What is Kanban? Kanban system basics in 2 minutes.

Kanban is one of a number of Agile Software Development Methodologies

Let's break that down.

Software Development, in very broad terms, looks like this:

• The Product Owner decides what to build
• The Development Team build it
• Customers use it, experience it, benefit from it in some way

What makes Software Development Agile is that value is delivered to the Customer in small increments

And, importantly, feedback is gathered from customers and fed back into the process.

It's the Product Owner's job to take input from customers - as well as from stakeholders and the Dev Team itself - and to organise it into a PRIORITISED list of features and user stories.

The list is known as the Product Backlog.

Kanban, as we'll see, consists of a very particular way of working. The team is helped to develop and maintain good habits with the assistance of an Agile Coach.

Central to the Kanban process is the Kanban Board, which helps to track the progress of a strictly limited number of cards or tickets.

It's important to stress that Kanban is a pull system.

When testing of a particular feature is complete, the corresponding ticket moves to the Done column

The empty column is a signal to the previous column to send another ticket.

When this column runs low, it's a signal to the Dev Team to select another ticket from the To Do column.

And when the To Do column is almost empty, it's a signal to the team to select another high priority item from the Product Backlog.

This "pull" of tickets through the system helps to keep the Work in Progress (WIP) low which in turn ensures that tickets move across the board in the shortest possible time.

Another thing to note about Kanban is that is a continuous process. This is one reason that it has fewer rituals that some other methodologies.

What it does have is a Daily Stand-up Meeting. The Daily Standup is attended by the Agile Coach, the Product Owner the Development Team.

And that's Kanban in two minutes.