Kanbanery the missing manual

Transcription

KANBANERY
The missing manual
'Kanbanery the missing manual' by John Cieślik-Bridgen @mr_jcb_1973
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Kanbanery – the missing manual
Contents
Kanbanery – 'supercharge your productivity'....................................................................4
Who is this manual for?.....................................................................................................4
Background – Kanban.......................................................................................................5
The three rules..............................................................................................................5
Further reading..............................................................................................................7
The different Kanbanery subscriptions..............................................................................8
Mobile clients.................................................................................................................8
Getting started with Kanbanery.........................................................................................9
OpenID..........................................................................................................................9
Getting help.................................................................................................................10
Projects and workspaces.................................................................................................11
Desktop notifications...................................................................................................13
Customising your Kanbanery board................................................................................14
Your first Kanbanery project............................................................................................15
Kanbanery project templates.......................................................................................15
Customising your workflow..........................................................................................16
Adding tasks................................................................................................................17
Moving tasks................................................................................................................18
Minimising columns.....................................................................................................19
Save a project as template..........................................................................................20
The Icebox & The Archive................................................................................................21
Icebox..........................................................................................................................21
Archive.........................................................................................................................22
More about the task card.................................................................................................23
Important options.........................................................................................................23
Other options...............................................................................................................23
Ready to pull................................................................................................................24
Urgency.......................................................................................................................24
Deadlines.....................................................................................................................24
Activity indications on task card..................................................................................25
External bug tracking...................................................................................................25
So what's a blocker?...................................................................................................26
Per project options...........................................................................................................27
Task types....................................................................................................................27
Estimates.....................................................................................................................28
General settings..........................................................................................................29
GitHub integration .......................................................................................................30
Users and roles................................................................................................................31
Keeping up to date...........................................................................................................32
RSS.............................................................................................................................32
Email............................................................................................................................32
Keyboard shortcuts..........................................................................................................34
Reporting ........................................................................................................................35
Cumulative flow chart..................................................................................................35
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Lead and cycle time.....................................................................................................36
Task distribution...........................................................................................................36
Searching.........................................................................................................................37
Importing & Exporting tasks ............................................................................................38
AgileZen integration.....................................................................................................38
Export to PDF..............................................................................................................39
The Kanbanery API..........................................................................................................40
Related projects...............................................................................................................42
What if I don't like Kanbanery?........................................................................................43
Appendix 1 – selected further reading on Kanban..........................................................44
The Kanbanery Team......................................................................................................45
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Paul Klipp of Lunar Logic Polska, and Michael Heimbinder of HabitatMap.org
for their valuable feedback on the first version. Future revisions will endeavour to include
more of their suggestions – any errors are the author's own.
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Kanbanery – 'supercharge your productivity'
http://kanbanery.com/
Kanbanery is a flexible and customisable tool for managing projects and workflows
developed by software development company Lunar Logic Polska. As well as the main
web version, Kanbanery has iPhone and Android clients so that you can use Kanbanery
wherever you are.
The Kanbanery application is currently one of the most popular online kanban tools, used
to manage everything from software development projects (its original purpose) to home
brewing projects, with all kinds of different projects in between.
If you need to get something done, manage a set of tasks, collaborate with colleagues,
Kanbanery might just be able to help.
The aim of this missing manual is to show you how.
Who is this manual for?
•
•
•
New users wanting to get started
Experienced users wanting to learn more
Managers evaluating Kanbanery
This manual doesn't assume any familiarity with kanban or project management, as you
don't need to be an expert on either to benefit from using the tool. The manual is designed
to get you up-and-running with Kanbanery quickly, and introduce you to the full range of
features (many of which are documented for the first time here).
Managers evaluating Kanbanery for their organisation are encouraged to read this manual,
as many of the questions answered will assist in deciding whether the software is a good
fit for an organisation's needs.
It is hoped that there will be much that even experienced project managers will find useful
in here. Tips from experienced users of Kanbanery have been included wherever possible.
The primary focus is on the web based version of Kanbanery, though the material should
be useful to users of mobile device clients as well. The Kanbanery API will also be
introduced in a later chapter.
Your feedback is most welcome, and future revisions will endeavour to incorporate more
user feedback.
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Background – Kanban
The name Kanbanery comes from a project management methodology called 'kanban' (a
Japanese word meaning 'display board' or 'sign board'). Now, you don't need to know
anything about kanban to use Kanbanery, so you could skip this whole section if you are
not interested. But to get the most out of the tool, it sometimes helps to know a bit about
the underlying theory.
The method was originally developed in manufacturing to help track and improve progress
on factory production lines, but the lessons learned can be applied to all kinds of projects.
The three rules
Kanban has just three main rules.
1) Visualise your workflow
2) Limit your work in progress
3) Measure and manage continual improvement
That's basically all there is to it – but how do these rules relate to Kanbanery, and how
might they help you?
1) Visualise your workflow
The main view of Kanbanery is based on a wall chart with tasks written on index cards
stuck on. The author of this manual took part in the initial discussions of how the
Kanbanery board should look and behave, and the aim was that the board should always
try to reflect reality.
A real-life kanban board: To Do → Doing → Done
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So a task on the Kanbanery board is like a card on the real-life board. And as on the real
life board, we can note information about the task, and move the card as the task
progresses. Once we've completed the task, we can archive it away.
Kanbanery thus gives an 'at a glance' view of the status of a project or flow of work. We'll
use the word 'project' for simplicity from now on, but remember that we could be
visualising all kinds of different workflows, as mentioned above. As in real life, as well as
moving the task cards across the board as they progress, we can move them up and down
within their column to reflect their priority. We put the most important at the top, as that's
what we are going to do next.
