InfoQ Article: Lean Kanban Boards for Agile Tracking

Posted by Deborah Hartmann on Aug 25, 2007 04:41 PM

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Agile

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Teamwork ,

Agile Techniques ,

Collaboration

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Value & Metrics ,

Lean ,

Collaborative Technologies ,

Kanban ,

Management ,

Planning

Agile projects are not the only ones to use “big visible charts” - Lean manufacturing, for example has its Kanban Boards. In Japanese "Kanban" means, loosely translated, 'card or sign'. In a Lean production system, each Kanban card is "pulled" into the system only when the work represented by an "in progress" card is retired.  In this InfoQ article, Visualizing Agile Projects using Kanban Boards, Kenji Hiranabe explore visualizations currently used in Agile, then proposes using Kanban Boards to organize three viewpoints (Time, Task, and Team) to track project status and enhance collaboration.

The visualization tools he talks about are:

• Kanban Boards. Use a card as a token (Kanban) of a task, story, feature and stick them to a timeline (board). There are several levels of granularities, in three main combinations:
  • Release-Feature,
  • Iteration-Story and
  • Daily-Task
     
• Burndown Charts. Count the number of Kanbans (backlog tasks) and track it in a timebox to show the trend of work accomplished. There are also several levels of granularities.
   
• Parking lot Charts. Summarize the top-level project status.
   
• Calendars. There are a lot of variations of using calendars to show project status or plan.

In the article, Hiranebe introduces a uniquely Japanese addition to status tracking: the Niko-Niko Calendar, on which team members track their mood from day to day.



Hiranabe also mentions his software tool “TRICHORD” that implements Kanban Boards to realize project visualization from the three viewpoints.



Kenji Hiranabe is a frequent blogger and has translated a number of English Agile and XP books into the Japanese language.

Read the InfoQ article: Visualizing Agile Projects using Kanban Boards by Kenji Hiranabe.

1. Back to top

   Tracking relative to budgeted/available hours

   Aug 28, 2007 11:32 PM by John Rusk

   Burndown (or burn up) charts can easily be suplemented to add tracking against budgeted hours. That way, they track not just the work completed, but also the effort required to complete it. Details here: http://www.agilekiwi.com/agile_charts.htm

   Reply

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   Kanban Yahoo Group

   Sep 2, 2007 7:48 AM by Kenji HIRANABE

   David Andersen gave me a comment on Parking Lot. ---- Hi Kenji, I liked the paper you gave me to read. I wanted to make a comment about the parking lot diagram. It was first introduced on the original FDD project in Singapore and was first documented in Peter Coad's 1999 book, UML Modeling in Color in Chapter 6, the chapter written by Jeff De Luca. David ---- And he started up a new Yahoo Group about Kanban Boards. http://www.agilemanagement.net/Articles/Weblog/KanbanisCatchingOn.html

   Reply

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   Re: Kanban Yahoo Group

   Sep 2, 2007 2:17 PM by Deborah Hartmann

   Looks like there's significant interest in Anderson's Kanban yahoo group, his site says "it's acquired members 80 members in only a few days," and he's looking for leads on who else is doing this kind of work.

   Reply

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   TRICHORD has been released English Available Version.

   Sep 11, 2007 1:06 AM by Hiroki Kondo

   Hi, I'm a member of TRICHORD Team. We have released English Available Version on Sep.11,2007. If you are interested in TRICHORD,Please visit our Site.

   Reply

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   Re: TRICHORD has been released English Available Version.

   Sep 11, 2007 10:23 AM by Kenji HIRANABE

   The above URL is wrong, should be; http://trichord.change-vision.com/en/index.html

   Reply

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   Excellent article

   Oct 28, 2008 6:55 PM by Bonnie Aumann

   I realize I am demonstrating confirmation bias here, but I really like this article's description of the connection between release, iteration and task boards. I look forward to testing out the TRICHORD software - the biggest problem I've had with existing solutions was this lack of hierarchy and association.

   Reply

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   Kanban should be real，touchable

   Mar 16, 2009 8:00 PM by zhang yongji

   Real kanban carry much information。I prefer its exposure. It is also a furniture for your team.

   Reply

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