Kanban — as we know it. And, how to use it for your team

Vartika Kashyap
5 min readJun 21, 2017

Who would have ever thought that a technique implemented in a car manufacturing unit would become so popular that teams throughout the world are now using it? Agile, Kanban or Workflows — whatever you might call it — the technique of using flexible boards has become the go to option for managers to streamline their work.

“Poorly managed tasks? Try the all new Workflows and boards in ProofHub to get it all done efficiently.”

Kanban boards fit in the requirements of every team. Whether you are running a small team of just a few people or handling multiple teams, these boards can be the savior to bring peace in your life.

Here’s how -

A board is worth a thousand words

One of the first things you will notice when you start using a Kanban board is that everything is presented in the form of beautiful boards. The visual appeal of the tool makes it a strik option to manage the way you run your team and plan your work. Just like they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, we’d like to say that a board is even more than that.

Just a glance at the board gives you idea about how things are moving in a project. How many tasks are in progress, which task is in which stage, which ones are complete and more. Everything you need to know about the project — you can see it without grappling.

So easy even your grandma can use them

The best thing about a kanban board is their simplicity in usage. There is no learning curve. It’s like your entire project has been divided into stages. All your tasks are categorized in boards, with team members assigned to each of them. Whenever someone working on one stage of the project completes the task, they can pick it up and move to the next stage.

You don’t need to get the team go through any training sessions. This means there is no time wastage. And, your workflow can start to move into a smooth transition within just a matter of days.

Changing priorities will not give you sleepless nights

Ideally, developing a product from specifications provided by a client is as easy as walking on water, provided both of them are frozen. But, it does not work like that in the real world. Clients change specifications on a constant basis. And, scope of the projects that shifts scope of projects from one thing to another. Amidst all this chaos, the hardest job is that of a manager to keep the team aligned whenever the scope changes.

But thanks to agile method of workflow on which kanban boards run, it becomes easy to manage the changes. As everything is available in a visual format even the minutest change in tasks gets reflected on these boards. And, the people associated with that particular task / stage get notified in an instant.

Work will flow, so will you and your team

The biggest change you will notice when you get your team on to using Kanban boards is that work will start to flow. Bottlenecks will become less as everything is visual. You will be able to see which task is in which stage. And, if it stuck in one stage for long you can ask the person accountable for it about the same.

It’s like you get everything served in the platter. You just have to take a glance at the kanban board and analyze. You will be able to plan, strategize and get the projects flowing in a loop without having to work hard for it.

You can see that kanban works on a flexible approach. Everything flows from one stage to another. Whenever there’s a bottleneck, you can visualize it with ease and make desired changes in your strategy to get projects moving!

We have recently added Kanban boards in ProofHub. This will now make task management beautiful and easier than it used to be. If you have not tried it yet, it is time to go ahead and give it a try!

“Looking for ways to manage your tasks more efficiently? Start using ProofHub with the all new Workflows and boards.”

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Vartika Kashyap currently runs the marketing team at ProofHub — a project management software for teams of all sizes. She is a seasoned marketing professional who is an expert in digital marketing and entrepreneurship. She’s been featured among LinkedIn’s Top Voices for the year 2016. Connect with Vartika on LinkedIn, Medium and Twitter.

Also follow our company page @ProofHub to get the recent updates about our tool, published articles, motivational quotes & presentations.

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Vartika Kashyap

Chief Marketing Officer@ProofHub. Featured writer on LinkedIn. Contributor at Elearning Industry, Dzone, Your Story and Business.com.