Manage your time using the Agile Technique of Kanban

I have read two blogs recently that I found very informative and caused me to change the way I work.
Jim Riviello’s blog titled Less is more discusses the importance of identifying what you should work on next is critical to being productive. He says in his blog
         “Don’t confuse activity with productivity”
Jim also discusses the power of three and recommends maintaining three lists to manage your work. As I read this, my agile mind kicked in and I thought this sounded familiar.
Later that week, I read Lyssa Adkins blog titled Just me and my kanban board. Then it clicked, Jim’s idea of three lists sounded a lot like the Agile technique of Kanban.  I never even considered using Kanban to manage my to do list until I read Lyssa’s blog.

Kanban

Kanban is a process scheduling technique developed by Toyota and later modified to be part of the lean and agile software development methodologies.
In Kanban we use a set of swim lanes to divide up our work. Everything that we plan to do resides in one of these swim lanes. What makes Kanban powerful is these lanes are gaited with the maximum of items allowed in a given lane. This make us focus on completing the work in a gated swim lane before adding another item.

In Lyssa’s blog, she mentions using a mini white board and post it notes to manage her swim lanes and tasks. Agile is all about simplicity and this is an excellent and simple technique. Lyssa uses Kanban For 1 for this purpose.

My Personal Kanban

I decided to use a software solution for my Personal Kanban. I found a free Kanban tool at https://leankitkanban.com/ .

My Personal Kanban board is shown below. I have four swim lanes in my board.

• ToDo – this is something I know I need to do some day. As I think of things during my busy day, I add it here. At regular intervals I prioritize my ToDos by dragging them to the proper position in the swim lane.
• Planning to do – These are items I plan to do soon. I have gated this to 5 items.
• Doing – these are items I am actively working on. Since I decided I could only be working on 2 items at a time I gated this to 2 Items.
• Done – these are items I have completed.

I have established the following rules for myself:

• I can add items in ToDo any time in the day.
• At least one a day I spend 5 minutes reviewing and prioritizing the items in ToDo.
• I spend time each day deciding what I will do soon by moving items into Planning to do. Again, no more than 5 minutes.
• When I start a new task, I always move it onto Doing. This is gated to 2 items. I do not exceed the 2-item gate.
• When I have completed an item, I move it to done.

All of this is very easy to do by dragging and dropping with a mouse.  In my Kanban board shown below, please note the Yellow 5. This tells me I am have reached my gated limit.



Look what happened when I exceed a limit, I get warning and have to enter a reason.



When I decide to proceed anyway and enter a reason, my swim lane looks like this.



I have been using this technique for about a month and I have caught myself many times going down a rabbit hole into things I should not be working on. My personal Kanban board has kept me honest, maybe it will work for you too.

Improve Your Process Using Kanban

Kananban was developed in the late 1940's by Taiichi Onho at Toyota to improve Toyota's production process. It is important to note, this had nothing to do with software, it was all about managing Process and Work. This post will explore using lean principals and Kanban to manage a team's process.

The Problem

Before we offer a solution it is worthwhile exploring what problem we are trying to solve. Teams and the people who work on them are very busy and over worked. They have too much to do in the normal work week. This causes them to work many additional hours just to keep their heads above water.

Teams are also juggling many things at the same time. Many people are proud of their ability to multitask. Although acceptable in small quantities, multitasking can actually lead to lost productivity ¹. It is easy to have so many spinning plates that some are bound to fall and break.
We are faced with so may things to do, we often do not know what to work on next. This causes teams to work on items that may not be that important. Our items get lost in a blizzard of work and we feel lost. This causes a lot of waste.
We are so busy, that we often do not take the time to improve. We feel we are so busy this is not possible. This causes us to get mired down in our same old way of working.
As teams move toward an end goal the progress is also lost in this blizzard. Like a blinding snow storm,there is not transparency into what the team is doing and how it is progressing toward a goal.
It very competitive out there. It is critical for teams to work at peak efficiency. They need to know What is needed and when it is needed. They need to eliminate waste, have a transparent process that helps teams know what is going on and have a way to learn and adapt in a way that does not take lots of time.

The Kanban Solution

Our Diagram below depicts a simple Kanban Board.

We uses a set of Columns that define the workflow of our process. In this example, it is very simple. The workflow moves from left to right.

A set of Cards identify what we need to do. The cards are in priority order, the most important cards are at the top of the list.

