20 Ideas On How To Improve Your Agile Board

quick ideas on how to
improve your kanban board
Marcus Hammarberg
@marcusoftnet
202122232425262728293020

Use code
ctwitspring  
at manning.com
40% off
http://bit.ly/minskvote

Have a board in  
the ﬁrst place

http://blogs.ubc.ca/qualresearch/narrative-inquiry/the-storyteller/

https://pixabay.com/en/lost-places-chair-abandoned-old-1533790

?
DoneDeployTestDevAnalyseTodo Design Coding

Analyze Development Testing AcceptTodo

Create Toolbox For  
Your Team

Walk the board from  
right to left

Test DoneDev.AnalyzeInbox
Walk the board

Use avatars to indicate
who is working on what

Analyze Development Testing AcceptTodo
Hannah
Hugo
John
Hugo
John
Daphne
Daphne

Focus on the work,
not the workers

The 3 questions © ® ™
Does everyone have  
things to do?

Flow - effectiveness
Resource
efficiency
Source: This is Lean!
Niklas Modig, Pär Åhlström

Enumerate the work not the workers

By Julija Rauluševičiūtė, Advanced Mac user II, Used under Creative Commons
“Working Software” is software
that users are actually using.

Until it’s in use it is truly useless

- Woody zuill

DoneDeployTestDevAnalyseTodo Design Coding Follow upGather data

Use Progress indicators
to indicate how far we have come

https://www.pinterest.se/pin/463800461598761716/

Aaaah …. kanban is speaking to
the lazy seal in me

By zzpza, Tools, Used under Creative Commons

WIP too high
=
work idle
WIP too low
=
people idle
Stop starting
Start finishing

Analyze Development Test DoneTodo
Doing DoingDone Done
3 3 2

Analyze Development Testing Accept
Waiting
for Ops
In
ProductionTodo

S-M-L should not start
from a date span

http://saphanatutorial.com/sap-hana-t-shirt-size/

http://saphanatutorial.com/sap-hana-t-shirt-size/
1 day 2-3 days 3-5 days 6-8 days 8-12 days

DoneDeployTestDevAnalyseTodo
S
Coding
S
M
S

Small
Medium
Large
1-3 days
Span
# of items
counted
8
2-6 days 3
4-46 days 2
Average
2 days
4 days
25 days

Small
Medium
Large
1-5 days
Span
# of items
counted
120
2-12 days 36
4-86 days 21
Average
1,6 days
2,8 days
32 days

Work to the cake limit
Have a WIP limit on Done

Demo
Retrospective
Planning
Celebrations

Write about exactly
one item per sticky

Create new login functionality
Update Search Form
Change profile page

Create new login functionality
Change profile pageUpdate Search Form

Good
Lots of Stuff Delivered
First Code in GOLang!
Bad
Sprint to Short
Improve
More Test
Coverage

Set your TPP = 1
Topic per post-it

Blocked should
not be a column

DoneDeployTestDevTodo CodingAnalyse

DoneWaitCodeDevTodo Wait WaitDeployWaitTestAnalyse

Use Disneyland
wait time to be predictable

Small
Medium
Large
1-5 days
Span
# of items
counted
120
2-12 days 36
4-86 days 2
Average
1,6 days
2,8 days
45 days

Tear off the post-its
the correct way

Certiﬁed Post-It Master © ® ™

Create a pull-system for new
work using an order point item

…
Todo Design
6
Order
point
2

…
Todo Design
Order
point
6 2

…
Todo Design
6
Order
point
2
It’s time to get More work. MOOOAR!
Do this:
* Move the remaining cards up
* Call the PO and create a meeting
* Tell team to come to meeting

…
Todo Design
Order
point
It’s time to get More work. MOOOAR!
Do this:
* Move the remaining cards up
* Call the PO and create a meeting
* Tell team to come to meeting
6 2

Annotate the card with reference
to external issue tracker

Electronic tool
or physical board
Or both …?

In your face
Tactile
Big
Always present
Attachments
Capturing discussions
Track a lot of data
Distribution
Physical board Electronic Tool

JIRA-63215
DoneStarted
Not
started

In order faster find people
that have visitors
As a receptionist
I want to be able to fuzzy
search on their
complete names
JIRA-63215

That special case of the
invoicing batch where it fails
on odd numbers
in the dates of February
greater than 28
JIRA-63215

Increase conversion by 20%
by allowing for customers
to actually pay…
JIRA-63215

Use queues
to ensure ﬂow and
exploit bottlenecks

DoneAcceptTestDevAnalyseTodo Design Coding

Done
Ready to
Accept
TestDevAnalyseTodo Design Coding Accepted
5

DoneDevAnalyseTodo Design Coding Testing

Done
Ready 
to test
DevAnalyseTodo Design Coding Testing
5
Dev

Don't have a backlog -
have an impact map

http://thearterie.blogspot.se/

Design your work to
Goldilock size

“If the mountain will not
come to Muhammad,
then Muhammad must
go to the mountain”  
- Francis Bacon, 1625

https://neilkillick.wordpress.com/

Get your work up to standard
with exit criteria per column

Quality
Quality Quality Quality Quality

Definition of Done - Coding
* Unit test written >80% code
coverage
* at least one e2e integration test
written and passing
* Installed in test environment
* documentation updated
coverage
written and passing
coverage
written and passing
coverage
written and passing

* Unit test written >80% code coverage
written and passing
* code review done

https://hakanforss.wordpress.com

Have a continuous retrospective
running on your board
Kanban Kata style

https://www.cprime.com/2013/01/effective-retrospectives/

Each “month end close”-
work takes about 20 days
with a lot of manual work
Jimmy Janlén

We can run month end
close daily, all automated

Automated first 3 of the
steps in “month end
close”-work

Automate the
reporting of
monthly plays
Automate the
reporting of
monthly users
Automated first 3 of the
steps in “month end
close”-work
Automate the
reporting of
monthly users

Move the stickies as status is
updated - not only at the standup

“Be like water” - Bruce Lee

Let the order in the column
be the priority of the work

Location!
Location!
Location!
Todo
More important
Less important
This First
This later

Use Different Colors For
Different Type Of Work

Tech
debt
Bug
Feature

Tech 
debt
Bug
Feature
4 =

Have an expedite lane for
urgent work

3 3 2
Maint.
Bug
Feature
Urgent

Max 1 at the time
Highest priority
Retrospective
For exceptions

Track time taken per item
- Lead time

Measure lead time - it’s good for you

“The customer doesn’t care how we are organized” 
- Leif Östling

Analyze Dev.Inbox Test
Done
In: 130202 In: 130202
Out: 130318
Ready to
Deploy

Track throughput per time
unit for your work

DoneDeploy
…
Small Medium Large
4 items 3 items 1 item 8 items=

# items
completed
Week
14 15 16 17 18
X
X
X
X
X
1
2
3
4
5
6
X
X
19 20 21
X

http://bit.ly/2opcKAn - Control Charts by Håkan Forss

www.marcusoft.net
@marcusoftnet
marcus.hammarberg@aptitud.se

Pictures from Pixabay if nothing else indicated
Public Domain pictures - free
or Kanban in Action
which is written by Joakim and me

20 Ideas On How To Improve Your Agile Board

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