- Once you have your process set up on three by five cards,
then it's time to start building your kanban wall.
Your kanban wall is one of the most recognizable parts
of the kanban system.
In fact, many organizations think the wall
is the whole kanban system.
But the wall is just a signaling device.
It gives the team a big picture view
of what's going on in the process.
What's most common is for the team
to set up different columns for each step in the process.
It's also very common for the team
to split a column into two or more sub-processes.
That's why it's important to create your value stream
before you even start to build your wall.
You want to start eliminating your waste
and then grouping together your steps
into different columns.
Software development teams
will typically use blue sticky tape to create five columns.
These will be input, analysis,
development, test, and release.
They will also split analysis and development
into two sub-processes.
So they might make these columns wider,
then split them with green tape,
then label each of these two columns
with the larger column as in progress and done.
Some teams prefer to create buffer columns,
so they might make buffer columns after analysis,
development, and test.
They'll create a column called dev ready after analysis
and another after development called build ready.
Finally, they'll create one called release ready
after the test column.
There are advantages and disadvantages
to creating these buffer columns.
You can probably see the first disadvantage.
It makes the kanban wall more complicated.
Here you went from five columns to eight columns.
If you created split columns for analysis and development,
then you already have 10 columns.
These buffer columns might make it easy
for your team to figure out challenges in your process.
If a lot of work items are stuck in build ready,
then you might be ready to isolate
back up with your testing team.
Without that column,
everything would just be stuck in development.
Once you have your columns set up,
you can start to put kanban cards in your wall.
Remember that these kanban cards are different
from what you use in lean manufacturing.
They don't signal that you need a new product.
Instead, these cards represent the actual work
that's flowing through the system.
So imagine you created a kanban card that said,
"Add a new table to the database."
You would put this new card in the input column
on your kanban wall.
When a developer has capacity to work on that item,
they would pull the kanban card
into the in progress sub-column in the analysis column.
Notice how the work is moving from left to right.
It's being pulled through the kanban wall
as the team frees up to work on the card.
Many teams prefer to use sticky notes instead of cards.
That way they can use different colors
to communicate more information.
It also makes it easier to move your work
without having to use tape.
Also remember that one of the key properties
for kanban was limiting work in progress.
You don't want to create back ups with your work items.
That's why many teams will assign a number value
to each column.
They might say that you can only have five work items
in the development column,
so they'll put a number two over the in progress column
and maybe a number three in the done column.
These numbers almost act like little water valves.
They keep the flow steady
so that you can deliver a consistent stream of work.