GitLab Kanban

Kanban is a scheduling system based on push (rather than pull from scrum). In this tutorial, we will manage a simple Kanban board with 4 statuses as these are adequate for a demonstration

Create new subgroup and epics

Create a subgroup / project

• Navigate to your group, and select New subgroupin the top right for the page,
• Type a name for your subgroup and select Create subgroupto create it.
• inside the newly created subgroup, select New projectat the top of the page,
• Give your project a Name and select Create project.

Create epics

• Navigate to your subgroup, on open Planmenu on left pane,
• Select Epics
• Select New epicon the top right and type at least some content into the Title field, you can fill other field, but they are not mandatory
• Select Create epic

For the purpose of this tutorial, you can create 2 others

Create issues with templates

Manage the default template for your issues

Only a maintainer or owner can create and configure default template

• On the left pane menu, go to Settings > General,
• Expand Default issue template section,
• Type what you would have as default template for your issues, here is an example:

Objective of the request:
Summary: 

Component impacted:

• select save

Create new template issue (on project level)

To create more templates (one for bugs, one for evolution …):

• Navigate to the specific project,
• on the default branch, select + next to project name,
• Select New directoryand name it .gitlab(if it doesn’t exist),
• inside your GitLab directory, Create a new directory for template named ìssue-template,
• inside this directory, create new file by selecting +and choose New file, named (for example) ìssue_template.md or bug_template,
• Use Markdown to draft the template, and save it by selecting commit change

Create an issue using template

Inside your project,

• On left side pane, select Plan> Issues
• on the top of the page, select New issue, and type at least some content into the Title field,
• Select Type of the issue,
• Select a template in the Description, the textbox will be filled following the chosen template,
• you complete the issue description, and at the button of the page select Create issue,

You can create 2 or more issues for this tutorial

Assign issues to epics

Inside your project:

• select an issue by selecting left pane Plan > Issue
• Assign to a team member

Create labels representing Kanban stages

Return at your subgroup,

• In the left pane, select Manage > Labels
• Select the New Label in the top right of the page
• Type in the title field: Status::Backlog
• Pick a color for the label and type in a description, then select Create label

Repeat the same process to create Status::WIPand Status::QA Select the New Label button in the top right.

Create a Kanban board

Add a list for each stage

Set WIP Limit

One important aspect of Kanban is work in progress limit AKA WiP Limit

you can find more information about this wip limit

• Select the gear icon at the top of the Status::WIP list to open list settings.

• Next to Work in progress limit, select Edit button and set the value to 3

• Select the X in the top right corner to exit out of the list settings