Kanban Beyond Project Management

Kanban, a methodology based on philosophies related to continuous improvement, is often used in Project Management. However, it can also be applied in many other areas, such as team management, software development or new product creation, financial organization, marketing, process management, and even personal task management.

Its use can help balance team workloads by allowing the real capacity of each member to be identified, highlighting bottlenecks in the workflow, and establishing feedback cycles.

Given its benefits and versatility, why use it only for Project Management?

Kanban Basics

Like all agile methodologies, Kanban is used for organization and primarily aims to optimize workflow, promoting efficiency and transparency among the teams involved.

To ensure this workflow is organized and optimized, we use the Kanban board, a visual structure that enables teams to easily identify the stage of each task.

This board has four columns: backlog, referring to what needs to be done for the product or project; to-do, which includes all tasks that have not yet started; in progress, to identify tasks currently underway; and done, where completed tasks are stored.

In these columns, activity cards are placed, each one clearly identifying its responsible team member, allowing them to freely move cards between the columns.

To ensure smooth organization, it is essential to consider its foundational pillars, such as always starting with tasks already in progress. Team members must agree on incremental and progressive changes to the methodology, respect processes, roles, and responsibilities, and encourage leadership at all levels.

Principles of the Methodology

As with all other methods and tools, it is essential to master its principles to effectively apply Kanban in other areas of activity, such as the examples mentioned earlier in this article.

Versatility is, without a doubt, the most fundamental principle for implementing Kanban in an organization. There is no need to dismantle everything; start by applying the methodology to what is already in place.

Even though continuous improvement is the goal, things that are already working well can remain.

Another principle in the methodology is to encourage constant evolution, which can also drive incremental changes throughout processes, yielding tangible results.

After all, small changes are essential for growth, and this keeps the team engaged in the continuous improvement of both their activities and the company’s outputs.

Examples of Uses in Other Areas

– Project Planning: This is the most common and well-known application. Project Management Planning teams use Kanban to manage activities related to a specific project and its team organization.

– Product Development: The Kanban methodology can be used to track all activities involved in creating a new product or service for a company, especially to synchronize production and marketing teams, for example.

– Sales Flow Monitoring: Small businesses can use Kanban to monitor the sales process, from start to delivery and evaluation, to facilitate organizational efficiency.

– Financial Management: In this case, the names of the boards and columns can be adapted to identify the category and process of buying and selling goods or assets, as well as investment operations.