2) Limit your work in progress
If there is one part of kanban that's hardest to implement and conceptualise it's this. By
limiting work in progress, kanban aims to help you get more things completed. That
sounds simple, but the reality of projects, bosses, clients and deadlines can often make
this the hardest rule to stick to.
Many of us have encountered situations in work or life outside the office where we feel like
a juggler, concentrating on keeping several balls in the air at once as it were. Sometimes
this works just fine – but sometimes we drop them all. In kanban, we don't juggle. We try to
limit what we are doing, and get the most important things done, one by one, with a clear
focus.
In Kanbanery this is reflected in the 'Work in progress' (or 'WIP') limit for the columns. In
our simplest example, limit the 'Doing', to focus on getting things 'Done'. We'll look more at
how WIP limits can be used in a later chapter.
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3) Measure and manage continual improvement
If Rule (2) is perhaps the hardest to understand and implement, conversely Rule (3)
should be the most readily accepted. There's a Japanese word that is sometimes used in
kanban circles to describe 'continuous improvement' – 'kaizen'. Whole books could be and
have been written about the subject – for now, think of the Kanbanery tool as part of your
toolkit to improve. The very act of visualising a workflow is enough for some people to
identify how it might be optimised. Kanbanery also provides a full suite of reporting and
analysis tools for you to look more deeply at this.
It's a very rare process that is perfect – but kanban and Kanbanery aim to help you
incrementally improve towards that goal.
Note: Kanban – a 'pull' system
One other phrase you will often hear about kanban is that it is a 'pull based' system. The
idea comes once again from manufacturing lines, where parts or stock should be 'pulled'
through the system as it is required, rather than stacked and stored, incurring extra costs
and loss of efficiency. In some sense the columns in the Kanbanery system are a bit like
bins of parts, where we can reach for what we require next and pull them through our
system. For the very simplest projects such as a To Do list, this might not seem relevant,
but as soon as Kanbanery is used for a more complex process, it can help to remember
that we are part of a system, where our our 'pull' of a task makes room for a new task
earlier in the process (WIP again), and what we are aiming for is a smooth flow where
bottlenecks are avoided, or at least identified. More of this later.
Further reading
There are lots of different resources should you wish to learn more about kanban – see
Appendix One 'Select reading list on kanban'. Some cities around the world also have
'Limited work in progress' societies, or 'Lean start-up' groups. Some of the main ones are
listed in the Appendix. If you have a group that should be listed here, please let the author
know.
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The different Kanbanery subscriptions
Kanbanery is a subscription based system. All the subscriptions are billed monthly, with no
minimum commitment or notice period. The version you choose depends on the number of
people working together on a project and how many simultaneous projects you need to
have.
The free plan (a small link tucked away towards the bottom of the 'Pricing' page) offers one
project board that two people can collaborate on 1. Whilst for some people this might be
sufficient for all their needs, Kanbanery comes into its own when more users work together
on more complex projects – the pricing reflects this. According to Paul Klipp, 'the main goal
was to avoid the dreaded per-user pricing model'.
Mobile clients
The iPhone client ('manage your kanbanery.com task boards easily from anywhere') is
free:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kanbanery-premium/id423981129?mt=8
The basic Android client, allowing read-only viewing of Kanbanery project boards is free:
http://www.appbrain.com/app/kanbanery-for-android/pl.project13.kanbanery
There is also a premium Android client, that allows read-write access to project boards. At
the time of writing this costs $2.86
http://www.appbrain.com/app/kanbanery-for-androidpremium/pl.project13.kanbanery.topsecretunlockerapp
The iPhone client is developed and supported by Lunar Logic Polska, authors of the web
version, whilst the Android client has been developed independently by Konrad Malawski
(http://www.project13.pl/) using the Kanbanery API. The Android client is supported by
Konrad rather than Lunar Logic Polska.
1There are no time limits or restrictions on functionality in the free plan
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Getting started with Kanbanery
The first step is to register for a new Kanbanery workspace. A workspace contains your
Kanbanery projects, and you first need to name your workspace. Your workspace name
will be the first part of the URL (subdomain) you use to access the system. Choose it
carefully, as although it can be changed later, if you change the name, any old links to the
board that you have created will not work, as the subdomain will be different.
Whoever first registers the workspace is the owner of any project created in that
workspace. The authors of Kanbanery have assumed that this will generally make sense,
that a business owner, a project manager or someone in a similar role will usually be
setting up the workspace, and should automatically be able to collaborate on projects.
Before you can use your new workspace, you need to confirm that you are the owner of
the email address that you used to register. Kanbanery sends a mail to this email address
with a link to activate your account. It has been known for this mail to get spam-filtered.
The authors of Kanbanery don't have any control over this – it's down to the mail system at
your end. So before seeking help regarding a missing activation mail – check your spam
mail folder.
You can have as many workspaces as you wish – but the number of projects you have will
be limited across all your workspaces. We'll see later that workspaces eventually provide a
type of top-level navigation through Kanbanery.
OpenID
It's also possible to sign up using an OpenID – from OpenID.org, Google or Yahoo. To add
an OpenID for sign-in to your account later, go to 'Account → OpenID'
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Getting help
We mentioned above that there are occasions where an activation mail ends up being
spam filtered. This is easy to resolve, but where can you turn on the occasions where you
hit an unexpected problem?
