In my role, I have the pleasure of getting to drive our Agile Enterprise efforts here at Valpak. We are two years into our Agile transformation within IT and are now broadening our reach to the rest of the company. We are beginning a never-ending journey to become an Agile Enterprise! With that in mind, I’m working with our VP of HR and our training development team on an Agile Enterprise training event that will be rolled out to each and every department across the company. The intent of the training event is to educate everyone on the values and principles of the Agile Manifesto and to help them to relate Agile to their everyday lives, work and home. Included in that training will be how Scrum and Kanban (and even Scrumban) are good techniques to help them along in their Agile journey. But Kanban is certain to be a big hit. Already, we’ve got Kanbans popping up left and right from some grassroots efforts underway. We’ve got Kanbans for personal use, Kanbans for managing projects, Kanbans for structuring programs, Kanbans for process improvements, Kanbans for portfolio management, and Kanbans for organizing the work of a department. Kanbans are so fun and easy to set up I say “Free Kanbans for everyone!” I even joke … but, I’m totally serious … I have a home improvement Kanban. It’s great for explaining how Kanban works. My only issue is that nothing ever moves out of the backlog. :( Damn, I need some new gutters. Anyhow, I’ve also helped a startup or two establish Kanbans to manage their work … that’s right, lean startup indeed! I’ve also heard of chore board Kanbans.
So, I ask you all … What are some of the crazy, awesome, and interesting Kanbans you’ve seen along the way? Please do share!
My thought is that if everyone with a list would just do a personal Kanban, what an Agile world it would be. I guess this is a good time to plug an upcoming meetup on the topic of Personal Kanban too: http://www.meetup.com/tampa-bay-agile/events/169574022/
Free Kanbans for everyone!
