This scenario is not very common, but it is very effective for long-term clients.įor example, let's say you are a project delivery firm for engineering and construction, working with different clients on their new corporate headquarters or a new production facility. Although they all share the same workflow, this gives a better overview of which unit tasks are piling up or additional capacity is needed.įurthermore, you can use Kanban swimlanes to separate work for different clients to visualize better what you are preparing for them. Here you see the three units of “Application & Assembly” (Fly Engine Subsidiary, Flow Air, and Wings LTD Subsidiary) have dedicated swimlanes. You can create dedicated Kanban swimlanes to visualize the work of different teams or individuals. – Classes of Service (Expedite, Fixed Delivery Date, Standard, Intangible) The most common types of swimlanes on a Kanban board are:
However, there are some major types of lanes that you should be familiar with, so keep reading below. How you should apply them depends on the specifics of your workflow.
Generally speaking, Kanban swimlanes are used to separate different types of work. If we take the procurement example from above, you should set separate WIP limits for the Hardware and Service lanes that conform with the overall limit of the “In Progress” work stage on the Kanban board. The same thing applies to the Kanban swimlanes.
As you are probably familiar with, your workflow's different stages should have limits, so your team members focus on finishing rather than constantly starting new work. When talking about flow, we should mention the topic of limiting work-in-progress (WIP) too. In this case, separate swimlanes give you a better overview of the workload per product type and help you achieve a better flow. What Can You Use Kanban Swimlanes for?Ī simple example of a Kanban swimlane would be the separation of different product types (“Hardware” and “Services”) of your procurement team. Teams usually use them to visually separate different work types on the same board and organize homogenous tasks together. Kanban swimlanes are horizontal lines that split a Kanban board into sections.
Integrate with external systems to get the most out of your Kanban softwareĬreate and update cards via email and reply to emails by adding a comment Reduce multitasking, alleviate bottlenecks, and keep a steady flow of work Visualize and track cross-team dependencies via card linksĬreate probabilistic plans for future project deliveryĪutomate your process to trigger actions when certain events occurĪnalyze your workflow’s performance through a variety of Lean/Agile charts Implement OKRs and align your strategy with day-to-day executionĭisplay critical business metrics and gather reports in one placeĬustomize your work items as needed and enhance communication Visualize your past, current, and future initiatives or projectsĭistribute and track work across the entire organization Keep your teams' work in a single place with multi-layered Kanban boards Keep track of tasks and get accurate status reports in real-timeĬreate a network of interlinked Kanban boards on a team and management level