At this stage in the project, towards the end, when there are a number of tasks left to complete, I have implemented a new organisation method into my work. I still use my agenda and lists for daily planning but have finished with the Gantt chart plan, so a new method is something that would is quite useful in this period of time, and it is called Kanban.
What is Kanban?
Kanban is a visual system for managing work as it moves through a process. It visualises both the workflow and the actual work passing through the process, identifying potential bottlenecks in a project, and allowing you to remove them, so work can flow through it cost-effectively at an optimal speed or throughput. The first Kanban system was developed by Taiichi Ohno(Industrial Engineer and Businessman) in the early 1940s, with an aim of which was to control and manage work and inventory at every stage of production optimally. It is a simple planning system that promotes gradual improvements to an organization’s processes through following a set of principles and practices for managing and improving the flow of work.
6 Core Practices of the Kanban Method:
- Visualize the flow of work
- Limit WIP (Work in Progress)
- Manage Flow
- Make Process Policies Explicit
- Implement Feedback Loops
- Improve Collaboratively, Evolve Experimentally
One of the best aspects of kanban is the fact that it can be as simple or as complicated as need be for a person’s idea, project, business or personal pursuit:
I really like this technique of being able to see all of your tasks under their relevant categories, and moving them around once they have been completed or changed in some way. So, for my project, I made a simple chart in excel with three columns that tell me what I have yet to do, what I am currently working on, and what I have finished. I have been using it for a couple of days and so far, it’s working really well! I always refer to it when I want to see where I am with my tasks and it’s a brilliant way to track progress in varying levels of detail (e.g simply ‘doing’ is fine for me, but you could always add a column called ‘just started’ or ‘almost done’ if you have a lot more tasks and really want to go into depth).
The one drawback that I can think of for this method is that within a large-scale project, where there are often unexpected changes and major shifts down the line, flexibility may become a problem, but since I am at the end of my project, this isn’t an issue I would experience. Moreover, creating a digital board makes it easy to make big changes or start over if need be, so I think that I will most definitely be using this method for future projects as well, a for me personally, it works even better than a Gantt chart.