Kanbanery is an actively developed and supported application, and there are various
sources of help and support. It's nearly always the case that you won't be the first to
experience an issue – so the first place to look for the answer to any issue you are facing
is the community support forum:
http://support.kanbanery.com/
Here you can find user contributed questions, solutions and tips, as well as official sources
of support such as announcements and the official API documentation.
Note: to post to these forums, you need to register a separate user account to your main
Kanbanery account! The systems do not currently support a single sign on.
Kanbanery has a Twitter account @kanbanery where official announcements and news
are posted.
Some help videos are available on the Kanbanery founder Paul Klipp's YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/agileactivist
Kanbanery has a Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/Kanbanery/, although
this is less active.
Help tip
Within the application many titles and text can be double clicked to edit:
Column title, WIP limit, task title and task description after double click
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Projects and workspaces
Your workspace is a top level grouping that can contain multiple projects. The number of
projects that a workspace can contain depends on the Kanbanery subscription that you
have opted for. If you are on a plan with a limited number of projects, remember that you
can reuse or repurpose previously used boards. Alternatively, archive an existing project,
as it will not then count towards the number of projects in your plan.
If you are a freelancer, working alone, one project may be enough to manage your
workflow and collaborate with one other person – on the free plan. But as soon as you
need to collaborate with more than one other person, it makes sense to pay for one of the
premium plans.
If you receive the error above, you need either archive some existing projects, or upgrade
your Kanbanery subscription plan. To upgrade, first click the 'Account' link, and then
'Subscription Plan' to navigate to this page:
As above, the size of plan that you need depends on how many concurrent users and
projects you need to use. Remember that your plan can be upgraded at any time.
A new project is started from the landing page of your workspace: click the
'CREATE NEW PROJECT BOARD' link. The various options and templates for project creation
are covered in 'Your first Kanbanery project'
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The illustration above shows a workspace listing multiple projects of which the current user
is the owner. There is also a prompt for the user to enter payment details for their
subscription. When the user is not the owner, 'Settings', 'Archive', and 'Delete' do not
appear:
Archiving a project removes it temporarily from your list of open projects (and it does not
count towards your total number of projects within your Kanbanery subscription). No data
is lost when archiving a project, and it can be restored by navigating through the 'See
archived projects' link:
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From where it can be restored (subject to the maximum number of projects for your
Kanbanery subscription):
When you log in to Kanbanery as a user with multiple workspaces, they will all be listed,
and those that you own, you are able to also manage. Before you can choose a project,
you will first need to choose a workspace. Those that you own will have 'Settings' and
'Delete' links.
Navigating workspaces from the project board – top level Kanbanery navigation. The
user is owner of 'johncb' and 'rtconnecttest' (hence the 'Settings' icon is visible) and
collaborator on the other workspaces
Desktop notifications
Note that in the Google Chrome browser, there is an option to enable desktop
notifications for your workspace. This option only appears for Chrome, but will work on
Mac, Windows and Linux – as tasks are added or moved within your workspace, a
notification window outside the browser alerts you (so the browser can be minimised, or
on a different virtual desktop), and you can click on the link to see the details of the event.
Chrome will ask for permission to enable this extension, which you need to allow. If you
work on multiple workspaces, you will need to enable this extension on each workspace
separately, as you can only enable desktop notifications for one subdomain at a time. If
you reinstall the Chrome browser, you also need to reenable the desktop notifications.
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Customising your Kanbanery board
In addition to being able to define a custom workflow (see 'Your first Kanbanery
project'), there are customisations to the look and feel of your kanban board possible.
1) Custom logo
All paid accounts are able to add a custom logo. Click on the 'Account' link, then on the
'Company Logo' tab. Logos can be in GIF, JPG or PNG (except on Internet Explorer)
format, and the recommended height is 50px. Your custom logo will replace the
'Kanbanery' logo for you and all your team members when you are logged in to your
workspace.
2) Custom CSS
Paid accounts are able to request custom CSS on a per-workspace basis. Once enabled,
every project in that workspace has "Custom CSS" tab in the settings page where you can
add your own CSS files. This is not a standard Kanbanery feature, and overriding original
Kanbanery CSS can have unintended consequences. That is why it is an 'at your own risk'
feature that requires discussion on a case-by-case basis with the Kanbanery development
team.
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Your first Kanbanery project
Kanbanery comes prepared with a set of standard project templates to help you get
started quickly. They are summarized in the table below. What is immediately apparent is
the range of uses for Kanbanery, and how flexible it is. All of the options in this table can
be changed / customised – they are a starting point, but you are not tied to them.
Kanbanery project templates
Project
Task Types
Basic Personal Kanban
Household Chore
To Do
Office Work
Doing
Personal Development Done
Yard Job
Advanced
Kanban
Personal Household Chore
Office Work
Personal Development
Yard Job
Workflow
Estimates
Tiny
Small
Medium
Big
Huge
To Do
This week
Today
Doing
Delegated
Done
5 minutes
10 minutes
30 minutes
1 hour
2 hours
4 hours
Sales Process
Cold
Warm
Hot
Lead
Verified
Initial Contact
Information Collection
Offer
Negotiation
Contract
Lost/Won
none
Basic Software Project
Feature
Bug
Chore
Backlog
Ready
Coding
Testing
Approval
Done
Small
Medium
Large
Extra Large
Backlog
Ready
Coding
Code review
Testing
Approval
Done
0
0.5
1
2
3
5
8
13
21
Collect equipment
Collect ingredients
Soak grains
Prepare wort
Ferment
Bottle
Ready to drink!
none
Advanced
Project
Home brewing
Software Story
Feature
Design
Bug
Chore
Suggestion
Ale
Porter
Pilsner
Bock
Lager
Malt beer
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Customising your workflow
Of course, the default templates may not reflect the way you work, so it will often be
necessary to customise the steps in your workflow. Your workflow should both reflect the
way you work, and help you visualise your system. You may not get it right first time, and
that's why the system is highly customisable. Columns (that reflect steps in your workflow)
can be renamed (double click on title) or deleted (you will be asked where any tasks in that
column should be moved to), and you can add new columns, choosing where they should
appear, and a WIP limit (capacity – optional):
Real life example
I worked with a customer who moved papers from a filing tray labelled 'Ideas' to his desk.
