Failure tracking in Kanban tools ? Is it the philosophy of the tool?

Question

I've been trying Kanban tools for a few days, and I do think I can adopt one of those tools really soon. I 'll decide after the 3 weeks routine period if it still fits my need.

I wonder: I immediatly added to my Kanban boards a Dropped/Canceled column listing tasks for which I have decided not to spend anymore hours, and that should almost behave like a 'Done' column... except that it lists the given-up failures.

But after the reading I have done on the net, and the Kanban examples I saw... it seems it's not in the philosophy of this tool to accept failure.

I don't want to open my question to opinions discussion... I'm just wondering if it is in the philosophy of Kanban to track failures.

Answer 1

Kanban came initially from the Toyota production model and then was adapted for knowledge work. So these application are on the business level where tasks are expected to be completed and "failure" to complete a task is not part of the model.

Personal Kanban is newer - there's been one book on the subject, and I think it's fair to say that since it's an adaptation of a team technique to personal usage some aspects would naturally be modified.

Answer 2

Kanban is meant to show impediments so you could analyze and work on resolving them in a systematic manner. If you dropped/canceled a work item, then do you know why did that happen? What have you learned from it?

Answer 3

Kanban is a framework. If a "Dropped/Canceled" column is important for your routine, then use it. I have an "Evaluate" column for tasks. So if you use this column to reflect then do it.