Portable Kanban

What is Kanban?

“Sign Board” in Japanese

Used in production control systems

May be used for personal task management

Example

The simplest case:

Just 3 columns

1 Task = 1 Card

Backlog Doing Done

Some day Right now Already done

Task

Example

Put new tasks to “Backlog” column

Backlog Doing Done

Right now Already done

Task 1

Task 2

Task 3

Task 4

Example

Set WIP (work-in-progress) limits:

You can’t deal with many tasks simultaneously

Usually not more than 3 tasks

Backlog Doing Done

Already done

Task 1

Task 2

Task 3

Task 4

Not more than 3 tasks!

Example

Your board – your rules, only you decide which task to choose next

Move current tasks to “Doing” column

Backlog Doing Done

Task 1 Task 2

Task 3

Task 4

Example

Move more important tasks up

Backlog Doing Done

Task 1

Task 2Task 3

Task 4

Example

Move completed tasks to “Done” column

Move repeating tasks back to “Backlog”column

Backlog Doing Done

Task 1 Task 2Task 3

Task 4

FLOW

Example

Backlog Doing Done

Task 6 Task 1Task 7

Task 2Task 10

Task 11

Task 12

Task 9

Task 8 Task 3

Task 5

Better than To-Do lists

Visualization is a key:you can see all the tasks at a glance

Example

Real world Kanban board may look like that…

Portable Kanban looks like that…

Download

Expand archive

Let’s get it started…

Use demo data for the beginning…

Let’s get it started…

Try every button in toolbar

Drag & drop tasks between columns

Double click on a task to start editing

Customize look

Change options to tweak the look the way you like

Board font & colors

Card font & colors

Tooltips

Customize columns

Define columns, as many as you need

For example: Year, Month, Week, Today, Done…

Define task sort order

Customize topics

Define topics (Setup/Topics)

For example: Home, Family, Office etc.

Use different colors for every topic

Customize persons

Define persons (Setup/Persons)

Useful if you’re going to delegate tasks to someone else…

Customize tags

Define tags (Setup/Tags)

Tags are optional, may be assigned to any task

Use different colors for tags

Customize views

Define views (Setup/Views)

Views are “virtual” boards with selected columns, topics and persons, e.g. “Home”, “Work” etc.

Add users

Add users

Define user roles:for multiuser environment

Import data

Import data fromanother system

Shortcuts

Use shortcuts (see About/Shortcuts)

More shortcuts are available when editing task

Reports

Print reports

Reports can be HTML pages or Excel files

Timer

Use Pomodoro timer:

Work for 25 minutes

Take 5 minutes break

Take 15 minutes break every 2 hours

Work for 25 minutes…

Time Tracking

Need to know how much time spent on every task?

Use built-in time tracking features

Compare with estimates

Take your data with you

Fully portable

Keep it on disk or flash drive

Or put on Skydrive, Dropbox…

Share data with your colleagues

Requires Redis database server

Works in LAN

Works with hosted servers

What’s next?

See also my profiles & blog:

www.slideshare.net/Dmitry_Ivanov

linkedin.com/in/dmitryivanov

dmitryivanov.net

Thank you!

Photo Credits

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bensutherland/5587949321/in/photostream/http://www.flickr.com/photos/viernest/3380560365/in/photostream/http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimdowning/6129928164/in/photostream/