What is Kanban?

One way to simplify the method described in Scrum for Your Life is to use a Kanban board. There are some advantages to this approach which some people may prefer.

The Kanban board can be made using a white board or paper and Post-its, or a spreadsheet with the appropriate column names, or you could use a app like Trello. The idea is to have four columns: your Master Backlog (or what you may call your Bucket List), your Sprint Backlog, your Daily Scrum, and your Complete column. One of the things I like about this versus what I recommend in the book, is the constant viability. You always have a complete view of your backlogs and what you’re currently working on.

Kanban Board

The process itself doesn’t change very much. You still have your planning, review and daily scrums. At the beginning of your sprint, you move items from your Master Backlog to your Sprint Backlog. Then in each daily Scrum you move the things your going to work on that day from the Sprint Backlog to your Daily Tasks. Some of these may continue over several days. Then at the end of your Sprint, you can easily see what you’ve moved into your Complete column, making it easy to do your Review and Retrospective.

I keep a few different backlogs for different purposes just due to their size. I have a backlog of few hundred books I want to read, a list of improvements I want to make to my house, and another list of places I want to travel. I review each list for each sprint. I wouldn’t change that with this approach. I would just have three or four Master Backlog columns. In fact, I will use this system for my next sprint. I’d love to hear how this works for you.