Once he'd worked on them, they were discussed at a focus group, before moving to a
queue of work for his software development team. His Kanbanery board reflected his reallife workflow with columns 'Ideas' → 'My desk' → 'Focus group' → 'Dev queue'. He
used WIP limits to make sure that he didn't have too much for the focus group to consider,
or a too crowded desk!
Columns can also be drag and dropped to change the order of steps in your workflow if
required. Do experiment – it is quite likely that steps in your workflow are different to the
defaults provided by Kanbanery. Experimenting and customising your board is seen by
many kanban practitioners as a sign of project health.
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Adding tasks
Tasks are added by clicking on the icon at the top of the first column, or by using the
keyboard shortcut access-key + T (see 'Keyboard Shortcuts' for details of this and other
power user shortcuts). This opens the new task modal dialog. At a minimum a task needs
to have a title. That's it – you can add all the other information later, or never. As long as
your task has a title that your users can understand, that is enough for the task to be
useful. Think of the real-world task cards discussed earlier – these would normally have a
minimum of information. Just enough to make sense.
The add task dialog with the new task button circled. Only a title is required – all other
details are optional, or can be added later.
The task then appears at the top of the first workflow column on your board.
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Moving tasks
Once added to your project board, tasks can be moved through your workflow in one of
two ways:
1. drag and drop – click and hold the card to move it
2. the 'Move' dropdown (if enabled, see 'Per project options')
3. the 'Move to Project' dropdown (if enabled, see 'Per project options')
A task can move forwards and backwards through your system, and there are no
restrictions on where it can be moved to. For example, a task could move from 'To Do' to
'Done', missing 'In progress'.
Using kanban 'pull system' theory, whoever moves the task automatically becomes its new
owner. It is possible to avoid this behaviour by holding down SHIFT when dragging a task
card.
It is also intended that cards should be moved up and down within their respective
columns, to reflect their priority, most important / next at the top.
It is also possible to move a task card to a different project – this must be enabled in
'Settings → General → Show move task to a project dropdown' When this is enabled, a
'MOVE TO PROJECT' button appears on the task card options (see 'More about the task
card'):
If the task types or estimates for a task that is moved between projects do not exist in the
new project, they will be lost, and set as undefined. They can then be set to a task type or
estimate from the new project. Once moved to a new project, the task will be found as the
last task in the first column.
Power user tip
With a long list of tasks in a column, moving lower tasks to the top of the list, should they
suddenly change priority can be somewhat slow when relying on drag and drop alone.
Much easier (if you have the 'Move to column' drop down enabled) to move the task using
the drop down to an adjacent column (it will appear at the top) and from there move to the
original column (where it will again appear at the top) – thanks to @olamad313 for this tip!
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Minimising columns
You may not wish to view all the columns on your board simultaneously (or simply lack
screen real estate). Individual columns can therefore be minimised.
Columns are minimised either by clicking the small arrow next to the column name, or the
column title button. The title button is then greyed out (shown circled above), the column
minimised, title displayed vertically, with number of tasks and WIP for that column
displayed beneath. Note that minimising a column this only affects the current board
viewer.
Minimising is undone using either of the techniques above - clicking the small arrow next
to the column name, or the column title button.
Column state is remembered for a board user – so if you close and reopen your project,
the column states will be as last set.
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Save a project as template
There may be occasions where you wish to replicate your project workflow settings and
use them on new projects. To allow you to do this, Kanbanery allows you to export details
of the project that you are currently working in as a template for future use.
This functionality is accessed via 'Settings → Template':
You choose which elements of the project you wish to be the basis of your template, give it
a name, and once exported it is listed in the project templates that you have access to on
creating a new project.
page 20
The Icebox & The Archive
Icebox
A task can have a life before appearing on the project board, or equally possibly, the owner
can decide to 'put it on ice' for a time, and remove it from view, without deleting it, so those
using the board can focus on other tasks and not be distracted. This is essentially the idea
of the Icebox – a repository of tasks that are either not ready for working on, suggestions
/ideas for the future, or tasks that perhaps seemed necessary in the past, but have now
grown cold.
It is possible to search the Icebox, edit task cards in place there, or even create tasks
directly there. The main goal of this area is that the cards do not appear on the main
project board, although they can be moved there:
The 'Move to board' button is circled above – when a card is moved to the board, it
appears at the bottom of the first column.
When a card is moved to the Icebox (button circled above) it is listed at the top of the
Icebox.
Cards can only be moved to the Icebox from the first column on the project board.
This is a small limitation, as it doesn't take long to move to the first column, and then to the
Icebox from there.
The theory of the Icebox is as described – but you can use it in any way you decide,
subject to the constraints above.
page 21
Archive
If the Icebox is some kind of place for cards yet to feature on the board, then by that
reasoning, the Archive is some kind of afterlife. Perhaps that's not the best analogy
though, as cards can return from the Archive, at which point the analogy becomes either
controversial or blasphemous, depending on your viewpoint.
