Mozilla and Lean Startups
Live at the Kanban Wall
 At WebFWD we’re pushing hard to apply as many lessons from the lean/agile methodology of software development (as for example laid out in the excellent book “Running Lean” from Ash Maurya - but more about this particular book in a different blog post) as possible for our own processes.The central element of the teams’ daily planning and workflow centers around our electronic version of a Kanban Wall. If you’re not familiar with the concept (it stems from Toyota’s lean production process Kaizen) check out the Wikipedia article, read up on how our friends from Pollenizer make extensive use of a “real-world” Kanban wall in their process and then pick up a copy of “Personal Kanban” for a more indepth understanding of the technique.In our particular case we use the excellent web-based software from AgileZen which allows for whole teams to collaborate on one board - tasks flow from the backlog to a ready-status, get worked on, might end up “in the pit” if they are waiting for external input and finally end up in the done category. The visual nature of the process is extremely helpful in understanding where your project is at, what is important and what needs to be worked on. To make our work more transparent we’ve set up an iMac showing our Kanban board in a public location here at Mozilla HQ.If you struggle with project management, keeping your team aligned, figuring out what’s important and what not, or simply need a better way to organize yourself than endless todo lists, you should check out the Kanban workflow.P.S.: We are happy to announce that the good folks at AgileZen kindly offer a free license to their solution for each of the WebFWD projects. :)
