Kanban is a Japanese word literally meaning billboard, and is associated with lean manufacturing and just-in-time manufacturing, introduced by Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer working at Toyota. More recently, the concept of Kanban boards has been adopted in other areas, and has become popular in the software industry with the adoption of Agile methodologies.
The Kanban board allows you to visualize the work queue. The board is organized into columns representing the stages of the work process. Work items are represented by cards placed on the appropriate column of the board. New work items start from the leftmost column and travel through the board until they reach the rightmost column, representing completed work.
The simplicity and visual impact of Kanban boards make them excellent for supporting simple business processes. A basic example of a Kanban board can have three columns, as shown in the following diagram: To Do, Doing, and Done.
It can, of course, be extended...