Cards move to the Archive from the last column on the project board, and only from the
last column.
Mouseover of the titlebar of the last column reveals a 'brush' (tidying up!), and clicking on
this brush moves all tasks in the last column to the archive.
This is not the same as deleting – these cards can be restored to the board
Like the Icebox, cards within the Archive can be searched or edited, or moved back to the
board (button circled above) or even moved to a new project. Cards moved back to the
project board appear at the bottom of the last column on the board.
Real world user tip
Over time, as the 'Done' column fills, you may find board performance slows slightly.
Archiving 'Done' tasks can speed up your board performance, as the browser has less
DOM elements to load.
page 22
More about the task card
There are various options for working with a task card, both in its minimised and in its
expanded state. It is possible that not all options will be displayed, as some are turned off
by default, and need to be enabled from Settings → General (see 'Per project options')
This minimised task card is showing options which appear on MOUSEOVER within the area
to the left of the small spanner/wrench.
Important options
➢ To expand a task card, click the arrow to the left of the task id #116616
➢ To change Task Type, click on the task type HOUSEHOLD CHORE to open the
dropdown
➢ To change the estimate, click on the estimate Small to open the dropdown
➢ To move to another column, click the MOVE text to open the dropdown
➢ To edit title, double click the text 'buy birthday present for my dog'
➢ To change/remove owner, click the user avatar to open a drop down
➢ To reveal further options, click the spanner (bottom right)
We will look now at further options visible after clicking the spanner.
Other options
➢ To delete a task card, click the red cross (THIS CANNOT BE UNDONE)
➢ To move a card (from the first column only) to the icebox, click the blue icon next to
the red cross
➢ To set a deadline for a task, click the dark grey clock icon to open date picker
➢ To indicate that a task is blocked, click the 'Do not disturb' icon (see 'What is a
blocker?')
page 23
➢ To move a card to another project, click MOVE TO PROJECT to open dropdown
➢ To subscribe for email updates on the progress of a card, click on the mail icon
➢ To return to the default card options view, click on the green swish on the right hand
side
Ready to pull
You may have noticed the outline of a 'tick' next to the user avatar on the minimised task
card above. This is known as the 'Ready to pull' option, and when clicked, marks the card
as follows:
The original purpose of this was to allow software developers on the Kanbanery team
indicate that tasks they were working on were ready for testing, and avoid having to create
a buffer column 'Ready for testing'. Some teams still use this approach, but I've seen the
'Tick' used for other purposes such as indicating to a client 'This is feasible' in a backlog.
You may find other uses for it.
Urgency
One of the other options on the minimised task card is an 'Urgency' marker – again, with
the flexibility to use as you require. This simply marks the minimised card with one or two
stars, which can be removed with the 'minus' sign beside them. A card marked with a star
does not exhibit any special behaviour (such as moving up the column) or state – it is a
purely visual indicator.
Deadlines
Deadlines can be set either when adding a new task, or from the additional options below.
Deadlines are shown beneath the task card in minimised view, and change to orange as
the deadline approaches, and to red when the deadline has passed. Other than the visual
indication, the existence of a deadline or the fact that it has passed does not force the task
card into any special state.
page 24
Activity indications on task card
As your users work on a task card, they may add comments, upload files, or add subtasks.
You can see that this has happened, as the default view of the card will change:
➢ the speech bubble with the number 2 besides it indicates 2 comments within the
task
➢ the white tick within the green circle with the number 2 besides it indicates that
there are two subtasks within this task. The number displayed is simply the total
number – it does not change as subtasks are completed
➢ the folder with the number 1 besides it indicates that there is one file upload within
this task card. All types of files can be uploaded (subject to the size limits of your
subscription), but one particularly helpful feature is that thumbnail views of most
common graphic file formats will be automatically generated and previewed within
the expanded task view
➢ the nasty looking green creature indicates that there is one link in the task to an
external bug tracking system
Clicking on any of these 'activity reminder' links will expand the task card and take
you directly to the area you have selected.
External bug tracking
Some users track bugs in their software development projects in Kanbanery, whilst others
use external systems. Kanbanery accomodates bug tracking in external systems When
this feature is enabled ('Settings → General Settings'), it allows you to enter URLs to an
external bug tracking system.
As bugs are completed, they can be ticked off on the list within the ticket. Though again,
the number on the task card activity indicator does not change, which would in this case
perhaps be helpful.
page 25
So what's a blocker?
If we add a 'Blocker' to a task card, we are indicating that the task cannot currently be
progressed.
A blocker can be an existing card within the system – for example a developer is blocked,
waiting for a design. Clicking on the 'Blocker' icon allows us to choose an existing task:
When we add the blocker, the blocked state is shown as follows, with the blocked card
clearly marked, and a link back to the blocker, which is also highlighted to indicate that it is
blocking another task:
Blockers can operate across any columns, though you can only select tasks as blockers
that appear on the board (i.e. not tasks from the Icebox or Archive). You cannot assign
blockers from a different project.
Kanbanery also allows a free text blocker – you are not necessarily going to be blocked by
something that is a task within your system. For example waiting on a third party ('Waiting
for translator') or any issue which you feel does not not belong as a task to be owned and
tracked on your project board.
Both types of blocker are resolved in the same way – by clicking on the green 'Resolve'
button.
