WP adopts Kanban

Mandag, 2. august 2010 00:00

WP now offers production teams to be managed using Kanban boards – an interesting alternative to Scrum.

Agile development using Scrum has been the buzz word in regards to software development methodologies for the last couple of years. But as many teams have found out – it doesn’t necessarily solve the needs of all. Many teams find it close to impossible to create time boxed efforts where the team can focus solely on their deliveries – too many urgent tasks and client demands turn up that just don’t give the team the necessary rest. One possibility is of course to make Sprints shorter, but once they get too short the whole idea seems to falter. So what to do?

WorldPartner has recently started using Kanban boards for a few projects, where the backlog simply needed daily attention. This has been a great success and is brilliant in regards to any company that needs to be able to react with very short notice in terms of production. Kanban boards can be shared across country boundaries and there are actually free tools out there that will do the trick. One such tool can be found at www.kanbantool.com and has worked brilliantly for us.

The whole idea with Kanban boards is to not limit work based on their belonging to a Sprint, but rather limit Work In Progress (WIP). By limiting WIP, the team will put a whole lot more focus on getting urgent things removed from the backlog, but worry less about what should generally be done for specific deadlines. If you want to learn more about using Kanban boards to manage your company or team, do feel free to contact us at info@worldpartner.com to get more information or discuss how we propose using it.