How to Use Kanban for WordPress Development

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How to use Kanban for your WordPress Development

How to Use Kanban for WordPress Development

As a WordPress Developer, keeping a clean slate is one of the most important things while running your blog. Unfortunately, this is what most bloggers struggle with within their blogging careers. However, some systems and tools can help you stay organized as you run your blog or website. One of these systems is called Kanban. This is an excellent system if you want to keep your workflow clean. It is meant for individuals and a team doing a project and would like to improve collaboration as they execute it. In this short post, I will focus on this nifty system that is quite effective if you want to stay organized in your workflow.

What is Kanban?

Before we begin, let’s first understand what Kanban development is. To help us with this, we must first define lean thinking. This mindset tries to evaluate or frame a project’s context. Lean thinking has several values that include:

  • Removing and getting rid of anything that doesn’t add value to the project
  • Improving knowledge by constantly gathering feedback for efficiency
  • Decide at the last minute after gathering information for an informed decision
  • Make quick delivery without sacrificing team morale or product quality
  • The team should be empowered in terms of the health and energy of developers
  • Create intuitive, valuable experiences
  • Don’t just concentrate on individual features but the entire project.

Usually, a team that employs lean thinking in project delivery always uses the Kanban method for workflow management. Kanban can be set on a board with hard copy index cards or created digitally using WordPress tools like Asana or Trello. You can do this by creating a workflow using different columns. The cards are then moved from left to right through the workflow as tasks are completed.

The basic Kanban board has only three columns:

  • Do
  • Doing
  • Done

You will find additional columns; each card will have sub-tasks to complete in advanced Kanban boards. Kanban tends to track more oversized work items rather than small tasks; therefore, it needs several sub-tasks and directions on one card. You will also get start and end dates to align with assignees and support documents.

Kanban Principles

Kanban development is interesting because it is set up and process-oriented. Changes are not made now; don’t start with a blank slate. It will instead adapt your team’s current structure to maintain the original plan. Kanban has four basic Kanban principles:

It starts with your current processes, including policies, rules, steps, and flow. Things may change as you move forward. The point of Kanban development is to involve the entire team and not take over the project.

The team needs to show commitment to incremental and evolutionary changes.

Kanban initially respects and maintains job titles, roles, and responsibilities, but things may or may not change.

It focuses on encouraging the team and may take the lead when necessary.

Kanban for WordPress Development

  • Creating a Board

The process must be broken down into steps when incorporating Kanban for WordPress Development. This can be done quickly by the previously done and completed successful projects. By tracing the stages of development of what made it successful. You will use these steps to create a column in your Kanban board.

  • Column ideas for your WordPress development Kanban board

    • Backlog – Ideas that may or may not be implemented
    • Required – Ideas to develop
    • Changes Needed – Returned items that need more work Finished.

Cards can also be clarified based on priority. You can use tools such as Asana and Trello since they have color coding for this task. For your team to work effectively, you can prioritize categories like Bugs, Customer Features, and Customer Issues.

  • Setting Work-in-Progress Limits in Kanban

You must set up a Kanban board to start the organization workflow. You must then understand how to use the Kanban board and what is expected from each step. This should apply to the entire team, not just individuals in the project. This is crucial, especially when you notice bottlenecks or columns building up faster than others. This calls for work-in-progress limits to prevent this from happening. This is done in good faith, assuming all team members work efficiently. A great solution is to set up a WIP limit for that column. There should be nothing more than five features at a time to take the test, and the validation process goes smoothly and efficiently. Another work item can be moved from the “Build” column once testing and validation are complete for a feature. This allows the workflow to flow smoothly without any interruption or confusion. To make the WIP limit effective, the thumb rule is to multiply your developers by two. For, let’s say, five developers, there would be a max of 10 projects at a time. As much as lower limits are more efficient, they shouldn’t be set too low, leaving your team with nothing to do but wait for other developers to finish their projects.

  • Best Practices of Kanban Development

The system includes the specifics behind WIP limits. It should be written directly on the board to refer to whenever any clarification is needed. A good example is when a client’s directive in a card at the top of a column explains the number of articles claimed per day and the days. It also describes when articles are added to the board throughout the week. There should be a clarification on when a card is moved from one board to the next. You should have it built right into the sub-tasks on some of your cards, and you should only move the card once the previous sub-tasks are complete. More specific parameters include moving a card to the “Completed” column if you have added the article’s published link to your portfolio. You may also include that they should be added once the articles are paid for.

Wrapping Up

The best thing about Kanban is that there isn’t one type of Kanban board that does the same thing. You can customize it to meet your office needs. Kanban only comes into place to enhance team collaboration and ensure that the project’s workflow goes smoothly and smoothly. In other words, the system is all about adapting the perfect delivery of projects to your workflow.

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