Kanban — An Effective Tool to Manage Your Workflows
In this era of cut-throat competition, mismanagement is the last thing you can afford as business professionals. You must be wondering that how could a whole lot of workflow related planning be done in a perfectly manageable way.
There are several projects and several teams that managers have to look after. Different people work on different tasks and it becomes difficult to keep track of the progress of all tasks manually.
A glitch here and there seems to be almost unavoidable.
Well! Kanban is the answer.
The literal meaning of the word Kanban is ‘a billboard’ or ‘a signboard’.
What do billboards or signboards do?
They provide us with information in an easy to grasp manner and easy to read manner.
Similarly, a Kanban board provides you information about the different stages of your workflow in a very structured manner such that you can visualize the whole process in an understandable manner in one place.
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Managers, as well as team members, can simply go to Kanban boards to clearly view who is working on what. They can see the stage at which work is going on. Also, Proper planning can be done for the future as they can see how much needs to be accomplished in what time. Such a clear view helps figure out loopholes and bottlenecks also.
Kanban revolutionized the whole concept of workflow management when Toyota employed this method first in the 1940s in Japan. Taiichi Ohno (Industrial Engineer and Businessman) developed this method to manage production-related problems.
Kanban was invented as a planning system. Kanban acted as a system of just-in-time production which reduced the overstocking of raw materials, semi-finished products, and finished products. Rather, it served to the production needs such that supply disruption and overstocking problems were solved. Over time, Kanban has established itself as an efficient system in the production industry.
Taiichi Ohno had introduced this method in the manufacturing industry whereas David Anderson applied the concept to IT in the year 2004. He made use of concepts like pull systems, queuing theory and flow to use Kanban in the field of knowledge work. Kanban: “Successfully Evolutionary Change For Your Technology Business” is the comprehensive work of David Anderson on the Kanban method.
What exactly is Kanban methodology?
In the simplest words, the Kanban method is a method of regulating your workflow. When you have several tasks and deliverables to work on, it is difficult to track the progress of all of them at once. Also, you might forget something that was to be prioritized because you have been working on so many tasks all at once.
Now, how does Kanban help with that?
Kanban is more like a visual tabular representation. You get different columns like to-do, work-in-progress, done, backlogs, etc.
This method sets a limit on work-in-progress. At one time, you can keep only a certain number of tasks in your work-in-progress column. You can pull in other tasks from your to-do list only after finishing the current tasks. As a result, workers will not jump to new tasks before finishing the ones at hand.
Kanban, if used right, can lead to a decrease in cycle time, improved workflows, better predictability, delivering better value to the customer.
Core properties of Kanban System
Before incorporating the Kanban method in your business system, you should know about the core properties of using a Kanban system.
- Applicable to your current assignments
Kanban is highly flexible as a workflow management system. It does not demand any specific roles or processes etc. to incorporate it in your current system. You can apply this to your existing workflows or processes and it will help you figure out loopholes within the working of your systems.
Kanban is a versatile system. Any kind of organization can use it without feeling shocked or alienated about its usage.
2. Pursues small, incremental changes
Kanban improves your workflow by suggesting small, incremental changes and does not encourage sweeping changes. This reduces the chances of resistance from the employees and makes it easy to adopt as a system.
3. Does not break the hierarchy of roles and responsibilities
Kanban does not challenge the current roles and responsibilities within an organization. It respects the current titles, roles, and responsibilities.
Kanban has all the qualities to overcome this emotional resistance associated with change. Kanban adapts your current processes without shaking the roots of your organization at all.
4. Encourages leadership acts at all rungs of the ladder
Since Kanban is highly transparent as a tool, it encourages acts of leadership at all the rungs of the ladder. By that, we mean that it is not only the people at higher designations who can take steps to bring improvement. Rather, people at all levels can bring ideas to tackle bottlenecks and make the work dynamic better.
5. Team meetings
Team meetings in front of the Kanban system are of paramount importance. Discussing what different members accomplished last day and what they will do today will ensure team synchronization.
These meetings should be held at regular intervals at a fixed time. The time duration can vary from 15 minutes to one hour as per the size and needs of the team.
Perks of modern-day Kanban
Since the inception of Kanban in the 1940s, it has undergone a change for the good. Having begun with a physical Kanban, we now live in a world with digital Kanbans.
Let us see how digital Kanban has helped the management of workflows.
- One of the biggest benefits of an online Kanban board is that all the information is available in one central place. One can have quick access to all the related files and data without any need for extra physical space.
- Automated synchronization is another benefit of the online Kanban board. If a task is added, moved or completed, it automatically gets updated for everyone to see without any need for status reporting, thus saving a lot of time.
- Remote team members can access an online Kanban from anywhere by using their login credentials. This way, the team can synchronize in urgent situations even outside the office premises.
- Increased security is another pro in online Kanban boards. Delicate information cannot be kept open for all to view. While a physical Kanban does not provide any such security, an online Kanban can bring a fair amount of secrecy. Most of the online Kanban boards have the facility of role-based access and also better multi-factor authentication procedures to ensure security and safety.
- Online Kanban boards can be integrated with other systems like email. You can add a task to the board through your email rather than manually entering it in the Kanban board.
Benefits of Kanban board as a tool
In simple words, Kanban helps us in getting more work done by better collaboration.
Here we have listed the benefits of Kanban as a system.
- Kanban is a common platform for all the team members to stay on the same page when it comes to tracking the project progress. Since everyone can see project-related information on the Kanban board, it brings transparency to the whole work dynamic.
- Spotting bottlenecks become quite easy with the help of a Kanban board. If you see that a particular column has too many tasks in it, you can spot the loopholes in the process and work towards making improvements.
- Flexibility is another quality of the Kanban board. It can be implemented on all kinds of teams and projects. It does not require you to make any changes in your current structure and is highly adaptable as a tool.
- The core intention behind building Kanban was serving the customer’s needs well in time. Similarly, in the present times, Kanban helps you understand your priorities in a way that you can deliver your projects on time after organizing and focussing in the right manner.
Kanban boards in ProofHub
ProofHub is a one-stop solution for all your project-related problems. Kanban boards in ProofHub offer great task management tool by providing a visual representation of your workflow. You can view all the stages of your workflow in a board view on Kanban, thus allowing you to track the work-in-progress at different stages and spot the loopholes in the process.
Get more done in less time. Sign up on ProofHub here.
By being able to spot bottlenecks in your workflow, you can make changes at any step to deliver your projects on time. Kanban in ProofHub is a wonderful collaborative tool as it keeps the project team as well as clients in loop thus saving a lot of time from getting wasted in status reporting and manually transporting information through email threads.
Summing up
Any professional culture looking for more efficiency, lesser bottlenecks and a clear understanding of project progress can adopt Kanban for a drastic performance boost and ‘just-in-time’ delivery of projects.
Kanban method gradually improves whatever you do as it can bring benefit to any business function. Kanban can help streamline the operations of all kinds of organizations be it recruitment, staffing, insurance, advertisement, etc.
