In this tutorial, we will introduce how to create Kanban projects in PingCode, determine the priority of work, visualize the workflow, and how to limit the work in progress to prevent the team from overloading, all of which we will introduce in conjunction with the PingCode tool .
What is Kanban: Kanban, like Scrum , is a method that can help the development team release software as early as possible, but Kanban reflects more flexibility in work planning and execution. Instead of working in fixed-time iterations, Kanban continuously delivers work in a visual work kanban bar, where the team picks up work from the backlog and quickly moves work from "started" to "done" status.
Step 1: Create a Kanban project
After logging in to PingCode , create a new project. When selecting the project type, please make sure to select the Kanban project. Once created, you'll see a Kanban view in your new project where you can track the progress of your team members' work.
Step 2: Configure your workflow
In PingCode, the Kanban project provides you with a default workflow of requirement pooling, design, development, testing and release . This allows the product owner to add requirements to the requirements pool list and move to the "development" process after the requirements are "designed". Among them, the kanban column can be split into in-progress and completed, so that team members can move requirements from "in progress" to "completed" in the kanban column. Kanban columns can be re-edited, added, and removed if your team has a different development workflow. For example, many teams add a "pending review" status to their workflow.
To set the workflow of the Kanban column, click "Kanban Settings-Column Settings". On the configuration page, you can add and delete columns, modify column names, set WIP limit quantities, whether to split column status, and set the definition of done.
Step 3: Add tasks, defects or user stories to the requirements pool
Click the New button to create a work item to add a task, defect or user story to the backlog. In the kanban, the demand pool is by default in the first column on the far left of the kanban bar. If you don't have project and product requirements in mind, try creating some sample work items to get started and understand the Kanban workflow.
What is a user story? User stories start from the user's point of view, and use business language that users can understand to describe the work content. We can use a formula to express: as a <role>, I want <activities> to facilitate <business value>.
Example: As a "website administrator", I want to "count how many people visit my website every day" so that "my sponsors know what my website will bring them." User stories are usually written by The product owner creates and prioritizes them, and then the development team evaluates the detailed work content of the user stories in iterations and the amount of work required to complete the story points.
Step 4: Prioritize Requirements
If you need to prioritize the demand list of the kanban, you can click "More Settings-Organize Work Items" in the column of the demand pool of the kanban to sort the view according to the priority of the work items.
Kanban teams generally focus on ongoing work items. Once a team member completes a work item, they move on to the next work item. The product owner is free to prioritize work items in the requirements pool without disrupting the team's work schedule, as any changes other than in-progress work items will not affect the team.
When adding work items to a Kanban board, you can visually differentiate work items based on priority. In addition to the default lanes, Kanban also supports adding custom lanes. For example, you can add a lane with a priority of "P0" to place urgent work. You can also filter on work item tags or other attributes to help you categorize work items.
What is a swimlane? Swimlanes help categorize work so agile teams know which issues they should work on next. To set swimlanes, you can edit and add swimlanes in "Kanban Settings-Swimming Lanes".
Step 5: Select a job from the Kanban bar
In Kanban, team members need to continuously pick up and move work tasks from Kanban columns in various states.
We recommend limiting the number of jobs per kanban column. Therefore, you may consider adding a WIP limit in the Kanban column setup. This alerts you if the team is moving too many tasks to the Kanban bar.
Why limit the number of jobs in progress? Setting work -in-progress limits (WIP) for work in progress means you can set minimum and maximum work quantities in each kanban column on the kanban board. Work-in-process limits (WIP) safeguard overall delivery quality by helping teams focus on finer-grained work—which also allows teams to develop a fixed way of working. Work-in-process limits also help teams identify bottlenecks in work delivery before risks arise. This also ensures that the team can continuously create product value for customers faster, so the WIP limit is a valuable tool for agile development.
In PingCode, you can set WIP limits for each Kanban column in "Kanban Settings-Column Settings":
Step 6: Hold a team meeting
In Kanban project development, daily stand-up meetings and retrospective meetings are not necessary, we suggest that you can decide the frequency of meetings according to your own team situation. Daily standups are still beneficial for Kanban teams to help identify risks and blockers in their work. Product owners sharing changes to synchronize requirements in daily meetings can also improve team collaboration. So, find the right meeting flow for the way your team works, experiment and adapt as you go.
