One way is to deliver more value to your customers while creating less waste for the business. This is commonly called lean project management.

What Is Lean Project Management?

Lean project management is just like traditional project management in that it follows a structured project life cycle, uses formal project management documentation, and aligns with core principles, procedures standards for project initiation, planning, execution, monitoring, and closure.

However, what sets it apart is the integration of Lean manufacturing principles and techniques to enhance efficiency and value delivery. Lean project management emphasizes the elimination of waste (muda), the continuous improvement mindset of Kaizen, and the use of tools like value stream mapping to visualize and streamline workflows.

It also adopts pull systems and just-in-time (JIT) practices to reduce excess inventory and unnecessary delays, ensuring work is pulled based on actual demand. By combining the discipline of project management with the agility and efficiency of lean thinking, this approach helps teams deliver projects faster, with fewer resources, and greater alignment to customer needs—all while maintaining full control over project scope, time, cost, and quality.

Lean manufacturing was developed by Toyota, which is why it uses Japanese words to refer to the elimination of waste in a manufacturing system (muda), waste created by overburden (muri) and waste that comes about because of uneven workloads (mura).

The lean manufacturing methodology has five lean principles, value, value stream, pull system, continuous flow and perfection. We’ll learn about those below.

Key Areas of Lean Project Management

Now, let’s define the key concepts and techniques from lean manufacturing that lean project management has adopted and how they can be used throughout the project life cycle.

• 5 Lean principles
• Lean waste types
• 5S Method
• Kaizen
• Pull system
• Just-in-time production

The 5 Lean Principles

These principles have been around for a while but were codified in 1997 by the Lean Enterprises Institute (LEI). When it comes to project management, the lean principles focus on defining what deliverables or requirements matter most to the project client and prioritizing all efforts and resources into achieving them, while eliminating unnecessary work.

• Value: Value is defined by your customer, client or stakeholder. Value can be the quality, timeline or price point of your deliverable—though it’s likely a bit of all three. Know what requirements you need, and what expectations to meet.
• Value Stream: You have defined value, now it’s time to map all the steps and processes in your manufacturing cycle. That sequence of steps is known as a value stream in lean project management. Identify every action that must take place in the project, including design, procurement, production, HR, admin and more. It’s helpful to draw this value stream map on one page to illustrate the flow of resources.
• Continuous Flow: There shouldn’t be any points that will create bottlenecks or interrupt production. According to LEI, “Make the value stream steps occur in tight sequence so that the product or service will have a continuous flow toward the customer.” It often requires cross-functional teams but results in greater productivity.
• Pull System: This is when the customer, client or stakeholder “pulls” the product or service from the project as needed. In other words, the improvements of the prior step lead to faster time-to-market. The advantage of the pull system is no warehousing or stockpiling. That saves money for the business that can then be passed on to their customers.
• Perfection: The final step is spreading the philosophy throughout the entirety of your business. Lean is about continuous improvement. Therefore, everyone in the business must always strive to better themselves and the processes they’re involved with. Often it takes several go-throughs to get to the value and really reduce the waste.

Lean Waste Types

Lean waste types refer to the seven categories of non-value-adding activities that hinder efficiency and productivity in a process. These include overproduction, waiting, transportation, overprocessing, inventory, motion and defects—collectively remembered by the acronym TIMWOOD. By identifying and eliminating these wastes, organizations can streamline workflows, reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction.

5S Method

The 5S method is a workplace organization technique that enhances efficiency and safety through five Japanese principles: seiri (sort), seiton (set in order), seiso (shine), seiketsu (standardize) and shitsuke (sustain). By implementing 5S, teams create clean, well-organized environments that support continuous improvement and make problems easier to detect and correct.

Kaizen (Continuous Improvement)

Kaizen is the lean principle of continuous, incremental improvement involving all employees. It focuses on small, daily changes that collectively lead to significant enhancements over time. Kaizen fosters a culture where feedback and innovation are encouraged, driving long-term growth and quality in processes, products, and services.

