VIDEO: 4 Pros of Using Kanban for Project Management

Are you a project manager who has to use multiple whiteboards to track a project's progress? Tired of going through millions of sticky notes filled with project updates? Well there’s a popular workflow management strategy called Kanban that helps streamline your project and task tracking process while freeing up your time to focus on other project manager duties. Hi, my name’s Emmanuel with TechnologyAdvice and today I'll be telling you about the top 4 benefits of using a Kanban system in your project management workflow.

But before we get started, go checkout Mackenzie Fay’s project management video on Kanbanize, which uses the kanban workflow. If you’re not familiar with Kanban, here's a quick history lesson. kanban The name is actually a Japanese word that means “card” or “billboard.” The kanban board originally emerged from the movement of physical cards down the Toyota production line. As a car moved through production, a kanban card would move from worker to worker, signaling the beginning of each new task.

Fast forward to today and this visual strategy has evolved into today’s kanban principles, which use a board to track the status of each task and which team member it is assigned to. The first reason you should consider using a kanban system is because it helps visualize workflows. Project teams see what stage every task is in so they can track its progress in real time. Based on a card’s color, location on a board, and other visual cues, team members and managers can tell the status of a piece of work.

Some cloud-based kanban systems even provide the ability to connect related card items, so project teams can see how a piece of work contributes to a higher-level initiative. The second reason is that it reduces the potential of overworking employees Without transparency, it’s easy to over-assign too many projects to a single employee. On the flipside, it’s also easy to give employees less work resulting in uneven workload across the team. Due to the visual nature of the kanban system, the board makes each individual’s workload public, so team leaders can distribute tasks evenly to make sure no one gets overworked.

The third reason is that the kanban system could reduce wasted time and work. It does this by moving smoothly from one stage or person to another without delay. This sets it apart from other project management strategies, where tasks end up sitting in a queue while other work gets completed, resulting in an unnecessary backlog of work. And the final benefit of using a Kanban system is that it helps improve concentration and can reduce distractions.

Multitasking may be popular, but it’s actually been shown to be less effective and less productive than working on a single task at a time. Trust me I know. With the kanban system, employees can’t progress to the next work item until they complete their current project. This single tasking approach encourages employees to concentrate on the work at hand instead of bouncing between multiple projects, which splits their attention and shatters their focus.

Well that wraps up the top 4 benefits of using Kanban to improve your project management workflow. For software that use Kanban systems head over to technologyadvice.com for a free list of options. Till next time, See you guys!