Efficiency is often the key to a successful business management. To make things efficient right from the onset, it could be a good idea to deploy a workflow tool. Perhaps, a Kanban tool is the perfect option.
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What is Kanban?
Kanban is often defined as being synonymous to workflow execution and project management. It helps to streamline the efficiency, improve the speed and the quality of work done and minimise multitasking. It helps the users to focus on the priority and keep the team in the loop of what’s up in the workflow. It works well even in institutions and agencies where the output is very high.
The significance of Kanban tools lies in agile development that is achieved with the help of cards, charts and activity streams.
Why you should be trying Kanban tools?
Though the requirement of every company and business is different, Kanban helps to standardise the workflow by optimising it the way the process demands. Here are the features of Kanban tools that get you optimum control over your business projects and manage the workflow with utmost efficiency.
Kanban cards: These are used to assign tasks that would include attachments too. The cards can be assigned with hierarchy so as to define the assignments of tasks within tasks.
Kanban boards: These organise the cards (or tasks) based on their status under the columns of work-in-progress, to-do or done. Checklists and attachments can also be attached.
Best Kanban tools to improve your workflow
| Name | Kanban boards | Kanban cards | Analytics |
Automation |
| Trello | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Paymo | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Kanbanize | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ProjectManager.com | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| GitScrum | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Monday.com | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| MeisterTask | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
1. Trello
Trello is one of the most popular Kanban tools that businesses use to streamline their workflow. It has almost all the features, including boards, lists and cards that help you organise any project. It is extremely user-friendly and your team can get going on the projects in quick time.
Since Trello is a platform to improve productivity, it can be used with app integrations that could power-up the workflow further. It has certain integrations that would definitely help in the processes, which includes Google Drive, Salesforce, GitHub, Slack, Evernote, etc. However, it does not have time and expense tracking by default and the users would need to integrate apps to mitigate this shortcoming.
2. Paymo
Paymo is a very well-featured workflow management tool that comes in handy for invoicing, planning, scheduling and time tracking. All of the tools can be used to customise the workflow for each project and then re-use it as and when required.
Paymo incorporates advanced Task Management tools in order to create accurate schedules and plans. It improves communication with the help of real-time comments and General Discussion sessions so that all of the members of the team are on the same page. It also improves the distribution of work, since it has Team Scheduler and Leave Tracking. Plus, the various integrations make it even more diverse.
3. Kanbanize
Kanbanize is developed to be an advanced combination of collaborative features, business rule, process automation and powerful analytics. It has comprehensive Kanban boards that make is very easy to spot any sort of inefficiency. These boards are extremely easy to modify at almost any stage of running the project. And due to these, working on multiple projects at the same time is not challenging at all with the cards and hierarchy.
It comes with multiple built-in integrations with major tools, like GitHub, Dropbox, Jira and Google Drive. It is an exceptional bug-free Kanban platform, though the lack of an offline version is a shortcoming.
4. ProjectManager.com
ProjectManager.com is a very strong Kanban tool. It offers a customisable dashboard that has a very easy interface. All of the project plans can be managed online, which include creating and monitoring them.
Easy communication among the team members makes the management of tasks effortless. Once a task is created, the customisation is such that the assignee can see all of the details, including the time of the same. And finally, with easy and instant reports, the users can create executive-ready reports that can be exported in various formats – Excel, Word and PDF. There is also a free trial version, if the user needs so.
5. GitScrum
GitScrum is a relatively newer tool among project managers. It has some of the most essential Kanban tools that include changelogs, management tools, checklists, customised workflow and various other reporting features.
Users to customise the GitScrum emails to add company’s logo. The collaboration features are exceptional as the team can communicate through the forum and also receive emails about the updates on the mentioned tasks. The members can also upload and share files. The most popular integrations for GitScrum are Slack, GitHub, Asana, Dropbox and Trello. It comes with a free version as well.
Kanban project management and workflow tools are extremely essential when it comes to running the business processes smoothly. However, you need to be careful while choosing one for your business.
