Issue Tracking Made Easy with KanBo

One of the major challenges that many organizations face is the timely identification and resolution of issues, bottlenecks, and dependencies. 

By the time they are able to identify an issue, it’s already usually too late and the project gets delayed. That’s why it is essential for teams to stay on top of their tasks so they can communicate the issues and bottlenecks in a timely manner which gives the concerned person enough time to resolve the issue. This is the only way a project can stay on track, otherwise, both the time and resources witness excessive wastage without any result to show for.

When it comes to the identification and tracking of issues, every organization needs a robust and dependable tool that can help them stay ahead of the curve. That’s where KanBo comes in as a reliable issue tracking tool for all the stakeholders including team leaders, managers, and team members. KanBo software features an easy-to-understand user interface which means employees don’t have to go through extensive dedicated training to learn how to use KanBo and its features. An overwhelming majority of the features are actually quite self-explanatory and most of the team members can figure how to use them.

Using KanBo for Issue Tracking

Lists

When you first open the Issue Tracking board, you will see a number of lists on your screen. Each list represents a certain state in which an issue currently is. Depending on the issue tracking and troubleshooting process in your organization, you can add a new list to the board. For instance, if all issues are required to be tested twice, you can add a Quality Gate 2 to the board. Some of the common lists that you can use include the following:

• List – Unassigned

This list contains issues that have been reported but haven’t been assigned to anyone yet. This provides an insight into how much work has been piled up and whether the organization needs more manpower to handle its issues efficiently. Ideally, there shouldn’t be more than a few issues in this list for effective troubleshooting.

• List – Doing

As the name suggests, this list contains those issues that are being worked on.

When an issue has been assigned to a team member, it shows up in the “Doing” list in the form of a card. If you want detailed information about the issue, all you need to do is open the card.

• List – On Hold

When someone goes on a vacation or there is some technical bottleneck that needs to be addressed first, it might postpone the work being done on the issue. Those issues that are currently on hold for any reason appear in this list.

• List – Internal Test

Once an issue has been fixed, the first step is to test it internally to ensure there aren’t any further problems that could result in a subpar experience. An internal test list allows you to see all the issues that are currently being tested by your team.

• List – Quality Gate

For rigorous and comprehensive testing, every issue should go through a quality gate where concerned team members should ensure the quality of the product or service. This list contains all the information about the issues that are being checked for quality.

• List – Invoicing

After internal testing and quality assurance, you can put the service through and generate an invoice for it. This also enables managers to keep track of the expenditure on addressing the issues.

• List – Done

Once all the steps have been completed, the issue no longer exists and can be moved to the “Done” list. This allows team leaders and managers to see how efficiently issues are being addressed and who their top performer is.

• List – Archive

If there are certain issues that you need to save for future reference, you have the option to archive them by adding them to the “Archive” list. Any time you want to get back to the issue to verify or check something, you will find all the information there.

Analytics Reporting

If you want visual reporting of the status of issue tracking, analytics is the best way to get it. It provides you with a detailed overview of the cards that haven’t been started, that are in progress, and the ones that have been resolved. You can also see other data points including days left, cards left, progress, and shutdown activity index. This allows you to monitor the efficiency with which the issues are being tracked and resolved.

Another key piece of information is the most active user which shows you who has been the top performer.

Views

To see the information from different perspectives, you can toggle the “View”. For more granular control over the categorization of information, you can also use the “Filter” option.

• Current Work– As the name suggests, this view shows all the issues that are currently under investigation and progress is being made.
• Calendar– On the other hand, the calendar view gives a bird’s eye view of an entire month so you can see the dates of the deliverables.
• Gantt– When you are looking for a visual representation of the issues and how they are being resolves, the Gantt chart provides you with exactly that.

Conclusion

Identifying issues in a timely manner and ensuring their resolution process is streamlined are crucial to the success of the organization. Ideally, an organization should never have too many issues in the pipeline as it can have an impact on the overall productivity and efficiency of the company. With the KanBo issue tracking board, you have everything in front of you so you can manage accordingly.

KanBo issue tracking board allows you to see the unaddressed issues and determine the pace at which issues are being resolved. You can see the weaknesses and bottlenecks of the process and attempt to fix them to make the entire process more operationally efficient.