📄 Kanban Board
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Kanban Board

Our work items are tracked by our Kanban board.

The Process

All items follow the following process:

  • All items start in the New column. Items may already start being filled out with some details, though that is not a requirement yet.
  • Items will eventually be pulled into the Preparation column. Here we will make sure that the item is being filled out with the necessary details to be picked up. These items are to be discussed and refined by the team in order to figure out all the necessary details and achieve a level clarity which gives us the confidence that we can successfully finish the item in a good and effective manner.
  • Once the preparation and refinement process is done, an item may progress to the Ready column. Items in this column are ready to be worked on, and can be picked up by team members.
  • When a member of the team picks up an item, they can pull the item into the Active column. The Active column is split into two sub columns; Active Doing and Active Done. 
    • Items that are actively being implemented and worked on will start in Active Doing. 
    • Once the developer who is working on the item has finished the implementation, they will open a Pull Request so that their work can be reviewed. Additionally the associated work item will be moved to Active Done so that any other developer can look at the board and see there is work to be reviewed.
  • When the work has been reviewed and fully finished (for example, merged into the trunk branch) an item may be moved to Closed.

Work item limits

The Preparation, Ready, and Active columns each have a work item limit as indicated by the numbers next to the column names.

These are soft limits as they may be exceeded. However the goal is to always stay within the limit as this helps us keep our focus on finishing a select 'batch' of items before moving on to the next.

How to interact with the board

A board likes this emphasizes the importance of finishing work. If the work is not progressing, there will be no space to move items forward due to the work item limits. It can be useful to read the board from right to left, and think of 'pulling' items from the left columns into the right columns, rather than pushing items forward through the board:

  •  You can start by viewing completed items in the Closed column.
  • Tying back into the importance of finishing work, you can then look into the Active column to see if we can pull items from there, into the Closed column. Are there items in Active Done that need reviewing? Are there items in Active Doing which you can work on or help with?
  • Then, if there is nothing in the Active column that you can work on, and there is still space within the Active column's work item limit, you can take a look at the Ready column.
    • If there are items there, you can pick one up and pull it into Active Doing.
  • Continuing the steps through the board, if there is room in the Ready column, we should sit together and refine the items that are in the Preparation column so that we can pull those into the Ready column and thus prevent running out of things to work on.
  • If the Preparation column is starting to get empty, a new batch of items should be selected to be pulled into the Preparation column. This selection should be made by, or with, whoever is responsible for planning the work.