What is a Daily Standup Meeting?
Key Participants: Development Team
Meeting time: Once a day, usually in the morning
Duration: No more than 15 minutes.
Purpose of the meeting: The purpose of the daily standup is to quickly inform the team about what everyone is working on and plan for the day. This is not a formal meeting. The meeting atmosphere can be relaxed and interesting, rich in form and complete in content. Each team member should revolve around the following questions:
- what did i do yesterday
- What am I planning to do today?
- What problem is holding me back?
These three questions can reflect the progress of the iteration and help the team identify the problems blocking the iteration.
Tip: Some teams use timers to regulate when everyone speaks; some teams dictate the order in which everyone speaks to ensure everyone is paying attention; many distributed teams use videoconferencing or group chats to start standups. Therefore, daily scrums depend on your team's work habits.
Step 7: Add Kanban Columns
This step usually depends on the team situation. Many teams like the flexibility of Kanban, but the demand pool column of Kanban can have a large backlog of work that is not easy to manage. At this time, we can add more kanban columns to sort and organize the work. Kanban bars essentially give product managers a larger, more professional space to create and sequence work items without distracting the team from getting work done. For example, a product manager can shift work from "requirements pool" to "ready for development," allowing the development team to predict upcoming work in advance.
Step 8: Automate the Kanban Process
Once you master the Kanban application and setting skills, you can handle some repetitive work through automated rules, reducing operations and saving time. This is a great way to keep the flow of your Kanban column flowing. It is recommended to create an automatic trigger rule in "Kanban Settings-Trigger":
In addition, you can also view the most commonly used automation rules for Kanban projects in the PingCode automation template library .
Step 9: Use Column Constraints
In Step 5, we already discussed the importance of limiting the amount of work in progress. More on how to do that here, as WIP limits can foretell any bottlenecks your team may encounter. These early warnings can help the team re-prioritize the work and adjust the execution plan in time.
You can set the WIP limit for each Kanban column in "Kanban Settings-Column Settings": If the work quantity exceeding the limit is placed in the Kanban column, the column in the Kanban will show a red prompt (sub-work items do not affect Calculation of limit numbers):
For more operations on the kanban bar, you can click "More" settings.
Step 10: Using Cumulative Flowcharts
The Cumulative Flowchart is one of the important reports used by Kanban projects. The cumulative flow chart counts the workload of your Kanban team over a certain period of time and visually reflects the overall progress data of the project in real time.
In PingCode , the cumulative flowchart shows how the team worked over time:
The trend of the statistical line segment in the chart can reflect sudden problems in the work situation at any time - for the line segment showing a sudden upward or downward trend, the problems involved and the reasons can be analyzed. Therefore, cumulative flowcharts are definitely a tool that Kanban teams should consider using when anticipating potential risks.
Further reading: Guide to Agile Development
Scrum Development Guide: Detailed Explanation of Scrum Framework | Four Scrum Meetings and Correct Ways to Hold | Correct Way to Plan and Execute Sprint | 4 Key Points for Doing Iterative Planning | Do these 4 points to make daily stand-up meetings more suitable for agile Team | 3 Key Steps to Opening a Good Iteration Review | Why Hold an Iteration Review | The 3 Scrum Roles and Their Specific Responsibilities | The Role of the Scrum Three Artifacts in Agile Development | 14 Best Scrums in 2022 Agile Project Management Software | More
Kanban Agile Guide: 5 Benefits of Using Kanban (Kanban) Management Method | Kanban VS Scrum: How to choose? | Which scenarios are suitable for the mixed mode of Kanban and Scrum | More
Scaled Agile: The Value of Scaled Agile and Five Large-scale Agile Frameworks | Spotify Model of Scaled Agile | LeSS Framework of Scaled Agile Framework | SAFe Scaled Agile Framework | Scrum@Scale Model | Agile Project Portfolio Management | OKR and Agile Development | More
Product Management: How to Build a Qualified Product Roadmap | How to Become a Good Product Manager | The Importance of Agile Roadmaps and Construction | How to Build Simple and Effective Product Requirements Documents | Use NPS to Determine Functional Priority | Every Product Manager Needs Learn Product Analysis Skills | More