MASTERING KANBAN

Mastering Kanban: Improving The Workflow

Adjusting the way we work is part of our work

How does it work with Kanban?

Do you create a Kanban board, define the workflow and just call it a day, or a year?

In the previous episodes we defined our board, now we can use it forever.
We defined our work in progress limits now let them last (and get on our nerves).

We defined what was needed now we can forget about it and just work.

Starting point

Defining the workflow is just a starting point, it helps get us going. Putting it into practice is merely checking if it can survive the reality check. It’s where the theory meets the practice and we can see if it actually helps us rather than holds us back and irritates us.

Check out 👉 Flexible Kanban Workflow Tool 👈

The workarounds

Back in the days of working in the office, I recall passing by a developer’s desk and noticing post-it notes all over his monitor. Curious, I asked about them. After all, even then our work was digitized?

“They’re the tasks I’m tackling,” came the response. “But with the ‘in development’ column maxed out in Jira, I’m resorting to manual notes to keep track.”

Can you imagine the workarounds? In the end, we are working with some of the most inventive people out there.

It was a couple of weeks after we decided to implement WIP limits into our Scrum framework. Didn’t go so great, did it?

And imagine all the other workarounds people do, not to break the system. But the system is already broken!

That’s why all the workflow we define needs to be reviewed and adjusted. Alright but how do we do that?

You can do it on the spot, use a daily meeting to touch base about things you see are not working or take some time on the next retrospective. However, as always, you don’t need to suffer for weeks to get a topic to a retro. Do it earlier.

A workflow is a living thing and it should be treated as such and continually adjusted. It if doesn’t work, we change it and we don’t need to make a big fuzz about it. Adjusting the way we work is part of our work. And an attempt to make our workplace a good place to work.

Keep calm and keep iterating!

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Short disclaimer before you tune off:

I’d love for you to check out my new project, I have just set up my profile at buymeacoffe/agilestateofmind page.

Have a lot of ideas on how to help you level up your Agile game and create a custom Agile Toolkit.

Meanwhile you are welcome to buy me that coffee to keep me going! Your support means the world to me! Thank you!