How do I handle tasks that take long periods of time with Kanban

Question

I see a question out there for ongoing tasks handling those in kanban. I am asking more about how to handle lengthier tasks with Kanban.

Currently I have a board and I run the following columns: Backlog, TODO, Today, Doing, Done (with a box for a priority item in today, and an ER box in doing, finally a waiting box for those tasks I cannot complete due to others, but as soon as they do their part I can resume).

So say I have a project I am working on, or even maybe a time consuming presentation to prepare. A task like "prep presentation for XXX" or "design for project YYY" could run for quite a while and throw off the "doing" column and all other columns before it.

I can't truely queue up to my WIP limit because in reality the longer running task will prevent me from getting through my "Today" queue of items.

Looking for possible solutions out there.

I am considering doing the following: "X" out boxes in those columns when I realisticly can see I won't be able to move tasks through due to constraint (capacity). On my task cards in the upper right corner put a "slots consumed" number for those larger tasks and when those get into a column they take up maybe 2 or 3 blocks instead of just one (span across multiple).

What works best for this problem?

Answer 1

It seems like you need to break down those "too big to chew on in one bite" tasks into smaller pieces and go through those instead of one huge chunk of task. One-off huge tasks not only look and feel daunting, they are also harder to gauge progress and can often feel like you haven't done much.

If you are using source control, another benefit of smaller tasks is that you can create branches for each of those tasks and roll out those changes one at a time if what you are doing can be orchestrated that way.

Example:

Too Big - Revamp Website Design

Just Right - Revamp Home Page Design

You can break it down even further on that "Home Page Design" task if the page is complicated: "Design Header & Footer".

I hope this answers your question.