Kanban is a software development method that requires to lay out the tasks on a board to better visualize the workflow. I find it very inconvenient to rely on a physical board so I spent a few days building a web application.
It’s just a prototype, but I think it already does a good job at giving an overview of the next tasks in the backlog, who is currently working on what, what are the open tasks, and what has recently been deployed.
The task completion level is easy to see with the green/yellow/red progress indicator, and the title of a stage gets highlighted in red when there are more active tasks than the limit the team set (that’s a Kanban thing for focusing on getting things done).
Users can add a new task by clicking the “+” in the backlog where a new card will appear. Then, just type some text and press enter. They can drag and drop stacks of cards from one stage to another or people from one stack to another.
Clicking on a card gets the user to the task’s page where he can:
- Attach all sort of assets to the task such as images or elements of copy
- Comment on the task to discuss implementation or ask for more information
- Add subtasks to split the work into smaller units and check them off (the progress indicator is based on the number of completed subtasks)
It also syncs in the background to receive changes made by other people in real time, but it’s not applying changes yet.
The benefit of such app over an out of the box alternative like Trello or an actual cork board is integration and customization: it could automatically run tests and move the cards accordingly, deploy a stack of cards to a staging or production server based on the stage they are in and notify the project stakeholders when needed, all while computing the team velocity for continuous improvement. Such an application can adapt to an existing workflow instead of forcing the opposite.
I’m not sure where this project is going but let me know what you think.
Update: I open-sourced it because I don’t have time to keep working on it. Feel free to contribute or steal it. Just let me know when it’s done.
