Have you heard about Kanban and projects and are wondering what is Kanban?
Well, stay tuned because in this video, I'm going to share with you an understanding of
how to use Kanban methodology in your next project.
And if you want to be a project manager ninja, then stay tuned to the end of this video,
where I'm going to share with you how you can get your hands on an amazing checklist
to ensure your projects do not fail.
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What is Kanban?
Kanban is methodology for managing your project tasks in an agile way that allows for everyone
to see the progress of all the tasks associated with your project.
Now, this Kanban is done in a way where it's actually done on a board.
That board can be a physical board, like a whiteboard and you can use sticky notes or
it can actually be done on a software program, which is again, done kind of on a board and
you are going to use what they call cards to indicate all of your project tasks.
Now, how this is set up and why this is used is because there's a particular flow with
Kanban and you set it up in columns and those columns, just for simplicity's sake here,
is we're going to stick to the three core ones.
There's the to-do column, there's the in-progress column, and the done column.
And with the Kanban board, whether again it's manual or software, is you're going to move
your tasks through the progress of those columns.
And what's really cool about a Kanban board is it allows for everyone on your team to
see the progress of everyone else's tasks as well because it's very visual.
Now, the key to Kanban is everyone has to participate in it and be active in regards
to ensuring that they're following the rules of Kanban.
But I'm going to get into that with an example.
Kanban example.
Now, before I jump onto my computer to show you an actual Kanban example, don't forget
to stick around to the end of this video because I'm going to show you how to get your hands
on that amazing checklist I talked about earlier on.
Okay.
So, now we're on my project SharePoint site.
You can see this right here.
I love, as you've probably seen in previous videos, I love SharePoint as my one stop shop
for all my project related stuff.
And this is a good place, if you are going to use a Kanban methodology, a great place
to put it particularly on virtual teams, because then this way everyone can go to the central
location and get access to the Kanban board.
But as I said earlier on too, you can do a manual version of this, which is a whiteboard.
And when you're in person and everyone works in the same office, there's something really
powerful about that whiteboard and manually moving the post-it notes that have all the
key information on it through the different stages of your Kanban board.
So now let's talk about the Kanban board.
I'm giving you an example of a staff skills matrix.
Now, please note, here's my disclaimer.
I'm simplifying this for you.
This simplification is so that you can get the concept.
So now let's go into the concept and the concept is really straightforward.
It's all about progressing your activities of your project through a very systematic
process that is based on three sections.
So let me share with you the first section.
It's to do.
This is where you're going to dump all of your business requirements, your project requirements,
really your action items.
Sometimes this is called a backlog of everything that we have to do in order to make this project
successful.
They're all of our to-do items.
The next section is in-progress.
So this is when you decide to do one of your to-do items.
You put it in the in-progress section and that could encompass whatever it is that you
need to do for that particular to-do.
You could be creating something validating, executing it.
And once you've done everything you need to do within that in-progress section, you then
put in your done and you repeat.
Rinse and repeat.
So in your to-do, this is where you can divide it up according to item number.
You can divide it up between individuals.
So as I said earlier, my disclaimer, this is a really simplified version just to give
you an idea how you can use it, particularly for non-technical projects, because there
are a lot of projects out there that could totally use a Kanban board, particularly when
you have a couple people working on it and you can see the progress of it.
So, let's take a look.
I'm going to show you one of my cards for my Kanban.
So if you take a look here, I have item one, which is, and the first task within that,
my first to do is document and gap analysis.
And I've brought it over to Lauren.
So I'm going to move that over in my progress.
That's the first thing Lauren on my team is going to work on for this particular project.
So this item one is all about documentation.
The first thing she has to do is a gap analysis.
And you'll notice here, I have item one and number one, and I've given her two weeks to
do it.
Now within that two week cycle, she's going to do her gap analysis.
She's going to validate it with me.
And when we're in agreement that all is good, she is going to now move it over into this
section, which is done.
So now we know for sure it's done.
Now for her, she's now going to go to the next item and that over here is, let me bring
this over.
