Monday, May 02, 2016

Kanban in the Wild

I went to a local upholsterer this weekend to pick up one chair he fixed and drop off another, and what did I see?  It might look familiar to those of us who practice Agile on a daily basis:



Apparently, the shop owner has used a system like this for decades.  It's a Kanban system, although he had never heard the term before. The "Waiting for" column is his backlog, things that are blocked for some reason (materials, payment, etc.).  "Ready to go" is his list of projects that he can work on next, and "Doing" represents his work in progress. Due to the size of  his shop, he can really only have 3 projects in progress at a time.

And true to his system, since I paid my deposit and he had the fabric in-stock, my sticky is in the "Ready to Go" column!

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