanban Swimlanes
Teams turn to the Kanban method to streamline workflows and improve process efficiency. With large teams and complex projects, however, a common issue occurs – the Kanban board becomes cluttered and hard to read. Kanban swimlanes are used to tame this visual clutter and improve task organisation. What are Kanban swimlanes? In large projects, different team members often need to focus on different work items. Your developers and your customer service aren’t going to have any overlap, and your team…
The Rhythm of Success: Kanban Meetings
Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. In the same way that the Kanban method uses analysis and feedback loops to improve workflow efficiency, Kanban meetings aim to improve the efficiency of the whole organisation. From quick daily check-ins within a team to big-picture strategy reviews with senior executives, Kanban meetings keep interconnected Kanban systems operating efficiently, identify problem areas and assess overall customer satisfaction. David J Anderson, a key figure in modern Kanban history, identifies 7 essential Kanban meetings…
Prioritising Work Efficiently: Kanban Classes of Service
Many project managers appreciate the efficiency and productivity benefits of Kanban, but don’t know how best to prioritise tasks. How do you deal with an emergency? How are deadlines and milestones taken into account? When are maintenance tasks carried out? That’s where Kanban Classes of Service come in. Classes of Service allow you to set up parallel streams within your workflow for different types of task – keeping your projects on track without disturbing the standard flow and speeding up…
Productive Project Management: Kanban Team
A smooth, efficient workflow is essential to a successful project. The Kanban Method has exploded in popularity as a way to optimise processes in all kinds of teams, especially in Agile software development. But what is Kanban and what makes a Kanban team? What is Kanban? Kanban – sometimes translated as “signboard”, “billboard” or “visual signal” – is a workflow management method with a long history. Invented in the 1940s as a way to improve manufacturing productivity, it has since…
Maximise Customer Satisfaction: Kanban Cycle Time
The one question that project managers hate to hear – “How long will this take?”. Being able to estimate how much time is needed for a team using the Kanban method to complete a client request lets project managers plan ahead and inspires client confidence. Kanban cycle time tracks the average time taken and the probability to complete any type of task within a project. While cycle time can be used to assess your team’s efficiency, it can also be used…
Frequency Distribution: Histogram Diagram
Histograms are a great way to visualise data and track key performance indicators because they are so clear and simple to read. They are the preferred method of presenting large amounts of data in a simple straightforward manner. What is a histogram and how does it help you analyse your data? What is a histogram diagram? The histogram is a graph that is often used in mathematics and statistics. Histograms are used to measure how frequently values or value ranges…
Boost Team Performance: Kanban Throughput
As a product manager, improving your team performance is always at the forefront of your mind. Without knowing how much your team delivers results, it’s impossible to evaluate your performance and give accurate delivery estimates to your customers. Kanban throughput measures your team’s capacity to deliver and enables you to make data-driven decisions about your future performance. What is throughput? Throughput in Kanban refers to the amount of work delivered over a certain period. No matter how many work items your…
What to Measure and Why: Metrics in Kanban
You might have heard the saying “what gets measured gets managed”. Monitoring progress and measuring performance is a key component of the Kanban Method – both for tracking your project and making your process more efficient over time. Here we will explain the specific metrics & analytics in Kanban that you should be using to monitor your team performance and your process efficiency and delivery times, as well as the red flags to watch for that signal trouble ahead. Average Cycle…
Increase Process Efficiency: Kanban Cumulative Flow Diagram
When implementing the Kanban method, how do you know how much work has actually been done and how much is in progress? Perhaps more importantly, how can you assess your workflow efficiency? The cumulative flow diagram (or CFD) is a crucial Kanban analytics tool, and provides an overview of the current state of your project. It can be used to help you identify issues that may be affecting your team performance. When your process is about to face setbacks, you’ll…
Get Started with Kanban using Trello Boards
The Kanban Method has been used to improve productivity and optimise processes – with great success since the 1940s. No longer confined to the factory floor where it was first implemented, people now apply Kanban to studying, retail management and software development. Using a Kanban board to visualise your workflow is a key component. Trello is free, simple and easy to use project management tool ideal for getting started with Kanban. What is Kanban Kanban, meaning “signboard” or “billboard” in Japanese,…
Effective Project Management: What is the Kanban Method?
Delivering work in a quick and efficient way could be a challenge. Kanban is a project management method with an emphasis on continuous delivery without overburdening the development team that focuses on productivity and efficiency. Kanban was initially invented as a way of managing Just in Time (JIT) manufacturing processes. The next chapter in Kanban’s history involved adding best practices and features such as Swimlanes and Classes of Service to make it more efficient for knowledge workers. It is a process designed to…
Our Top 10: The Expert’s List of Project Management Methodologies
Defining and implementing a project management methodology is a key stepping stone to success for any project. While dozens of different approaches have been created, with many of them overlapping and intertwining, there is always an optimum methodology suited to your business, and the type of projects you’re running. We’ve created this list of project management methodologies so that you can quickly build your understanding, before implementing the one which best suits your needs. Even within one company, there could…
Staying Sharp: 5 Team Benefits of Project Status Tracking
Whether you’re a two-person startup or the director in a Fortune 500 giant, real-time project status tracking is critical. Modern analytical software means that there’s no excuse for losing track of a project, missing a deadline, or running over budget. But there’s more to effective project management. In this article we’ll take a look at 5 ways in which effective project status tracking can keep your team productive, your projects organised, and your deliverables on-schedule. Project Updates at a Glance…