It is best to have a card identify an outcome that has value. This is better that a set of tasks. For example Desk ready to ship is better that Order Desk.

 A Constraint identifies the maximum number of cards allowed in a column. In our example, we only allow 3 cards in the doing column.
It is very easy to setup a Kanban board. A good place to start is a whiteboard and post it notes. There is also free software that can easily setup Kanban boards, Please see our Agile Tools for Delivery section for details.

Why Do This

Using Kanban forces us to put some thought into our process. By defining a set of Columns we define our workflow. By adding Constraints to a column we are acknowledging we have limited resources and have agreed to finish what we start before moving on to other things.

A set of Cards identify the things that need to be done and the priority they are needed. All of this is transparent for the whole team to see. This allows the team the see what is going on at all times and adapt where needed.

Regular meetings should be conducted to review the work and adapt to change.
For an working example please see the Process Improvement with Kanban section of our Roadmap to Agile.

Learn More

What is Kanban

Introduction To Kanban

Just-in-Time - Philosophy of complete elimination of waste

Some Remarks on the History of Kanban

Lessons in Agile Management: On the Road to Kanban (Book)

1. Debunking the Myth of Multitasking

Free or Almost Free Software to Run Your Business

It is a challenge these days to start a small business and get it up and running. This article provides information and links to vendors who provide free or almost free cloud based software.

Many vendors are using a pricing model where they provide software free or almost free for small teams. The hope is that the firms and teams will grow and need to add seats to the subscription. Larger teams typically pay more per seat than small teams do but as they grow the extra cost can be justified. Most of these vendors also have a free trial period.

The focus of this software is professional services and consulting type firms but much of the software discussed here will be useful to other firms. My belief is that this software is so inexpensive there is no reason or excuse not to use it.

I have used or am using each of the solutions mentioned in this analysis so I have real world experience with the software.

Type	Description	Vendor	Cost
CRM	If you manage or sell to any type of customer, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software is useful. You manage leads, convert them to opportunities and manage accounts and contacts. Everything is in one place.	Zoho CRM	Free – Leads, Accounts and Contacts for 3 users. Provides basic sales services. $12 / User / Month – adds forecasting, document storage and dashboards. Indented for small business. $20 / User / Month – adds workflow, email integration and role based security. $35 / User / Month – adds territories, advanced workflow and call centers. Price Details
Web Site	Every firm needs a website. There are many solutions for this. Squarespace is the best I have seen and is the product I use.	Squarespace	Prices are for annual billing $8 / Month – 20 pages, 500gb bandwidth, 2 GB storage, 2 Contributors $16 / Month – Unlimited $24 / Month – adds eCommerce Price Details
Wiki	It is common to have a need for documentation and collaboration. A wiki is a great solution for this. The best wiki I have seen is Confluence by Atlaassian. Pricing is per groups of users. A license seat is not required to view content.	Atlassian Confluence	$10 / Month – 10 Users $50 / Month – 15 Users $100 / Month – 25 Users $200 / Month – 50 Users $300 / Month – 100 Users $500 / Month – 500 Users $1000 / Month – 2000 Users Price Details
Task and Project Management	Jira is a task and issue management tool. You may manage tasks, defects and workflow for many business needs and process.	Atlassian Jira	$10 / Month – 10 Users $50 / Month – 15 Users $100 / Month – 25 Users $200 / Month – 50 Users $300 / Month – 100 Users $500 / Month – 500 Users $1000 / Month – 2000 Users Price Details
Agile Delivery	Jira Agile is an add-on for Jira. It is a full featured agile tool that supports Scrum and Kanban. It requires Jira.	Atlassian Jira Agile	$10 / Month – 10 Users $50 / Month – 15 Users $100 / Month – 25 Users $200 / Month – 50 Users $300 / Month – 100 Users $500 / Month – 500 Users $1000 / Month – 2000 Users Price Details
Kanban	Kanban is a great way to manage workflow and work Items. I use this to manage my open items is in very easy manner. See my blog Personal Kanban.	Lean Kit	Prices are for annual billing Free – 10 users and 3 Kanban Boards. $15 / Month – unlimite3d boards, unlimited users, Taskboards. $19 / Month - Unlimited Users, Unlimited Boards, Role-based Security, Advanced Metrics, Advanced Taskboards, Portfolio Dashboard Pricing Details