Kanban is a Japanese term that means “billboard” and can be translated roughly as “kanban”. It is a method that helps organizations plan, visualize, and organize their work. Kanban allows them to control various logistic elements and prioritize tasks on boards. Kanban is a method that helps teams to eliminate bottlenecks and improve their quality. Kanban provides a place for project managers and their teams to manage their tasks, lists, and files. This increases productivity and helps teams complete projects more efficiently. This seems impossible when there are so many tasks to complete. Kanban’s philosophy will allow you to create a perfect schedule that will tell what to produce, when and how much. Kanban is a well-known tool for project management in today’s business world. It is simple, clear, and effective. Frameworks and Methodologies for Project Management
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In the 1940’s, Taiichi Ohno, a Japanese Toyota engineer, was fascinated by how American grocery stores stock their shelves. They only stock the items that customers actually use. He was inspired to implement the same method in Toyota’s production system and achieve the same efficiency on their assembly lines. Their goal was to keep the inventory low, but still have enough parts to meet demand. It was called Kanban (Khan-Ban), also known as “just-in-time” system. However, it has seen a lot of changes over the years and has been modified a bit by David Anderson. Kanban’s core principles are as follows:
David J. Anderson, who was using Kanban at Microsoft in the mid 2000s, was so impressed by the positive results that he decided the best way to improve the company’s workflow was to use it. He outlined five practices that result in successful evolutionary change for technology businesses in Kanban.
Limit work in Process (WIP). You can be more productive and accomplish more with less. Your team should only be given the most important tasks. Do not assign more work to your team until they complete something.
Manage Flow – Start where you are with the existing process, and then review where inefficiencies exist and improve. Learn from your mistakes to prevent bottlenecks from happening again.
Management policies should be made explicit. Ensure everyone understands the process and your goals. Define the criteria that each stage of the process must meet in order to be called “done”.
Collaboration is key to success – When your team understands the theories of work, it will be easier to collaborate.