Just-in-Time Production

Just-in-Time (JIT) production is a Lean principle aimed at reducing inventory costs by producing only what is needed, when it is needed and in the exact quantity required. This approach minimizes waste, improves cash flow and enhances responsiveness to customer demand, but requires tight coordination with suppliers and accurate demand forecasting.

When to Implement Lean Project Management?

Lean project management is best implemented when organizations aim to improve efficiency, reduce waste and maximize customer value. Whether you’re launching a new product, managing a complex build, or streamlining operations, Lean principles can help drive better results with fewer resources. It’s especially useful in industries where timelines, budgets and quality are tightly interlinked.

Manufacturing

Lean project management originated in manufacturing, making it a natural fit for this industry. By focusing on eliminating waste (like excess inventory or idle time) and optimizing production flow, manufacturers can boost productivity, reduce costs and deliver higher quality products with fewer defects.

Construction

In construction, lean project management helps minimize delays, reduce material waste and improve coordination across teams. Lean methods encourage just-in-time delivery, standardized work processes and continuous feedback, all of which contribute to more predictable project timelines and lower overall costs.

Product and Software Development

Lean is highly effective in product and software development, where agility and responsiveness are key. By applying Lean principles such as continuous improvement and customer-focused design, development teams can reduce cycle times, prioritize high-value features and release better products faster while staying aligned with stakeholder needs.

The Definition of a Lean Project

Lean was developed in manufacturing, but the lean principles have spread to many different industries such as project management and construction. A lean project is simply one in which there is continuous improvement.

That makes it part of the larger agile project management environment, in that it’s flexible and willing to change as needed. It’s all about delivering value to the customers and stakeholders, which is the same whether you’re manufacturing a car or an app.

One of the aspects of lean that makes it unique from traditional project management methodologies is that it applies the five principles of lean project management. That’s the first step in a lean project: identifying the five lean principles, then applying them to your project.

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What Are the Benefits of Lean Project Management?

When the Toyota Production System (TPS) was first introduced, it allowed the car company to improve value for its customers. The proof is in the pudding; the (then) small car manufacturer has become one of the largest automakers in the world. While the term lean manufacturing didn’t appear until the 1990s, the benefits of lean project management were evident. Here are some:

• Greater visibility into the manufacturing process
• More control, better decision-making and empowers teams
• Boosts productivity and morale
• Provides alternative ways to get deliverables out the door
• Faster projects due to having to respond to fewer issues
• Boosts profits, as more value is added and waste is reduced
• Increased customer satisfaction

As companies reap these benefits, they have more funds to invest in workers, tools and equipment. This creates a snowball effect of creating even more value and reducing even more waste from the production system. It’s a win-win situation in the best business sense.

To reap all these benefits, you need project management software that provides visibility and connection. ProjectManager is cloud-based software that shares data across multiple project views. For example, the list view can tag tasks, add priority and display the current task status. Try ProjectManager today for free.

What About Lean Program Management?

Projects don’t occur neatly, one after another. More likely, project managers are responsible for overseeing a number of projects. A portfolio is a lot of projects, but a program is a lot of related projects. These can benefit from a lean approach, too.

You can use the five lean principles when managing a program. By looking at all your projects through the lens of lean program management, you find areas where there is waste among the projects. Then, you can pinpoint the value and share resources to help all the projects flow better together.

While it’s not as well-known as lean project management, lean program management is just another example of the fifth lean principle of perfection. If lean principles help a project, they will help a program. Continuous improvement means expanding the reach of your lean approach and having it inform all aspects of your business.

How ProjectManager Helps With Lean Project Management

Mapping your value stream on paper is a good start, but project management software can help you find and eliminate waste. ProjectManager is cloud-based software that connects teams and delivers real-time data for better decision-making.

Create Start-to-Finish Project Plans

Finding value and removing waste requires that you see the entire project in one place. View all the tasks and determine which are keepers and which are unnecessary. ProjectManager’s online Gantt chart lets you map the project and identify task dependencies that can cause bottlenecks. There’s also a filter to chart the critical path, which allows you to see the most efficient way to execute the project and avoid those steps that aren’t adding value.

