Henrik Kniberg

Kanban www.crisp.se/kanban/example
kick-start example version 1.3
2009-11-18

Next Analysis Development Acceptance Prod

2 3 3 2
Doing Done Doing Done Doing Done 2009-08-20
2009-09-01 2009-08-30 2009-09-08 2009-08-27 orem olor sit amet, co
nse ctetur adi pis cing
orem ipsum dolor sit orem ipsum dolor sit orem ipsum dolor sit
orem ipsum dolor orem ipsum dolor elit nisl
amet, co sit
nse ctetur
amet, co nse amet, co adi pis cing sit amet, co nse amet, adi pis cing elit
ctetur ctetur
adi pis cing elit nisl elit nisl nisl
orem ipsum dolor
sit amet, co nse
xxxx kjd ctetur
orem ipsumdjdolor
d xxx
sit amet, co nse orem ipsum dolor
ctetur sit amet, co nse
ctetur
orem ipsum dolor
sit amet, co nse
orem ipsum dolor ctetur
sit amet, co nse
ctetur

2009-08-29
2009-09-02
orem ipsum dolor sit
orem ipsum dolor amet, nse ctetur adi 2009-08-25
sit amet, co nse pis cing elit nisl orem ipsum dolor sit
orem ipsum dolor
orem ipsum dolorsit amet, co nse ctetur adi pis cing elit
sit amet, co nse ctetur nisl
ctetur

Definition of Done: Definition of Done: Definition of Done:

• Goal is clear • Code clean & checked in on trunk • Customer accepted
• First tasks defined • Integrated & regression tested • Ready for production
• Story split (if necessary) • Running on UAT environment

Feature / story Hard deadline

Task / defect What to pull first
Date when (if applicable)
(description)
=task (description)
=defect 1. Panic features
added to board (should be swarmed and kept
(description) = completed moving. Interrupt other work
2009-08-20 2009-09-30
= priority and break WIP limits as
Why
= blocked necessary)
= panic
(description)

(description) 2. Priority features

3. Hard deadline features
(description)
= who is doing (only if deadline is at risk)
Who is analyzing /
this right now 4. Oldest features
testing right now
Henrik Kniberg
Kanban www.crisp.se/kanban/example
kick-start example version 1.3
2009-11-18
What is this? Who is it for? • Development = development :o)
This is a detailed example of a fairly typical 2-tier Kanban • Acceptance = we think we are done, so ask stakeholders to
board, for teams that know the basics of Kanban and are verify that the feature is acceptable.
taking their first steps towards implementing it in practice. • Prod = the feature is in production. Done-done. Nothing left
How do I use it? to do. Empty this column from time to time. This is the ”feel
good” column, to see what we recently accomplished.
Like a code example. Use it as a source of ideas & inspiration
when you create your own board. Or copy & evolve. What about tracking?
Does my Kanban board have to look like this? At the moment this example does not include anything about
how to track lead times and such. One simple way is to
No! This is just an example of a bunch of useful patterns.
maintain a spreadsheet that tracks when each feature
What is the difference between features and tasks? reached which state, then create a CFD (cumulative flow
• Features (or stories or MMF or whatever flavor you prefer) diagram). Might add an example of that here later.
are deliverables. They flow across the board from left to Where can I learn more about Kanban?
right, and their workflow state is indicated by which column
Try www.limitedwipsociety.org or www.crisp.se/kanban.
they are in. The WIP (work in progress) limit in each column
If you are familiar with Scrum, check out:
applies to features, not tasks.
www.crisp.se/henrik.kniberg/Kanban-vs-Scrum.pdf
• Tasks are part of a feature, the stuff that needs to be done
to implement that feature. They don’t flow across the board, Who created this example and why?
instead their state is indicated by colored markers. When a I did (Henrik Kniberg). I notice that many fledgling Kanban
feature reaches development-done then all its tasks are teams stumble in the beginning and are happy to see
thrown away. If defects are found in acceptance test then concrete examples to work from. So I wanted to collect a host
defect notes are added under acceptance-doing. of typical Kanban ”patterns” and show in one single example.
What do the columns mean? Can I modify / distribute / reproduce this?
• Next = the stuff that the product owner wants done next. You can do almost anything you like with this.
• Analysis = figure out the concrete acceptance criteria, For details see Creative Commons
identify the first few tasks, and if the feature is too big break Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
it into smaller features. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/