Kanban

Terms

Planning triggerit is the planning trigger that makes the team arrange a planning session.

Bottlenecksomething that is an impediment and prevents the team from moving forward.

Lead timetotal time from the initial customer request to the product delivery.

Cycle timetotal time it takes to finish a task from when team started working on it. Includes delays.

Cummulative flowstacked line chart that shows the quntity of work in a certain state - arrivals, queue, departure.

Swimlanea horizontal lane along which cards flow on the board. This includes categories, features, etc.

Process

A Kanban project runs on need based iterations. During the iterations the team produces incremental value to the end product.

IterationsThe iterations are planned according to the needs of the team. These are ended when the team feels it has added substantial value to the product.

EstimationEstimation are optional, but usually done in hours or according to the estimated task size.

Work in progressLimits the number of tasks the team is currently working on. Each task is completed before a new task is being worked on.

RolesThere are no assigned roles, in the team that works according to Kanban. But the team is crossfunctional and focuses on completing the work reflected in the Kanban board.

Task sizeUsually, divided into small, medium, large. There is no particular size that the task should fit in. Instead it is important that it has a clear goal for someone on the team to complete.

Task assignmentThere is no one assigning tasks in Kanban. Rather each member of the team pulls tasks from the Kanban board according to their skillset.

Meetings (4)

Planning sessionis done because of a planning trigger and is meant to fill in the board with tasks to be worked on during the iteration.

Daily standupa short daily meeting, where team members tels each other what they have worked on and what they are going to work on(even what are the potential bottlenecks).

Iteration reviewit is a meeting where the completed work is presented to see if the team meets the goals previously set during a planning session.

Retrospectiveis a meeting where the team discusses the process and how it can be improved.

Prioritization

The prioritization is optional, but done according to the priority columns in the Backlog.

Board (3)

Usually has three sections. From left to right these are:

Backlogtasks that have to be worked on, bugs, features, etc.

Work in progresstasks that the team currently works on.

Donetasks that are completed.