In this article:
1. What Is a Kanban Board?
2. How Does It Work?
3. Who Can Create a Board?
4. How to Customize Your Businessmap Board (adding new columns and lanes)
Before you start with Businessmap, it is recommended that your PM organizes training for the collaborating teams so that each member is introduced to the key Kanban principles and tools.
1. What Is a Kanban Board?
The Kanban Board is a tool for workflow visualization that provides full transparency of work.
All work items are visualized as Kanban cards allowing each team member to move cards and see the status of every single task.
2. How Does It Work?
The initial view of the classic board in Businessmap has three main columns: “Requested,” “In Progress,” and “Done” that serve to illustrate where each card is on the workflow. The card represents a work item that carries information about the task. By moving the card on the board, you show the progress of the task through the work process.
The Different Sections of the Board
The initial view of the board that you create in Businessmap consists of two sections:
The Initiatives Workflow (1)
This is the top swimlane on your board, designed for Senior team members/Project managers to easily track the progress of the Initiatives of the team or the organization. An Initiative is a bigger task/epic or project that moves completely automatically. When you create an Initiative, you have to break it down into smaller cards (actionable steps) that live on the Cards Workflow.
To get a better idea about the concept, please watch this short video:
The Cards Workflow (2)
This is the second swimlane on your board. It visualizes the team process and this is the place where all tasks get visualized via cards. In the Cards workflow, you can create new cards that are either independent or linked to an Initiative.
- In the "Requested" (1) column, users place the cards (work items) that they plan to work on next. Usually, the tasks/cards are organized in the order they will be tackled.
- When a team member starts working on a particular task/card, they have to move it to the right, i.e. to the " In Progress" (2) column, until it is completed and ready to be moved into the "Done" (3) column.
- The Backlog (4) is meant to be a storage place of ideas. It can be used as a place to brainstorm and gather ideas, but also it can be configured as a well-prioritized agile backlog. There are teams that use a separate Kanban Board as a backlog.
- The Archive (5) column — in order to keep your board clean, at some point in time, you have to move all of the completed items to the Archive. In Businessmap, there are two types of archives: Temporary Archive and Permanent Archive.
3. Who Can Create a Board?
You have to be an Account Owner or a Workspace Manager to be able to create a new board.
When you create a Board, it gets visualized under the respective Workspace.
For example, in the image below, there are four boards under the Marketing Department workspace and three more under the Management workspace.
4. How to Customize Your Businessmap Board? (adding new columns and lanes)
For more detailed mapping of the team process, the Project Manager can customize the workflows on any board. With the Workflow designer, they can add new columns, sub-columns, and horizontal swimlanes.
Moreover, users can create:
- New Initiatives Lane
- Timeline Workflow
- Multiple Workflows
For example, a development team may have a task board that consists of multiple columns (Business Requirements, Ready to Start, Development, etc.) and several swimlanes (Defects, Features).
The board is the tool that helps Project Managers to map the unique process of every team in their organization. As a result, both Project Managers and teams get a better visualization of their processes and tasks.
This facilitates team collaboration and provides better issue management that could happen during the project execution or product development lifecycle. With the proper design of your boards, every team can get the metrics they need to track in order to improve.
Please, check the following articles to learn about all the features that will improve your experience as a Businessmap user:
- How to invite users to my Kanban board
- What is a Kanban card and how to create it?
- How to create an Initiative?
- How to make use of the Board Sidebar?