4 Ways a Kanban Board Improves a Development Team’s Efficiency

DataViewsJS introduces kanban boards as part of its robust data presentation platform. Kanban boards help managers and team leads corral works-in-progress, and visualize future project needs.

Juggling multiple tasks and deadlines in a fast-paced, team environment creates stress for workers and management. Kanban boards help reduce stress and maximize efficiency. They improve communication, accountability, and workflow transparency.

Managers use kanban boards to set expectations and workflows. Kanban methodology is also useful for IT and development teams whose work is frequently intangible.

The board consists of two main parts: columns and visual signals. Columns represent different steps or statuses within the workflow such as to-do, in-progress, and completed. Visual indicators represent the tasks themselves and include their priority and other important details.

What are the Benefits of Kanban Boards?

• Visualize and track individual workflows: Team members have a clear understanding of what they need to complete.
• Limit overworked team members: Monitoring your team members’ workload ensures that all tasks get done on time and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks due to an overloaded team member.
• Increase collaboration: Kanban boards provide transparency. Seeing specific tasks everyone is working on, leads to discussion and feedback of specific deliverables. This helps bring light to individual roadblocks or bottlenecks in a process.
• End micromanaging: Kanban boards promote worker independence and accountability.
• Reduce waste: Cut down on time spent tracking progress and sending emails. Kanban boards save time and allow for a more focused and prioritized workflow.

The kanban board is a versatile visualization tool that can be easily implemented. Below we detail practical uses within your JavaScript application.

1. IT Product Release

Development teams can use a product release board to visualize workload for an upcoming release or during a sprint. With a product release board, the team can see what deliverables each worker is tasked with, allowing transparency throughout the development cycle.
This kind of oversight into the process helps prevent under-utilizing and overworking individual workers. Color-coding tasks allows you to quickly see their priority. This lets others know the priority of what jobs are in progress, and where to focus their attention.

2. IT Support Case and Bug Ticketing Management

Bug ticketing management systems bring order to the support team. Support teams enter specific bugs into the board and manage tickets as necessary. Support teams often face a large number of different deliverables. Sometimes jobs get overlooked or missed entirely. Kanban boards help solve this problem. They display the path of each individual task from discovery to resolution.

3. Manufacturing Machine Maintenance

Warehouse equipment and machinery require maintenance. Routine and unexpected repairs are necessary. Using a kanban board layout to schedule and monitor repairs helps production facilities maintain efficiency. Label individual columns with the status of the equipment, and set a color-coded label on the job. Visualize what machine needs to be fixed first, decreasing downtime and ensuring a quick turnaround.

4. Customer Sales Cycles

A sales cycle kanban board clearly depicts the sales team’s current leads at a given time. See who is handling each account with just a glance, and prioritize specific customers as necessary. Visualize customer life cycles and uncover roadblocks. Improve processes through pain-point identification, and anticipation.

Kanban boards are simple data visualization tools that allow workers to thrive in complex task-oriented environments. Create a highly functional Kanban board in minutes with GrapeCity's DataViewsJS.

Create a Kanban board today with a free download of DataviewsJS.

Explore the TrellisBoard demo |
DataViewsJS Demos | DataViewsJS Documentation