How Do I Series: Configure Kanban Board in TFS 2015 (1/2)

I this post, I will show you how you can use Kanban board in TFS to maximize a team’s ability to consistently deliver high quality software.

Kanban emphasize two main practices. The first, visualize the flow of work, requires you to map your team’s workflow stages and configure your Kanban board to match. The second, constrain the amount of work in progress, requires you to set work-in-progress (WIP) limits. You’re then ready to track progress on your Kanban board and monitor key metrics to reduce lead or cycle time.

Your Kanban board turns your backlog into an interactive signboard, providing a visual flow of work. As work progresses from idea to completion, you update the items on the board. Each column represents a work stage, and each card represents a user story (blue cards) or a bug (red cards) at that stage of work.

To view your Kanban board, click the Board link from the Work>Backlogs page.

Open your Kanban board

You open your Kanban board using one of these URLs that connects you to your team project:

1. Map the flow of how your team works

Kanban literally means signboard or billboard. As a first step, you customize your board to map to how your team works.

When you first open your Kanban board, you’ll see one column for each workflow state. Your actual columns vary based on the process used to create your team project.

For user stories, the New, Active, Resolved, and Closed states track progress from idea to completion.

However, your team’s workflow stages most likely don’t map to these default states. For your team to have a functional board they must identify the stages of their workflow process and then configure the board to match.

For example, you can change your Kanban columns to map to the following five workflow stages.

Once you’ve identified your stages, simply add and rename columns to map to them. Keep the number of columns to a minimum while still representing the key handoffs that occur for your team.

2. Set WIP limits to constrain work in progress

In this next step, your team sets WIP limits for each workflow stage. While setting WIP limits is easy, adhering to them takes a team commitment. Teams new to Kanban may find WIP limits counterintuitive and uncomfortable. However, this single practice has helped teams identify bottlenecks, improve their process, and increase the quality of software they ship.

What limits should you set? Start with numbers that don’t exceed 2 or 3 items per team member working within a stage. Respecting WIP limits means teams don’t pull items into a column if doing so causes the number of items in the column to exceed the WIP limit.

When they do exceed the limit, the column count displays red. Teams can use this as a signal to focus immediately on activities to bring the number of items in the column down.

Set WIP limits based on team discussions and revisit as your team identifies ways to improve their processes. Use WIP limits to identify bottlenecks and eliminate waste from your work flow processes.

In the next post, I will show you how you can track work in progress and other Kanban cool features. Stay Tuned 😉