A blocker is purely a visual indication – it doesn't put the card into any kind of locked state
or similar. Decide with your team how you wish to deal with blockers – Kanbanery does not
force its way on you.
page 26
Per project options
One of the main goals for the Kanbanery system was that it should be both simple and
highly customisable. To this end, there are various options that can be changed per
project.
Task types
You can add, reorder, or delete task types from 'Settings' → 'Task types'.
'Delete' appears as an option on mouseover of existing task types.
If you try to delete a Task Type for which tasks still exist, you will be prompted as to which
Task Type you would like to assign the existing tasks. This was designed to prevent users
accidentally losing data, but there's an added and useful side-effect, in that it enables us to
rename or change the colour of existing Task Types – thanks to @psionides for the tips
below:
To change colour
–
create a new task type with the same name, and correct colour
–
delete the original task type
–
you will be prompted to assign the existing tasks to a new task type
–
assign them to the new, correctly coloured task type
To rename
–
create a new task type with the correct name and colour
–
delete the original task type
–
you will be prompted to assign the existing tasks to a new task type
–
assign them to the new, correctly named task type
page 27
Estimates
You are free to use whatever system of estimating you are familiar with in Kanbanery (or
none at all – it is not compulsory)
If you do use estimates, you need to assign a numeric value for each estimate you use.
See the illustration below – this is the 'Value' field:
This value is then displayed in brackets after the 'Label' in the table below. Estimates are
displayed in numerical order based on their 'Value'
Esimates can be deleted – the 'Delete' link appears on mouseover of an existing estimate.
If you wish to delete an estimate for which there are tasks with that estimate assigned, you
will be prompted to either replace the estimate with another one, or remove the estimate
for those tasks and leave them unestimated.
Estimate types that are common feature in the project templates, ranging from the
Fibonnaci sequence (often used for estimating the complexity of software features) to 'T
shirt sizes' (simple to comprehend for the lay person). There is nothing to stop you
introducing your own estimate types – hours or even minutes should you prefer. However,
remember that all estimates require a numeric 'Value', as Kanbanery's reporting features
need this to generate reports.
page 28
General settings
The first option within General Settings is to change the name of your project. This has no
side effects and can be done as often as required.
To avoid your board feeling cluttered with options, it is possible to disable certain visual
elements of your Kanbanery board. Or you may simply not require certain options, so the
'Settings → General' tab gives you conrtrol over which of Kanbanery's options you use.
These are project level settings, and do not affect other projects in your workspace.
Table of options, indicating default options
Option name
Notes
Task IDs
Turns on the display of a task ID on the minimised task
card. Note that a Flash object is used for displaying this
(to enable simpler copy paste to system clipboard) and
there have been complaints that having many of these
objects open uses excessive CPU.
Task types
Display option

Owner avatars
Display option

Move task to a column
dropdown
Can be useful on crowded board
Move task to a project
dropdown
Display option
Ready-to-pull option
Do you need the green tick?

Comments
To enable comments within a task card

File attachments
File uploads per task card are possible, but be aware
that there are limits based on subscription type

Git commits
See below 'Git integration'
Task history
Enables display of full audit of card in expanded state

Subtasks
A task can have subtasks, which can be marked off as
completed. If a card has subtasks, its minimised state
indicates this

Task priorities
The 'stars' that indicate urgency
Estimates
Display option
Issues
This option allows entering a URL to a bug in an
external system (or in fact a URL to any external
system)
Tooltips
Whether to display help tooltips on mouseover certain
elements
URLs of tasks
Whether to show a unique URL to a task on a board,
e.g. for emailing
Deadlines
Whether to allow tasks to have a deadline
Newly created
task goes to the bottom of
the list
(NEW - December 2011) This determines whether a
new task should be added to the top of the list in the first
column, or the bottom.
Default?

page 29
GitHub integration
GitHub is now the most popular Git hosting system, and Kanbanery allows you to
automatically list Git commits relating to a given task within the task card itself.
Configuration options are part Kanbanery, part GitHub.
Kanbanery
To enable this, you must have the 'Git commits' option enabled within your project settings.
Then go to 'Settings → GitHub' to retrieve your project token:
You will also need your project ID from the URL you use to access your project
eg https://test.kanbanery.com/projects/7726/
(ID in bold)
GitHub
Within the admin settings on your repository site, select 'Kanbanery' hook from the Service
Hooks list and fill the form with your project ID and project token and save.
This ensures that every Git commit with a task id in the commit message (indicate the task
id with a hash i.e. #12345) will be shown in the Git commits list for the task on the project
board:
page 30
Users and roles
Avatars for all users are taken from the free service gravatar.com (http://gravatar.com/).
This means that you require an account with gravatar.com for the email address you use
on Kanbanery. This has caused some users confusion, and is worth checking should your
avatar not appear. There is also the possibility of gravatar.com taking several hours for an
avatar to be ready – so some patience may be required.
Collaboration with other users (subject to the limits of your Kanbanery subscription) is
managed from the 'Members' tab:
New users are invited to your project by email. You need to select a user role when inviting
a new user:
Viewer
Member
Manager
– can see everything on the project board, but cannot change anything
– full interaction with all tasks on board, read-write, delete, move
– as member, with the ability to make changes to the board itself
Project users can be deleted from this page (any tasks that they own will be set to have no
owner) or their roles can be changed.
