Kanban: a project management framework

Over the last decades important new approaches have appeared in operations planning and control of production systems. Kanban (看板, meaning ‘cards’ in Japanese) is a visual system whose first purpose was to gain control in processes and make their workflow more manageable. The efficiency of daily activities within industrial processes represent a challenge for every production company. In fact, this tool is not only applicable to production processes, but also to every project taking place in almost every business function (operations, marketing, recruitment, business expansion...).

The target of Kanban is achieved by the implementation of certain activities or practices that, if well implemented, will gradually help improving the workflow. Its improvement implies not only a reduction of lead time and a better organization of the activities, but also a reduction of waste, a more value-added approach for the customer and a better predictability for future scenarios. These benefits are crucial in today's market, characterized for experimenting changes and competitiveness in a fast-paced environment.

The aim of this article is to give an approach of this tool analyzing it from its origin and definition, going through its possibilities in its application and stating the advantages and shortcomings that this methodology offers. Also, the relation of this tool with other methodologies such as SCRUM would be presented in order to give a more complete perspective of the topic.

The Concept

Definition

Scrum framework overview.

[[File:Pm_agile.png|thumb|right|150px|Figure 1: Waterfall vs. Agile.. After the second world war, the Japanese automotive industry was stucked in the context of a strong United States within this industry. Due to this situation, Kiichiro Toyoda, the CEO of Toyota set out to put an end to this situation focusing on the efficiency of Japanese market. The target was to match the efficiency of the American market and represented a great challenge, as the US market was ten times more efficient than the Japanese. The company centered its efforts towards innovation and the efficiency of its industrial processes. During this change of direction, Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer working for the company, developed a new work methodology inspired by the ´´grocery store model´´ that he observed in the American supermarkets chain Piggly Wiggly. The concept of this model is that the stores stock need to be maintained in a sufficient level so that the customer’s demand is met looking for keeping the lowest stock level possible. Thus, Taiichi Ohno decided to introduce a visual demand tracking system in the factory consisting of cards that were attached to finished goods, and once a good was sold, the card returned to the production line . This way, the production lines worked once a stablished number of cards returned the production line, and the idea of it was to:

• Reduce inventory and production cycle time.
• Increase the speed of information exchange.
• Improve productivity.

In the beginning, this methodology was originated with the creation of the just-in-time production system. However, this methodology has evolved during the years so that nowadays Kanban has been modified and adapted project management and software development processes.

Agile methodologies

Here I am going to state different important definitions about concepts that are important to understand the context of the Kanban methodology. After the definitions, a short relation of the concepts with project management would be stated. As a further relation of Kanban with Project management will be done in the application section, I will no develop it too much here. These are the definitions to include:

• Agile: group of methodologies used in project management (specially in software development) consisting on an iterative development where solutions and demands are developed through the collaboration of multi-functional teams under an organized and collaborative teamwork philosophy.
• Scrum: --- (important to mention as it is another commonly used agile methodology and can be also complemented with Kanban)

The 4 principles

The four pinciples of this tool are:

1. Visualize workflow: board and cards to represent the user stories. ‘To-do’ and ‘Done’ differentiated columns to visualize the tasks to start or already finished.
2. Limit work in progress (WIP): stablish a limit in the WIP no minimise multi-tasking and thus make cards move smoothly. Prioritization is also important, so the most critical tasks are done first.
3. Measure and manage flow workflow: it is needed to take a look constantly on the workflow so that bottlenecks or interruptions can be detected. There are some reliable metrics that can be obtained from the workflow and thus help identify whether the flow goes smooth or if there are inefficiencies.
4. Continuous improvement: recognize improvement opportunities by the system’s monitorization aiming on improving processes constantly.

Methodology

(To do) Brief introduction of the general idea of how the methodology is applied/developed.

Kanban framework

(To do) Talk about the board, its different columns. Introduce a picture of how it looks like.

Kanban cards

(To do) Define different kinds of Kanban cards, the information that has to be contained and why is it important. Introduce a picture of how a card looks like).

Kanban and Project Management

(To further develop) There are some metrics that could be monitored in order to measure the performance of a project:

• Lead and cycle time
• Project speed
• Other metrics

Kanban and Scrum

(To do) Relation of Kanban with Scrum (similarities). I will point the differences between them from the project management point of view. Talk about scrum.

Advantages

(To do) Description of the main advantages of applying this tool, based on the theory and from a project management point of view.

Shortcomings

(To do) Description of the main limitations of applying this tool, based on the theory and from a project management point of view.