Dolphin Research Center goes Lean with Kanbanchi.
IT department decided to implement kanban methodology as a part of a huge turn toward the Lean concept. Kanban boards replaced their standard ticketing system. However, their kanban system tied with the Sharepoint was ineffective and expensive to use. So, they were extremely excited to start using Kanbanchi that was not only cheaper, but also was more convenient to use due to the Google Drive integration. It was only one department using Kanbanchi in 2014, but now it’s being used widely across the Center.
Meet the team – Dolphin Research Center
Dolphin Research Center is a non-profit marine mammal facility. Its focus is to learn more about these amazing creatures and educate the public to increase knowledge, love, and conservation of our wonderful oceans. As anyone can imagine when the entire facility focuses on the animals, they take the number one precedent. That leaves a small IT department trying to keep databases and lights on, and the technical side of the facility running on a shoestring budget.
IT department initiates changes
There are only 3 members in the IT department that have to coordinate around a hundred employees and volunteers, plus students of the Dolphin Research Center Technical Institute, 10 buildings, a couple miles of fiber optics for the network, over 20 servers for all the needs, and more.
“Everyone in the IT department has to wear many hats, and even with us being diverse we found ourselves stretched thin, so in 2014 our IT department at Dolphin Research Center started an initiative to go Lean.” - Jesse Fox, Director of IT
One small portion of this huge turn to Lean concept was to use a kanban board as opposed to a traditional ticketing system for tracking work and changes.
IT Department started off with a kanban system that tied in directly to their Sharepoint. It worked well, and helped in the transition to Lean working. Over time they were able to eliminate waste and increase efficiency and improve uptime in a very noticeable way.
Great demand for kanban boards leads to choosing Kanbanchi
The improvement gathered a lot of attention and requests started to come in that other departments wanted kanban boards of their own, but that sharepoint kanban system was unwieldy for expansion and very expensive to add the number of users that the Center would need. At this same time the whole organisation was in a large transition towards Google Drive for storage.
So, all the processes going on within the organisation, limited capabilities of the sharepoint kanban system, led IT department leaders to look for other kanban solutions and in that search they found Kanbanchi.
The entire IT department was thoroughly impressed with its ease of use, the powerful capabilities and eloquent look. It didn’t take long before they decided to make the move away from their own kanban system over to Kanbanchi. Things went smoothly.
Example of Kanbanchi board of IT Department
Once introduced to other departments, Kanbanchi becomes widely used tool to manage projects.
IT department introduced kanban to two other departments using Kanbanchi as a test.
Once the IT department was on Kanbanchi, others started to take notice of the kanban boards being used and saw the benefits of using Kanbanchi to track workflows. It was at that point that many people wanted their own Kanbanchi board. It has quickly become one of the most popular new tools. Everyone from the president, to CFO to committees all have their own boards now for tracking different processes or projects.
“Not only has it changed our tools and how we do things on a daily basis but got a lot more people thinking in a different way when it comes to workflows.” - Jesse Fox, Director of IT
If you are searching for a tool that will help you to control workflows and let your team be more confident about the tasks that they need to do, don’t hesitate to try Kanbanchi too.