Create Flexible Workflows on Kanban Boards

Transparency is key to lean project management. Dynamic kanban boards allow project managers a window into the production cycle without getting in the way of their teams. Meanwhile, teams can manage their backlog of tasks and plan how to execute their work. They can comment on tasks and get notifications by email or in the app when there is a response or update to the work.

Balance Your Team’s Workload On-the-Fly

Balancing workload is also bedrock to lean project management. Our resource management features let you see your team’s assignments in a color-coded chart that shows who has too many or too few assignments. Then, you can re-allocate right from the workload chart to keep your team working at capacity.

Ensure Efficiency is Met with Dashboards

Teams can work how they want with our multiple project views, project managers can get data on their progress with one-click reports and a high-level view from the real-time dashboard. There are even lean program management reports and tools, such as the roadmap, which shows all the projects in your program in one place. You need a flexible tool such as ProjectManager to run a lean project.

Related Content

• What Is Lean Construction?
• What Is Lean Manufacturing?
• What Is Lean Portfolio Management? A Quick Guide
• The 5 Lean Principles: Definitions & How to Use Them

ProjectManager is award-winning software that organizes tasks, teams and projects to boost productivity and streamline your processes. The tool is designed to add value and reduce waste, just as lean project management mandates. Join the tens of thousands of teams at businesses as varied as the Bank of America to Ralph Lauren who use our tool to work better together. Try ProjectManager for free today.

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The product owner is focused on the business side of the project, the scrum master is the expert, who acts like a coach. The team is self-directed and works as they see fit to meet the goals of the product owner.

If you’re interested in the nuts and bolts of scrum, check our our guide. For this post, we’re going to take a deep dive into one of the events in the scrum framework, the sprint plan.

What Is a Sprint?

In order to provide some regularity and minimize the need for meetings, scrum is broken down into events. One of these events is the sprint. A sprint is an iteration in the development cycle of a project, and is one of the fundamental principles of agile project management methodologies.

The sprint is defined by a small amount of planned work that the team has to complete and ready for review. Sprint comes from an agile framework for projects and is usually associated with scrum. However, sprint also fits into the technique of kanban with its continuous delivery concept. Scrumban will also deploy sprints.

As in the dictionary meaning of the word, sprint is like a short race. It defines a duration usually no more than two to four weeks. The target of a sprint is decided on between the product owner and the team, which is called a “sprint goal.” The work comes from a sprint backlog, which is a list of tasks to be completed. Backlogs are often housed on boards or task lists for easy maintenance. Teams work collaboratively to complete the sprint and have it ready for review. But the sprint cannot start until there has been a sprint plan.

Project management software makes it easy to collect your task into a back log and then execute work in sprints. ProjectManager has customizable kanban boards so you can organize your sprints and collaborate as a team. Create tags, set priorities and assign work to people based on their skill sets. Once the work begins, you can track progress, workload, budgets and more with our real-time dashboard. Plan better sprints with a 30-day free trial of ProjectManager.

Key Elements of Sprint Planning

During sprint planning, the stage is set for the upcoming sprint. The goal is for the scrum team to better understand the work, goals and how they will achieve them. Here are some core elements.

• Product backlog: An ordered list of everything that may be needed in the product. This is the sole source of requirements for any changes to be made in the product.
• Sprint goal: A concise objective that the development team will work toward during the sprint. It offers focus to the work being undertaken and is collaboratively defined by the scrum team.
• Selected product backlog: Based on the sprint goal, the development team selects a set of product backlog items (PBIs) that they believe they can complete during the sprint.
• Sprint backlog: The development team makes a plan for how they will create the increment (the valuable and usable product functionality) during the sprint.
• Development team capacity: This team will consider its capacity for the upcoming sprint and factor in holidays, time off, other commitments, etc. It helps them determine how much work they can commit to.

To summarize, sprint planning aims to answer what can be delivered in the sprint, why the sprint is valuable and how the chosen work will get done.

