How can i implement customer Kanban tokens in Jira

Question

In our fysical boards we use tokens to limit the WIP coming from a customer.

These tokens are called "kanban tokens" or "customer tokens". For a detailled description see this explanation https://kanbanize.com/blog/patrick-steyaert-customer-kanban/#_ftn2

The fysical tokens are just post-it's with a special color code.

There are a limited number of these tokens available.  If no token is available the customer (or project planners) have to wait for a free token before they can put new issues to the teams.

Is it possible to implement the same technique with JIRA ?

ivan_belis · Answer

Hi,

To implement the token principle we

* created a custom multiselect  field with the names of the tokens (1 name for each team)
* to assign a token to an issue, you just select the correct tokens.  There is a 'token limit' but is not enforced.
* dashboards give on overview of all tokens  (multiple dashboard , on the team level and generic ones)
* on the same dashboard the token-limits are also displayed (just plain text)
* those limits can be changed based on availability of the team

So we do not have an automatic validation of the number of tokens but a manual process with a regular follow-up in the teams and x-teams.

This gives use the needed flexibility and also visibility of the load on the teams.

Tim Wallis · Answer

Ivan, I want to do this same thing. Did you find a satisfactory solution?

Andrew Laden · Answer

You could probably do it with some sort of scripted validator, that can use a JQL search to find the number of active reported issues by the user, and fail validation if that number is higher then x.