Example Kanban Board

In my last post, I mentioned how students can use Kanban boards to organize their plans for learning and exploring. A general Kanban board could organize all of someone's ideas of things they want to do. For instance, in the "To Do" section, someone might have, "Read Superfudge," "Paint a portrait of my mother," "Memorize the 12's multiplication tables," "Learn to play a song on the ukulele," and "Start a food drive." Whenever they begin working on one of these goals, they would move that over to the "In Process" section. And once they've finished, they can move it to the "Done" section. They'd be able to see all of their accomplishments build up.

A Kanban board can also help you organize the steps to a specific goal. For instance, if someone wanted to learn to play a song on the ukulele, they might put in the "To Do" section, "Buy a ukulele," "Check out a book about playing the ukulele," "Ask for recommendations about an easy beginner song for the ukulele," "Find a Youtube video tutorial," "Watch video tutorial," and "Watch tutorial again while following along with my ukulele." As they worked on each step, they'd move it to "In process," and finally "Done."

Think of how a team might use a Kanban board to organize a group project. They could decide together what steps need to be done, and write those down. They could divide the steps up among team members, and write the initials of the correct team members on each task. As team members work on the tasks, they can also see where everyone else is on their assigned tasks. This would make them accountable to each other, and also give them the chance to help each other out... for example if Team Member A has already finished his 2 tasks, and Team Member B still has his tasks in "To Do," Team Member A might offer him a hand.

My aunt and I are planning to have a garage sale this weekend. This project, which seems a little daunting because it involves selling a whole garage full of furniture and assorted randomness, has seemed a little daunting. I decided this might be a good chance to put a Kanban board into action! I told my aunt I would make one.

This is the Kanban board I made for the garage sale. Ideally you would use a magnetic white board. I didn't have one handy, so, being resourceful, I decided to use the lid of a plastic bin. How do you like it?