Kanban Methodology
Source: shutterstock.com
To represent data in this approach, a Kanban board is used. This tool usually looks like a material object to which magnets, plastic chips or sticky notes are attached. Nowadays, a number of project management applications allow the use of virtual Kanban boards.
The Kanban board is divided into several rows or 3 phone number identifier philippines columns. The simplified version has three columns: To Do, In Progress, and Done. You can also add columns for Backlog, Ready to Develop, Coding, Testing, Approved, and Done.
When using the Agile Kanban methodology, the following conditions must be met:
Visualize the workflow. By visualizing, you can get a holistic view of the project and evaluate its success. By monitoring the workflow, you can identify problems early and improve interaction between teams.
Managing and improving the process . On the Kanban board, you need to constantly check how the work is being done and what needs to be improved. If there are no delays in the process, then the team is confidently moving towards achieving the goal.
Work in Progress (WIP) describes the largest and smallest amount of work for each board column or for each process. Setting WIP limits will help you optimize task execution and spend less time prioritizing areas.
Clearly formulate the principles of work . It is necessary to communicate to all participants the features of the work and the criteria for its implementation. Reflect the changes on the board for a better understanding of these phenomena.
Continuously improve the process. Kanban is characterized by frequent small changes and then fixing them. Once the system is implemented, the team can immediately examine the bottlenecks and work on improvements.
Examples of using Agile methodology
When is Agile used?
Selection of candidates for positions in the company
For example, the HR department of the Return Path email marketing company switched from a standard hiring process to the Kanban methodology. Using Kanban boards allowed for an optimal distribution of workload between employees, in which employees contact candidates as quickly as possible when they have the opportunity to do so.
Employees have become more proactive when working with job seekers and can evaluate their achievements. As a result, the company has begun to spend less time coordinating the candidate's candidacy with management. Previously, this took so many hours that the candidate often managed to get a job at another company.
Revision of strategy
Food distributor Shamrock Foods holds regular meetings for its product teams, where the routine review of reports gives way to discussions of ongoing work and ways to resolve emerging issues. At the end of each meeting, changes to strategy are made or reasons for reconsidering previous decisions are presented.
Case: VT-metall
Find out how we reduced the cost of attracting an application by 13 times for a metalworking company in Moscow
Find out how
Improving customer service
Citibank improved its internal processes related to card issuance. Management created a team of six employees who were required to reduce the time it took to issue a card in a branch from seven days to two hours by performing individual subtasks.
The four team members worked in the internal control, risk management, and operations departments, and were joined by a Scrum Master and a product owner. Each subtask was completed in a two-week sprint, with daily progress reviews.
Improving customer service
Source: shutterstock.com
It took eight sprints to complete the task. This scheme was subsequently actively implemented into the bank's work.
Mobile application development
Until recently, the Agile methodology seemed an unsuitable solution for the oil and gas industry. However, the growing competition in this area encourages the creation of a flexible business structure. This approach was used in the regional sales department of Gazprom Neft when developing its own mobile application. The result of the work of the product teams is a program popular among network users due to the presence of a large number of functions, which became possible thanks to the study of customer experience.
Online store development
Retailer M.Video began actively implementing Agile in 2016, which allowed it to accelerate its progress in IT and reduce costs. Teams consisting of parts are working on the development of the online store. Solutions for the trade and cash register system are being created in a similar manner.
T-Bank and Raiffeisenbank also report using Agile methods. Flexible management methods are becoming increasingly important in banking, as indicated by Sberbank's separate version of Agile for large companies, SberGile, presented following a large-scale project. They claim that this mechanism allows for team development and support of business solutions.