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What does the Kanban board do?

Is it just about placing post its all over the wall?

Core of lean is visual management which is seen as having a board and placing all the open tasks on that. But there is more to visual management.  Visual management also means;


  • information exchange
  • improve transparency
  • surface problems faster

Typically Kanban board helps;
  1. Visualization of tasks of a team; task state and impediments
  2. Regular update and share of information during daily stand-up
  3. Reflection of process
Team should try to teach a state where rate of "inflow of tasks" matches rate of outflow. Else tasks will keep on piling in different states (i.e. ready, in-work etc) and create an inventory which team will not be able to resolve quickly.

Always high priority tasks are closed faster. So you will speed up results and identify and resolve impediments faster.

But often people ask one question, why working with paper when modern electronic equipment and tools are available?

The answer is "brain friendly".
  • Information provided visually are processed faster. People are more likely not to open and see excel sheet or web pages.
  • When people touch and write using pen/paper, they tend to receive information from several senses. Brain absorbs more information.
  • Physical activity supports cerebral activities. So meetings standing at the board create emotional identification and lead to higher level of involvement.

This all together results in greater intellectual and emotional involvement and a more effective communication between team members.

Nevertheless, you still need digital support when teams are not co-located.

There is no perfect solution. You need to inspect and adapt the process around all the time to make it for for your team. Never stop innovating.


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