Remember that user roles are per project – it is possible to have users with different roles
on different projects, Manager on one, Viewer on another.
page 31
Keeping up to date
Kanbanery includes several methods to keep up-to-date with what is happening on a
project. It was one of the first tools to introduce live updates via web-sockets, so that
users collaborating in real-time on a board see each others changes instantaneously. This
makes collaborating on a board much easier and even safer – because your board
updates the moment that a change is made, you don't have to worry about devising a
complex synchronising protocol. Real world experience says that it is possible to end up
conflicting with someone else's changes in certain rare edge-cases. If this happens, it's
easy enough to manually refresh the page to get the latest version, though it is
theoretically possible to lose one edit.
RSS
The 'Project Log' contains a day-by-day record of activity for your project, and this is also
available as an RSS feed (circled):
Email
You can also subscribe for email updates on an individual task:
The email subscription button is circled above – it is shown when extra options for the task
are visible (see 'More about the task card' for further details)
page 32
Or set up notifications within the Account → Notifications tab, which has three options:
The final option is to use the API to devise your own custom notifications system (for
example if you wish to receive email updates for all changes to a particular column) – see
'The Kanbanery API' for more details of setting up your own Kanbanery integration.
page 33
Keyboard shortcuts
To save time on common tasks, there are some keyboard shortcuts enabled in Kanbanery.
The 'access key' that is required is browser and OS dependent:
Ctrl (Mac)
Alt (Internet Explorer)
Alt+Shift (Chrome/Linux)
Ctrl+Alt (Chrome/Mac)
are all possibilities. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Access_key for more information on
this – for convenience, we'll use the term 'access-key'.
access-key + T open 'New Task' dialog
access-key + F open/close 'Find' bar
access-key + C open 'New column' dialog
shift + DRAG
move task without changing owner
page 34
Reporting
The introduction to kanban earlier in this manual mentioned that one of the rules of kanban
was to seek continuous improvement – the aim of the reporting options within Kanbanery
is to assist you with this.
Cumulative flow chart
This chart illustrates the state of the different stages of your workflow across time.
To remove columns from the report, click the column name text and the report will
automatically update. For example, it's common to exclude the 'Done' column from a
report like this.
('How to read a Cumulative Flow Diagram' by kind permission of Paul Klipp)
Look for spikes and peaks – a healthy flow should be constant without marked peaks. In
page 35
this chart it could be worth investigating the events around the beginning of August to
check that the project was working efficiently. Though kanban gives you the tools to
analyse project workflow, you and your team need to come up with the conclusions and
answers.
All report images generated within Kanbanery can be printed or exported as files (links at
top right of report).
Lead and cycle time
Lead and cycle time are key measures of how efficiently tasks are flowing through your
system. Kanbanery allows you to report on this, and to customise your reporting to suit
your project workflow.
Lead time measures the entire flow of one task through the system – to take an example
from software projects, from when an item enters the backlog, to when it is deployed to the
live site. Cycle time on the other hand is thought of as the time spent actually doing the
work of the task – so from when a task is 'In progress' to 'Ready to deploy' for many
software projects.
Because most users will have a custom set of steps in their workflow, Kanbanery enables
you to select the 'starts at' and 'ends at' for both lead and cycle time reporting.
Task distribution
Kanbanery's task distribution reports allow you to look at:
➢ Tasks by owner
➢ Tasks by task type
➢ Tasks by estimates
➢ Columns by sum of estimates
For each of these reports, you are able to choose whether or not to include tasks in the
Icebox and Archive when generating the report.
page 36
Searching
Kanbanery's search interface can be accessed either through clicking the 'Search' link at
the top right of your project board, or via the keyboard shortcut access-key + F:
The text box is for free text entry, and can optionally be combined with restricting by task
type or owner. Task type and owner, when combined, act as an ' AND' search.
If your search finds matching tasks, non-matching tasks are greyed-out, and you have the
option of hiding them entirely:
Remember that both the Icebox and the Archive can be searched in the same way,
and that the search initiated from the main project board will not search either!
page 37
Importing & Exporting tasks
Import
Tasks in CSV format can be imported into your Kanbanery system by accessing 'Settings
→ Import Tasks' on your board.
Tasks to be imported are expected to be in the format:
title,type,estimate,priority,description,column_name,creator_email
The only required fields are title and type. All other fields are optional.
The data import will create task types, estimates and columns if they do not already exist
on the board. You are not limited to importing tasks when you create a new board – tasks
can be exported at any time.
Export
To export data, go to 'Settings → Export Data', where clicking 'Export' will generate a
CSV file of all data (including the Icebox and Archive), in the format:
title,task type,estimate,priority,description,column
email,created at,subtasks,comments
name,creator
AgileZen integration
The Export Data page also allows you to export your Kanbanery tasks to the AgileZen
kanban tool – to do this you need to provide your AgileZen API key (which is not stored)
and after clicking 'Fetch', select the AgileZen project into which you wish to import your
Kanbanery project data.
page 38
Export to PDF
This option was designed to let people print task cards for a physical board, if they want to.
PDFs scale on printing, so you could export to PDF and then load your printer with A6
index cards, and have a set of printed cards for a physical board. Kanbanery's export to
PDF option is accessed via 'Settings → Export to PDF', and the facility gives you the
option to include/exclude any combination of the board itself, the Icebox and the Archive,
as well as filtering by task type, owner, creator, or creation time.
page 39
The Kanbanery API
The Kanbanery API is implemented as a REST interface, and is free and unlimited to use
for all Kanbanery users. A token is used to authenticate API requests – the token is found
in 'Account → API token' and is unique to your user account:
Your API token is needed for all API calls, both to authenticate you, and to allow the API to
record which user took certain actions. So updates that you make through the API using
your API token will show up to other users as updates that you have made.
