Key Points

• Visualizing work and limiting items in progress are core benefits of integrating Kanban with Agile.
• Continuous flow and eliminating bottlenecks are going to be your core focus when optimizing your implementation of Kanban.
• Kanban is a great fit for Agile, and readily combines with complementary approaches like Scrum to create a powerful, efficient, working environment.

Kanban makes for a wonderful complementary tool in your Agile workflows. If you’re looking to optimize your software delivery workflow, then looking at a visual means of organization is a great way of keeping things centered on continuous flow. Further, it fits right into the somewhat looser principles around Agile, which focus primarily on results.

That said, how do you implement Kanban in your current Agile teams? Well, thankfully, we’ve got a few practical strategies to get you going.

Visualizing Workflows

One of the biggest benefits of using Kanban for Agile is the visual component behind it. Kanban boards typically show tasks in progress, who is operating on said task, and its current status. While you might utilize digital workboards like Trello, this goes beyond something like a simple to-do list. Instead, it’s something dynamic and changing, showing the totality of your team’s efforts on a given project.

Further, it allows you to get an idea of just how far along certain tasks are, which is fantastic for a methodology centered around completing smaller tasks like Agile.

Structures

A Kanban board is structured into distinctive columns, each showing explicit stages of a given work item. These go from conception to completion, completing a full journey and allowing things to be marked as finished. As I mentioned previously, this isn’t static by any means.

Instead, you can integrate additional concepts and requests, validate work and release it for testing, or bring it back for corrections after receiving feedback from your QA department. Each item is given an assignee, promoting ownership and transparency throughout the process. Emphasizing such accountability not only increases employee engagement but also proves vital for figuring out issues with requirements or other potential pain points.

Benefits

There are a few different areas where this has a great positive benefit for Agile.

First, you’re getting immediate visual progress of the status of work items. You don’t need to hold stand-ups and the like to see what is being done where.

Second, you’re identifying bottlenecks. If cards are piling up in one particular column, you’ve got a cause for concern that hopefully has a swift remediation.

Finally, it keeps the project open and transparent. Everyone is on the same page when looking at a Kanban board, whether it be your team members, stakeholders, or even customers who are visiting to see how things are going.

Limiting Work in Progress

This counterintuitive concept might seem a bit alien at first, but stick with us. Limiting the number of tasks that are being worked on in a given time is a fantastic idea and will lead to an overall increase in quality. You do need to outline limits for this explicitly beforehand, with a limit of something like 3 or 5 items for a column as the maximum.

What It Means for Your Team

Multitasking is fine and dandy, but it kills speed and efficacy. Forcing your teams to focus on a handful of tasks means they are giving it their undivided focus, and complete tasks to the best of their ability, versus trying to manage to hit a deadline.

Further, you’re shortening lead times. If you break down a complex software project into multiple smaller features and those are getting completed in no time at all, you’re far more likely to ship out your deliverables before the expected due dates.

Finally, it helps to encourage collaboration, something that benefits Agile software environments in a major way. If bottlenecks are being found, team members are more likely to step up and help clear through the task.

Managing Flow

One of the key things to keep in mind with Kanban is that it emphasizes a state of motion. When combined with Agile, which can work in iterative and incremental steps, you might have some crossed wires. However, it’s important to establish solid metrics.

You’ll want to keep an eye on your Cycle Time, or the length of time it takes for a single work item to be started and completed. Lead time is also a key metric, and you’ll be measuring how long it takes to go from backlog to delivery. This is a huge metric for your bottom line, and something your customers are keeping an eye on as well.

Finally, throughput is a big one. This focuses on how many items from your Kanban board are being completed over a specified period.

Eliminating Bottlenecks

Managing flow isn’t just about keeping track of metrics. You want things to flow smoothly, without hitches. To this end, root cause analysis can be a useful means of finding pain points in your development cycles. Often, this can come in the form of inefficiencies, waste, or even a lack of knowledge for a given feature.

Process improvement can then take place, alleviating or eliminating the bottleneck. When combining Agile and Kanban, the emphasis here is fluid motion.

Prioritization

Kanban doesn’t rely on fixed sprints like Scrum does, but you’ll be focusing on key items as you go along a given project. When looking at the Backlog of your Agile project, you’ll likely have features and tasks ranked based on the customer specification for the deliverable. When items are completed, you’ll want to pull the next highest-ranked item, making sure you’re completing all high-value, mission-critical tasks first.

Making Process Policies Explicit

Implementing something Kanban into an Agile workflow can lead to a bit of friction. Depending on how fast and loose you play with your team structure during any project, it might behoove you to implement policies on how work is to be evaluated when using the board. This fully aligns with Agile’s emphasis on clear communication and shared understanding.

Entry and Exit Criteria

One of the biggest things is going to be defining when a card should move to the next column. Criteria and strict policy will clear up confusion and make sure the project stays on track as intended. This helps to reduce ambiguity, especially depending on item prioritization in past projects. Knowing when it’s time to move to the next stage is vital for any given workflow.

Additionally, you might want to lay down clear definitions of what “Done” means in a project. “Done” is going to have a few different definitions, which is to be expected. However, you’ll want to hammer home what it means for development, testing, and the overall state of a project.

Feedback Loops

Communication is one of the most important components of Agile, and something that you’ll be using regularly regardless of Kanban implementation or Scrum. Feedback serves as the backbone of any project, and failing to communicate could spell disaster for your team. Thankfully, Kanban integrates readily with these feedback loops, making for minimal changes.

Reviews and Stand-ups

Regular stand-ups, not unlike daily scrums, are a common part of Kanban. Topics of discussion are generally brief, focusing on the items moved over the previous day, what items are the focus today, and whether or not there are any roadblocks to be aware of that might impede flow.

Reviews are less often, usually once every week or two. These are more comprehensive and involve the stakeholders of a project. You’ll be discussing flow metrics, customer satisfaction, and reporting on any issues or successes along the way.

Hybridized Approaches

Scrum and Kanban go together shockingly well. Many of the communication and flow concepts discussed in Kanban are a natural fit for Scrum, which focuses on short, focused sprints to accomplish tasks. Going for a Scrumban approach is a highly effective means of improving flow, and might just be what the doctor ordered.

Scrumban is a little looser in some regard than the more structured approach seen in Scrum. However, it takes the best of both worlds, the iterative and time-oriented workflow of Scrum, and combines it with the visual elements, continuous flow, and limits of Kanban.

Other Useful Tools and Concepts

Looking for something to go with your morning coffee? You might want to take a closer look at how Value Stream Mapping can greatly enhance your retail business’s customer experience. Happy customers are a surefire way of repeat business, and Value Stream Mapping can readily show where you need to focus.

Additionally, you might want to take a look at how artificial intelligence integrates into Lean. Lean focuses heavily on data-driven analytics to reduce waste, drive improvement, and ultimately deliver upon quality. When combined with AI, you’re getting a powerful combination that results in more satisfied customers as a result.

Conclusion

Kanban is a great fit for Agile, and something that should be considered if you’re working on complex software projects. Kanban isn’t just about promoting visual workflows, but rather increasing accountability, inviting communication, and bolstering quality in your deliverables. It’s a winning combination, and one that any team should be thinking about using for their next project.