Look no further than kanban to help your development teams work more efficiently.
Developers are very busy people. Not only are their jobs incredibly challenging, but they also face impossible and inflexible deadlines. And as your business continues to grow, the demand for these developers will increase exponentially.
You might think that the best solution to this problem is to hire more developers to help your overworked team. In some cases, it's a great idea. But what happens when your teams are already struggling to manage their projects and the problem isn't so much how much work they have, but how poorly managed they are?
Project management. It's something every company (and even individual developers) must face. It's a challenge, especially on larger projects that include a large number of teams collaborating on applications with many moving parts. Who is developing what and what state is each part of the project in?
If you can't check these details quickly, you're already late. With development projects, the last thing you want is to fall behind. To that end, where do you turn for help?
One of the best tools you can employ for project management is a Kanban board.
What is a Kanban board?
Kanban is a method of managing work in human systems. The idea behind Kanban is to create a visual representation of a task and move it along columns as it progresses from start to finish. A set of Kanban columns can include:
| Pendencies | In progress | Analysis | Test | Finished | Released |
Below each column header you will have rows for each task. Say, for example, you have a task called Function X. This task will start in the Backlog because it has not been assigned and no work has been done. After the task is assigned and work begins, it moves from Backlog to In Progress. This task continues along the trajectory until it is in the Released column.
You will have different tasks at different stages throughout the board, which might look like this:
| Pendencies | In progress | Analysis | Test | Finished | Released |
| W function | |||||
| Function | |||||
| Y function | |||||
| Z function |
Any team member could quickly take a look at that board and know exactly where each Role is in the process. That's the beauty of a Kanban board.
So why exactly should your developers use such a tool? Let's take a look at the benefits.
Kanban makes project management easier
Of all the management tools available, none come close to making project management as easy as kanban. That's because it's not just about getting a quick idea of where a task is on the timeline. Most kanban tools allow you to assign tasks to users (or teams) and make use of automation to make them even more efficient. And with easy drag and drop features, you can easily move tasks from one column to another.
Most kanban solutions also allow companies to customize the tools, so you can create a very project-centric board. For example, if your company is focused on cloud native development, you might need a different set of columns than if you were focused on mobile or web development.
Better collaboration
Kanban boards also make collaboration considerably easier. When a team can look at a board and know exactly how another team is progressing, they can adjust their workflow to match. Even better, kanban boards virtually eliminate the need for status meetings, meaning your developers don't have to wait to find out where each team stands. The information is always there, ready, for anyone to see.
Encourage focus
Another benefit of Kanban boards is that they encourage focus. Instead of your developers always wondering if they should start new work, kanban makes it easier for them to see how each piece of the puzzle is fitting together. So if a team is working on Function X that depends on Function Y, the team working on Function Y has a visual cue to keep them focused on completing the project so the other team can continue.
When you encourage this level of focus, productivity skyrockets.
Visual Representations
As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. With kanban, team members can easily see the status of each task in a project. And considering that most people can infer much more quickly from visual representations than from the written word, kanban has a considerable advantage over, say, email communication for a task.
Easier communication
You may have project leaders who feel the need to constantly send emails to each task or team. While email is a great form of communication, it's not always the best form of management. And given how easily emails slip through the cracks of the spam filter, you can't always depend on this form of communication to be effective.
Kanban boards, on the other hand, are not only the most efficient way to manage projects, but they also make communication much easier.
A flexible workflow
Kanban is based on “just in time” practice, which makes it capable of quickly adapting to changes in the workflow. For example, if something changes in the middle of a project, a Kanban board can easily change with it. You can quickly reassign teams and developers to tasks that have fallen behind. With this flexibility in project management, your teams can deliver results faster and more reliably.
Conclusion
If you're not using Kanban boards, it's time to do so. This highly regarded and efficient project management tool will make your teams work more efficiently, which will allow them to produce more code while helping to shorten the software lifecycle.
Embark on this wildly popular management tool and discover why so many companies rely on kanban to keep projects flowing.
