Pioneered at Toyota in the 1950s, kanban (Japanese for "sign board") systems are popping up in Silicon Valley offices to boost efficiency. "When we introduce a kanban, people start collaborating, the quality of work goes up and stress levels go down," says Jim Benson, author of Personal Kanban (CreateSpace).
Here, with co-author Tonianne Barry, he explains how to apply it to your workplace.
Create your Kanban
Get yourself a whiteboard – or just use an office wall. "Most of our brain is wired for processing visual information," says Barry. "When we put things in folders, they get forgotten. You can better manage what you can see." A physical board is better than an online tool. "You get kinaesthetic feedback when you pull a note into the
'Done' column – and you can't shut it off or minimise it."
Establish a value stream
Create three columns on the board: "Ready", "Doing" and "Done". "The important thing is visualising your work flow," says Barry. "As you start to use the kanban to understand your work better, you may decide to add more 'Doing' columns." A report, for example, might go through planning, draft and approval stages, "but we recommend starting with the basics."
Establish your BackLog
"Populate your 'Ready' column with sticky notes marked with all the tasks you need to complete," says Barry. Try to visualise jobs that might otherwise be invisible. Colour code your notes by type, say, yellow for research, blue for admin and green for personal tasks. "A lot can be gained from seeing how many colours you have on your board and which are moving fastest."
Limit your WIP
Set yourself a limit of five tasks in "Doing" at one time – the aim is to move more into "Done" and reduce your work in progress (WIP). "When we leave a task open, it's eating up our mental capacity," explains Benson. "If we limit our work in progress to a few tasks at a time, we're more focused, finish more quickly and with higher quality. That means less rework and more completion."
Analyse and improve
At day's end, review which tasks are in the "Done" column. "If you've only -finished green tasks, ask yourself: 'Are those my highest-value tasks? Why am I completing some and not others?'," says Benson. "Try to identify patterns. That way you can hypothesise solutions, enact them, and test them against the board.
The kanban should always be helping you improve."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
