If you're working in an agile development environment.
You may be interested in the major enhancements to
Enterprise Architects - Kanban boards.
Which were first introduced in year 2011.
Just to give everyone some context on Kanbans.
We're talking about diagram elements,
that all representing user stories
or work items like what I've got here.
And they're organized into vertical lanes
each of which represents some project properly
- likes a phase or status for that work item.
As the elements move along the lanes,
that project properties are updated.
So representing a change in status
- for example that work item.
So take items C here for example it's got a phase of 2.0
If I move along the Kanban into the third column.
You'll see that its property is automatically updated
for me, once I refresh.
All this is all existing
But what's new Enterprise Architect 13.
Well major improvements to how you can control
the appearance of the Kanban
and the entirely new Kanban profile.
Let's look at the visuals first.
You will notice, I can right click on my Kanban
and open up a dedicated dialogue
for managing the Kanban.
To start off with I can determine how
that Kanban is populated. I can auto populate it just
simply by running a query or a search.
I can set filters determine which elements
display on the Kanban board.
For lanes I can determine things like the maximum
number of items, the color
similarly for sublines.
And in the appearance I can use this
new Kanban drawing style.
And then have fine control of what information is
displayed for each item; for example status
along with the version and phase together.
The priority of that element there
Maybe an icon to even visually represent,
what the other element is.
Applying that now we can see these are task elements.
And the little ! represents the priority.
I can easily see information about each of these
work items, as they progress along with various stages.
I can also set for a Kanban.
My default Kanban diagram.
On a shared model when I open up.
I can then use the start menu to jump straight to
my Kanban and personally I have a default
Kanban diagram, that are using the shared Sparx model
- but mostly that is just visual.
What's really exciting in Version 13
- is the new Kanban profile.
So you'll see that you're able to create
one of four different Kanban diagrams,
with a standard one, the new backlog, iteration,
and complete Kanban boards.
And these are nicely tied together
by three new model patterns,
which actually allowed to create multistage workflow.
So you can create a one two
or even three stage workflow.
Let's go ahead and do that.
So you can manage our work items.
So by clicking that I have created this structure in
the project browser here which contains three diagrams
First open here is the backlog diagram
and iteration diagram,
which represents like my current tasks.
and then a complete a Kanban board
representing the ideas of incomplete and
the various stages that they go through - then.
So how do I then build up my current tasks.
For example I might use the Kanban toolbox
to simply drop on some user stories like so
maybe some features.
For example I can build up that way.
But let's have a look now at an actual working example,
that I've created here.
So here I've got a Kanban board
representing the work items in a product release.
So for example I've got some
work as to publish a case study.
Apparently Scott is hosting a webinar.
And you know I've gotta do a review of the design here.
So I can quickly see what the work items are
and just as before
as we move work items along the columns.
So I got one the 'Implement Maplet' here
on the Test and Review.
Well its got a phase of 'Tests and Reviews'
and as I move across into the 'Done' column,
then refresh you see that its phase is updated as before.
Well what we can also show.
You'll notice is the underfill and the overfilled.
Now these were actually appearance options
within the Kanban.
Let me show you those.
So for the lanes I could set,
what the maximum number of items were
before alarm bells should be rang,
or whether we perhaps underperforming
a particular area.
And under the appearance I could
highlight the overfilled and underfill.
So very useful tool. We can see, that we have
more items in progress, than we can really handle.
So as the product owner,
I may want to do something about that.
For example by moving the items out.
So let me show you how to do that.
Well along with our Kanban diagrams
We get these little drop zones here.
They are basically diagram fragments.
So the draft press release for example
isn't necessarily that important.
Looking at the event the product is not ready yet.
So perhaps we could move that onto the back burner
- like so.
We move that to the diagram, if I go into the backlog.
There you can see
Scott's task to drop the press release
it's got low priority and it on the back burner.
Reopening the Eurasian diagram once I save it
- and refresh.
You'll see the in progress lane has been updated
for me automatically and similarly I can easily
drop implemented items onto my complete
Kanban board using the drop zone again.
It was put in place for me
by the new Kanban model pattern
and there's the completed item.
So in Version 13 you have not only
the ability to model Kanban boards as before.
But you have an entire profile,
that's designed to support you in using
Kanbans for task management, user stories and alike.