Kanban Board: What Is It and How Can It Help Manage Projects?

There's plenty of overlap between projects and everyday life: To stay on top of both, you must know what's happening around you. It's also essential to have an idea of what's on the horizon so that you can set goals and priorities.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to organize everything on your to-do list to help reach your goals or more efficiently manage projects? You can do both with a Kanban board! In this article, we'll let you know how project managers, teams, and even individuals can benefit from this tool.

A Kanban board is a central element of Kanban, an agile project management method that helps improve work and production processes. Tasks are visualized and arranged into one of three columns:

Any task that's assigned to a team or part of a project is displayed on the Kanban board and moved from column to column (left to right). This provides a clear overview, and transparency, and helps to to continually improve processes.

Even though requirements vary, there are some elements found in all Kanban boards. These can be adapted or modified to meet your needs. Below, we'll take a closer look at what these are:

There's one more important element that isn't visible on the Kanban board itself: The Review column.

Should you want to make continuous improvements to your processes, it's advised to review completed projects and assignments with your team. This is also known as retrospective and is when you should solicit feedback on the project unfolded. Discuss what worked, and what could be improved. What did the team achieve and what's needed to reach the next level?

This is the only way to move your Kanban board from the realm of theory into that of practice.

There are plenty of uses for a Kanban board. It can be particularly handy for small and medium-sized projects since it provides a clear overview of their status and how many resources they consume. However, as the number of people involved and linked tasks grows, the board can quickly become unclear or confusing.

Kanban boards also reduce the need for meetings, since team members know what their assignments are, and can easily see progress or changes. Focus is also maintained thanks to signals and tags. Because a Kanban board makes projects more transparent, it's also a great communication tool.

Not only teams can benefit from a Kanban board though: Anyone can use it to clearly structure and prioritize their assignments, goals, or objectives.

There have been noticeable changes in how Kanban boards are used over the past two years. Previously, a Kanban board was usually made on a whiteboard and with post-it notes: These days, most Kanban boards are digital. This makes it even easier for team members to access, particularly if they're working remotely or on a business trip.

Today, there are plenty of tools and templates to easily and quickly create a Kanban board.

Below, we'll use Trello to show you just how easy it is to create a Kanban board with the right tools. Even though each solution is unique, the process is largely the same for all project management software:

A variety of boards and visualizations can be created with just about every project management tool. You can either start from scratch and build a board entirely according to your preferences or use a template.

In case you're new to project management software, a template gives an overview of your options. However, down the road, their disadvantages will outweigh their benefits, since you'll need to remove or modify individual elements to customize the board to your preferences. For that reason, we recommend that you build a new board from scratch.

Once in Trello, click on the Create board button.

You can add and name individual columns (or lists, as they're referred to in Trello) with a single click. Each column represents a unique step in your workflow that you want to distinguish from those before and after it.

When you plan a new project, you'll likely add most of your tasks or assignments to the "Backlog" or "Open" columns. However, if your project has already begun, assignments can be added to other columns as well. Simply check which stage of your workflow a particular task is in, and add it to the appropriate column.

Tasks can also be assigned to different team members. In addition, it's possible to add symbols or colors to them and attach extra information, or set deadlines. All of this makes your board clearer and easier to understand.

Project management software offers plenty of tools to customize your Kanban board. Familiarize yourself with these so that you can take advantage of everything that the program you choose has to offer.

With Trello, for example, it's possible to follow particular assignments or workflow phases, configure notifications, and create rules. With the last of these, you can add WIP limits for certain columns or automate specific actions. This nifty feature saves an enormous amount of time.

Congratulations, your Kanban board is now ready to use. To make sure that everything goes smoothly, we'd like to give you a few tips.

Always keep in mind that a Kanban board is not a tool for directing a project, but rather, an aid used by every participant and team member. We also recommend that you:

As soon as you've internalized these points, you're ready to work with a Kanban board. All that's left to do is find the software that best matches your needs.

In project management, there's no such thing as the "right" or "wrong" tool: Each has strengths and weaknesses and only you can measure these against your requirements and preferences. Do you place more value on appearance, ease of use, or variety of features? In EXPERTE.com's project management software review, we tested a number of tools with which you can create Kanban boards, like Trello and Asana.

Other popular options include:

Free versions exist for many of these platforms, however, premium subscriptions include more features.

Kanban boards offer many advantages, however, they do have some drawbacks.

Kanban boards are a key element of the Kanban agile project management method. They visualize workflows and ensure that teams always have a clear overview of all assignments within a project. The suitability of a Kanban board depends entirely on your project's size and complexity, however.

For smaller and medium-sized projects, a Kanban board is a useful tool that saves teams time, helps them to work more efficiently, and even optimizes their workflow and processes. It's less ideal for larger projects, since as size and scale increase, a Kanban board provides less of an overview.

Regardless of whether you decide on a physical or a digital board, be sure to check out our tips to get the most out of this method for your team.