Kanban in Action: Drastic Improvement for Your Software Development Project

Transcript

1. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD Kanban in Agile Drastic Improvement for Your Software Development Project
2. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD What is a Kanban board? • A Kanban board is a visualization technique to manage a business workflow effectively. • It was originally invented as one of the practices of the Toyota Production System, which aims to eliminate all waste and find the most efficient methods possible to produce massive automobiles. • In the software industry, it is considered one of the Agile methodologies and is widely used to manage the development workflow efficiently.
3. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD Sample image of the Kanban board Tasks are moved from left to right. Column Task
4. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD Why is the Kanban board important? 1. Clarify the development workflow and the status of tasks. 2. Prevent underestimation and ensure the quality of work. For accurate estimation, a team must know what processes they follow when developing because additional processes are required to ensure the quality of work, such as a code review, UAT (User Acceptance Test), and demonstration. 3. Identify the bottleneck and improve a team’s performance. The bottleneck is easily found as the Kanban board visualizes all the status of tasks and contributes to performance improvement.
5. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD WIP Limits • WIP Limits places a cap on the number of tasks allowed in a column to prevent multitasking and inventory of unfinished tasks. • Multitasking can hurt productivity and lead to inventory, which is considered one of the 7 wastes in lean manufacturing and does not add value to customers. For example, you can put only three tasks in a column at maximum.
6. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD Commitment Point • Commitment point is where development team determines to commit and work on tasks. • It prevents a common problem that the development team accepts and starts working without having detailed requirements and enough information, ending up falling short of customer expectations. • If a task passes through the commitment point, it means that the development team determines to work on it, and customers expect it to be delivered. For example, Between requirement definition and development columns is a commitment point.
7. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD Kanban board and Gantt chart • A Gantt chart is a useful tool for managing schedules and dependencies in a project. It's commonly used across different industries. • However, it's not recommended to use for short-term schedule management because it doesn't show the development workflow and task status. • On the other hand, it's suitable for long-term schedule management as it gives a general overview of the plan without overwhelming details.
8. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD Scrumban (Scrum + Kanban board) • Scrumban is a hybrid Agile methodology that uses both Scrum and the Kanban board to take advantage of both benefits. • In Scrumban, the team monitors the progress of tasks with the Kanban board during Sprint, which is commonly a few weeks. • In the below image, Sprint lies between the “Development” and “Done” columns.
9. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD Example workflow with the Kanban board 1 Open When a new task is created, it’s put here first. 2 Requirement definition The project team defines requirements. 3 Estimation The project team estimates based on requirements. When the task passes through this column, the project team commits to work. (commitment point) 5 Development Developers start coding. Unit tests are also written for the quality of work. 6 Code review Developers conduct code reviews to check the quality of code. 7 UAT QA (Quality Assurance) conducts UAT (User Acceptance Test) to check the quality of work and usability. 8 Demonstration The Product Owner demonstrates to stakeholders if it meets their expectations. 9 Done After the demonstration, the task is done and released.
10. ASIA EDGE TECHNOLOGY. PTE LTD Bottom line • The Kanban board is one of the Agile methodologies to visualize the business workflow and the status of tasks to manage the project effectively. • It is important to clarify the development workflow and the status of tasks, prevent underestimation and ensure quality, and improve the team’s performance. • WIP Limits cap the maximum number of tasks allowed in a column to reduce multitasking. • The commitment point is where the team determines to commit and work on tasks. • Gantt chart is recommended to use for long-term schedule management, while the Kanban board is suitable for short-term one because the Gantt chart provides a general overview of the plan without detailed information. • Scrumban is a hybrid method to use both Scrum and the Kanban board. During Sprint, the team monitor progresses of tasks with the Kanban board.