What is a Kanban Board?
What is a Kanban Board?
A Kanban Board uses cards to represent a piece of work requested by the customer. As a card progresses from one team or activity to the next it is moved from left to right across the columns.
The first column of a board is typically a queue of cards waiting to be started. The last column of the board is used to show when cards have been finished and delivered to the customer.
Kanban Boards can be manual with index cards or sticky notes on a whiteboard or wall. It is very common these days for Kanban Boards to be electronic with scheduling software.
Kanban Boards originated from Japan where they were originally used to schedule manufacturing. Today Kanban Boards are widely used in professional service delivery across all functions and departments of the enterprise.
A Kanban Board is a scheduling board. Cards on the board signal something of value to be delivered to the customer: an order; a new product feature; a service request. The purpose of using a Kanban Board is to make it easy to see the work so that value can be delivered to the customer faster.
A Paper Kanban Board
A paper kanban board may use index cards, sticky notes or colored paper. Typically color is used as a symbol to quickly identify different types of work.
An Electronic Kanban Board
An electronic kanban board using kanban board software. Measuring operational efficiency and automating workflow is an advantage of an electronic kanban board
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