by Stephan Schmidt

Kanban Board Application in One Html File

For some years I’ve been interested in lean software development and how to reduce waste. While introducing lean practices, I’ve needed a small, simple Kanban Board application. Thought I’d write one.

kanbanboard thumb Kanban Board Application in One Html File

You can download a very first alpha here or see it in action here.

Suprised? The application is just one HTML file, no installation needed, no Java, Ruby or PHP. One HTML file, no other dependencies.

How to use the application?

Edit the source of the HTML file with an editor of your choice, preferably one which knows HTML. You will find a list of stories. The example contains those:

T_Q,S18,Checkout optimize
DE,S2,Build old shop
DE,S4,Rebuild with SOAP
DE_Q,S10,Rebuild with REST
P,S17,Do something with OpenID
D,S3,Make application faster
D_Q,S7,Credit Card Payment
DE,S13,Build something astonishing
P_Q,S17,Fix YSlow
R,S39,Google Page Speed fix

There are three columns for stories. The first column contains the state the story is in, the second contains an identifier for your story and the last column the name of the story. You can edit the columns, change states, change names, remove and add stories. You can also export form Excel to csv, then cut&paste into the application source.

The available states are described next in the file:

D,Design
DE,Development
T,Test
R,Release

They need to be available for the stories and match the states of the stories. You can add, remove or change states. Every state has a “sub-state” as a ready queue. For example the ready queue state for Design “D” is “D_Q”, for Test “T” it is “T_Q”. You do not need to describe the ready states, they are automatically created and a ready queue is shown in front of every state. For example “Test Ready” is shown left to “Test”, if there are stories in that particular state.

Customize the colors

The colors of each state are defined in a CSS block.

.box_P { background-color: #FFFF00  ; color: #000000;}
.box_P_Q { background-color: #F0F0F0; color: #606060;}

Feel free to change them to your taste. “.box_P” is for the “P” state box, “.box_P_Q” for the corresponding ready queue.

The main use case for this application is to inform a company about the stories which are in development and in which state they are. It’s an ideal information radiator. I plan to use it on a huge screen.

Future
I’m thinking about a CouchDB storage implementation for storing data and application logic. Or storing data in the file, with drag and drop, inlining Jquery, editing and storing like TiddlyWiki does.

Future features? Add WIP limits, add “From here” signs to display cycle time until live.

Have fun with this One-File-HTML-application. Tip: you can easily mail it around, no install needed.

You can leave a Reply here. Of course, you should follow me on twitter here.

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About the author: Stephan Schmidt is head of development at brands4friends. He has more than 15 years of internet technology experience and 10 years experience in agile. He was head of development, consultant and CTO and is a speaker, author and blog writer. He specializes in organizing and optimizing software development helping companies by increasing productivity with lean software development and agile methodologies. Want to know more? All views are only his own.
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Comments

[...] Kanban Board Application in One Html File | Code Monkeyism [...]

Neat.. simple.. straightforward.. everything that Lean tells the way things should be..

Honestly, I think we put too much stock in online project management tools. Toyota eschews technological solutions for simple ones that just work.

Will be following to see how you go with this. Well done dude.

@ferrisoxide: “Well done dude.”

Thanks. I love the simplicity … the danger when working on the board app is that I might add to many things. I’m aware of that.

Michael

It makes sense to check if there is actually data for the state when rendering. Otherwise you end up with an object not found. This happens if you do not have in each state at least object.

@Michael: Thanks, fixed in my current build.

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