Remember too that your role when interacting through the API will be the same as when
interacting on your project through the web ordinarily – so, for example a viewer will not be
able to move tasks through the API, as they don't have that permission.
The API supports the two most common response formats – JSON and XML, and you can
specify on a request by request basis in which format you wish to receive a response.
The API is well documented, and various client libraries are available (see 'Related
Projects'). The latest documentation is available at the community support forum, and the
latest API version is 1.3:
http://support.kanbanery.com/entries/20347483-api-version-1-3
One useful change made in response to user feedback was to add a URL update service
to avoid the need for API clients to poll the API for changes. Instead, users can register a
URL to receive updates for their project (note that this is a project level option accessed
via 'Settings → URL Live Update'):
Once you have registered a URL to receive status updates, project updates will be sent to
page 40
the URL you specified. Any create / update / delete of a resource (task, column) results in
an HTTP request containing JSON data giving the latest data for the resource in question,
the id of the user who performed the operation, as well as an authorisation token (so that
your application can validate the server making the request). Deletes simply send the type
and id.
More information on the URL Live Update service can be found on the community support
forum:
http://support.kanbanery.com/entries/493062-url-live-update-service
page 41
Related projects
Listed below are some projects that use the Kanbanery API.
Kanbanery for IntelliJ
A plugin for the IntelliJ IDE that enables Kanbanery as an IntelliJ tasks resource, adding
titles (and reference ID's) are then added automatically to each commit so Kanbanery can
reference tasks to commits.
http://plugins.intellij.net/plugin/?idea&id=6363
Kanbanery terminal client
Perhaps for the most hardcore of geeks – described as 'command line-ish but also has a
board view'.
http://github.com/ktoso/janbanery-shell
Kanbanery feedback
Embed a feedback form into any web application that will submit tasks (bugs/ideas etc)
directly into your Kanbanery board.
https://github.com/wrozka/kanbanery-feedback
Google Chrome browser extension
A browser extension that allows users to add new task cards to their Kanbanery board
from the Chrome taskbar.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/kpcahbjadhelkjdcghhplbaeajkfjamj
Kanbantastic
A gem wrapping the Kanbanery API
https://github.com/Ennova/kanbantastic
Ruby gem
Ruby client library and CLI for Kanbanery.com
https://github.com/sickill/kanbanery-ruby-client
Redmine_kanbanery
A simple redmine plugin that allows one to push issues into your Kanbanery project
https://github.com/wr0ngway/redmine_kanbanery
Janbanery
A RESTful Kanbanery API Java connector
https://github.com/ktoso/janbanery
Columns bookmarklet
Not API based, but potentially useful: a bookmarklet to resize your Kanbanery columns
https://gist.github.com/1031086
Filter by multiple tasks
Again, not an API client, but addresses a Kanbanery shortcoming – search by multiple
columns
https://gist.github.com/1308970
page 42
What if I don't like Kanbanery?
Kanbanery is one of a number of web based kanban systems, and there are users for
whom it is not the best choice. You are not tied to Kanbanery, and neither is your data:
•
all Kanbanery plans have a free 30 day trial
•
all Kanbanery plans allow you to export all of your data to a CSV file
•
all Kanbanery plans allow you to delete your account and all data
•
Kanbanery billing (once active) will be monthly, with no minimum commitment
•
Kanbanery even offers you the ability to export your data to an alternative product,
AgileZen
If you decide that Kanbanery is not suitable for you or your organisation, it would be helpful
for the team to learn why this was, so any feedback that you could provide would be
welcomed. That way the team can learn how to improve the system for the future.
page 43
Appendix 1 – selected further reading on kanban
Kanban books
'Kanban' David J. Anderson (Blue Hole Press, April 2010)
'Kanban and Scrum - Making the Most of Both' Henrik Kniberg (lulu.com March 2010)
'Personal Kanban: Mapping Work / Navigating Life' Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria
Barry (Createspace, February 2011)
'Scrumban - Essays on Kanban Systems for Lean Software Development' Corey Ladas
(Modus Cooperandi Press January 2009)
Kanban articles on the web
http://kanbanery.com/ebook/GettingStartedWithKanban.pdf
http://matthrivnak.com/2008/04/16/lean-quote-kanban-the-milkman/
http://paulklipp.com/images/PersonalProductivity.pdf
Lean/agile methods
http://www.agilistapm.com/overview-of-leanagile-methods/
Limited WIP societies
London
http://skillsmatter.com/user-group/agile-scrum/the-limited-wip-society
New York
http://www.meetup.com/nyc-kanban/
Krakow
http://groups.google.com/group/limited-wip-society-of-krakow
page 44
The Kanbanery Team
Lunar Logic Polska
Kanbanery is software written by Lunar Logic Polska. Lunar Logic Polska was founded in
2004, and is one of the largest Ruby on Rails development companies in Poland. Other
products from Lunar Logic Polska include the open-source time tracking system
'RubyTime' and the password manager 'Brokenglass'. Members of the Lunar Logic team
are active in the Ruby community and regularly speak at conferences and the Kraków
Ruby Users Group.
http://lunarlogicpolska.com/
About the author
The author has worked at Lunar Logic Polska since March 2009. He worked with Paul
Klipp on the initial plans for Kanbanery during breaks from the Agile Eastern Europe
conference in Kiev in September 2009, and has used Kanbanery for many projects since
its non-public alpha release in late 2009.
This manual is not an official publication of Lunar Logic Polska or Kanbanery. Views
expressed are the author's own. All feedback should be addressed to the author
[email protected].
page 45

Kanbanery the missing manual

Transcription

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