Switching to a Kanban board cut our meeting time by 40% at my warehouse in Portland

We had this problem where every Monday morning we'd spend like 2 hours in a huddle just figuring out who was doing what. I tried a shared spreadsheet but nobody updated it. Last month I put up a simple whiteboard with sticky notes in the break room. Three columns: to do, doing, done. Now our Monday check-ins take 30 minutes max because everyone can just walk past the board and see the status. Has anyone else tried a low tech fix like this and had it actually work better than software?

3 comments

3 Comments

nathan54513d ago

40% drop in meeting time is wild though, I gotta admit I'm a little skeptical at first. I mean a whiteboard with sticky notes sounds way too simple to cut that much time, but I guess if nobody was updating a spreadsheet then the physical board forces people to look at it. I bet the break room location is key too since everyone walks past it every day.

gavincampbell13d ago

Funny how the simplest stuff usually wins out, right? Feels like half the time we overcomplicate things at work when a whiteboard and a shared coffee spot could do the trick. Makes you wonder what other problems could be fixed with a big sheet of paper and a marker.

cameron68413d agoTop Commenter

Right there with you, simple fixes always get overlooked somehow.