Number two is documentation, SOP creation, that's standard operating procedures, creation
and update.
So she's taken this gap analysis.
She's now gone over here.
She's now doing all our standard operating procedure creation.
She's updating some.
She's creating some new ones.
She has to validate it and then she's going to make sure that it's all set for upload.
When that's done, she's going to move it over to the done section, and you'll notice here
she has four weeks to complete that.
So then when she's done, she's going to bring that over here and then she's going to have
this other task, which is to upload her documentation.
See item one, item one, item one, there's a consistency.
1, 2, 3.
Over here you can see the three.
Documentation, she's going to upload it into a learning management system.
And for this particular item, there was three specific tasks that needed to get accomplished.
And when she's done, she's going to throw it over here.
Now that's a very simplified version, one person going through the task because you
want them to focus all their attention in a very quick manner.
Get it done, test it out, make sure that the end user is happy with the results and then
move on to the next thing.
The beautiful thing about a Kanban board is if she did all of this in parallel at the
same time without checking and validating, then what would happen is when she would upload
it, there'd probably be a whole bunch of problems and issues and then she'd have to go back
and do a lot of rework.
And that's the beauty of a Kanban board.
You only work on what it is that you're supposed to work on and then you get approval for it
and then you move on to the next stage.
Now with a Kanban board, I can have more people in this Kanban board.
So it's not just a one person Kanban board.
You see, I have another item here, which is Tiffany and her item again, one, two, I'm
now going to show you a number three here and she's going to do the exact same thing.
She's going to take her number one and she's going to create her training list and a general
approach.
I'm giving her two weeks to get that done.
And just like Lauren, it's the same premise.
She's going to move things over and she's going to go to the next one and constantly
add it.
So these things and individuals can be working on things in parallel.
Now, how does that look?
Well, let me show you how that looks so that you can see it.
So let's say for example, we had Tiffany working on her training plan and then we had Lauren
working on her gap analysis.
And you can do many as you like, different people.
The key is you want to ensure that individuals, it's your items that are driving the activities
and you also want to make sure that you're doing proper resource loading and you're not
overloading people too.
I can have a couple of tasks in my Kanban board as an individual.
Lauren can have a few here.
The key is she's not going to have same item one.
She's not going to have multiple item ones in here.
She may have an item three.
She may have an item five.
They're very different and specific, but those are the things she's working on.
For her item one, she can only work on one thing at a time and when she's done, she moves
it over.
So that's the power behind this.
I can have multiple in-progress items, but they're going to be different item numbers.
I'm not going to have multiple item ones at the same time because that defeats a purpose
of what we're trying to do here with the Kanban board.
It's really working through it in a systematic rhythmic approach.
And it's really, really awesome for very straightforward projects and a great way to get everybody
on board to see what other individuals are also doing.
Kanban side notes.
Now, the really cool thing with the Kanban is you can add as many columns as you like
that is needed for your project.
As you know in the example, I focused on three, again focusing on simplicity.
Now, when it comes to how and which project should you use this for?
It's really going to be dependent upon you and your project team.
This is great for real simple projects.
It's just a lovely way to get the visual up there and everybody knows what's going on.
If you have more complex projects with tons of, let's say, tasks, action items, requirements,
your Kanban board is going to be really populated in that first column, which is the to-do.
So you may need an additional parking lot action item list which are going to house
all the up and coming requirements that you're going to add to your to-do section once you
complete all the ones that are currently there.
So there are some additional things that you may have to take a look at.
But on that note, Kanban, it's just a really cool visual tool and another way to track
your activities in a project.
All right, you sticked around to the end.
Yay.
Thank you.
And I did tell you I have something special for you, which is this.
I have this amazing download for you to help you ensure that you do not fail on your projects
because having a Kanban board is going to help, but even having this download is even
going to help you more.
So grab this download from the link below.
I put it in there just for you and it's free.
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Do you have any thoughts about Kanban?
Put it in the comments below.
Talk to you later.
Next video.