How to Make a Good Sprint Plan

The sprint plan is another event in the scrum framework of an agile project. It starts with the team deciding which items in its backlog to work on during the sprint. This is the sprint goal that is a collaborative decision between the team and the product owner.

Sprint planning usually involves everyone on the team. There’s the product owner who helps with prioritizing the backlog and suggests which items should be part of the sprint goal. The team comes in to determine what is a feasible number of tasks for the backlog to work on during the sprint.

Also, involved in the sprint planning is the scrum master. The scrum master is an expert in the scrum framework for agile projects. They act as a facilitator for the sprint plan to make sure it’s effective, the appropriate backlog items are being addressed and that there’s agreement among the parties involved. There are three main phases for sprint planning.

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1. Designing

The design of a sprint is usually just a one-time event, though it can be tweaked moving forward to improve the process. Unless the design is not working, then, of course, you’d have to return to the drawing board.

The parts of the design phase of a sprint plan begin with a sprint planning meeting. This is where business initiatives are measured and the sprint backlog is created. Another meeting will breakdown that backlog into tasks, which finalizes the backlog.

There will be daily scrum meetings. These are check-ins to update the progress of the sprint. Tasks are further prioritized at this time and assigned based on reviewing the burndown chart, which graphically shows how fast a team is working.

Also, throughout the sprint, there is something called backlog grooming. This is when the product owner and team will review and refine the backlog based on how much progress they’re making.

Once the sprint is finished, there’s a sprint review meeting. Here the results of the completed sprint will be analyzed against the project objectives from the planning meeting. There is also a sprint retrospective meeting that looks at the processes and tools used during the sprint and how they can be improved for the next one.

These designs are focused on creating a realistic schedule and milestones that the team needs to hit. The design should be agreed upon by all members of the project team. The design is the structure that will determine the length of the project, so it must meet with the approved scope, cost and time of the project.

2. Estimate Sprint Velocity

Before the sprint, the product owner will determine its velocity. That is, how much work should be done within the sprint. This decision is based on the schedule of the team and their capacity.

This estimate is created at the start of every sprint. While there might be an urge to do so during the design stage, it’s better to wait. There are valuable insights that come after each sprint that should be applied to the next one.

What the estimation’s goal is to develop a new sprint velocity for each sprint. This should reflect the objectives of that sprint, efficiencies that we’re learned from the previous one and what can be realistically done with the current resources. There are also many tools available now to help maximize the number of objectives met during each spring, from test automation tools to CI/CD solutions.

3. Allocation of Sprint Work

This is where the scrum master comes in handy. Because of their expertise, they can work closely with the team to meet the requirements given by the product owner. Together, the scrum master and the team allocate the work of the sprint.

But the team is working relatively independently, which is one of the principles of an agile framework. The idea of self-directed teams is fundamental to working scrum, and they’re in charge of managing the sprint to the sprint goal.

This is done by assigning those most skilled at the tasks to executing them. The right people are used, and the team gains a greater sense of accountability for the work. They’re empowered by the autonomy.

Main Advantages of Sprint Planning

When executed properly, sprint planning offers many key advantages that can help improve a scrum team’s effectiveness while improving the overall product development process. It ensures the scrum team has a common understanding of the sprint’s goals and how the work contributes to the overall product vision.

It also creates a clear sprint objective, guiding the development team and helping them make strategic decisions. Sprint planning also comes with a sense of empowerment and self-organization; as the development team helps select the backlog items they think they can achieve during the sprint, it provides a sense of ownership and helps them make a more realistic commitment.

Transparency into what the team will be working on is always beneficial to stakeholders as well. They will be informed about the progress and direction of product development. All of these advantages work together to foster commitment, collaboration and clarity during the process.

The Difference Between a Successful Sprint Plan and a Failed One

Telling if your sprint is successful is fairly simple. Has it met its goal? The sprint goal is decided upon before starting the sprint by the product owner and the team. If that criteria has been met, the sprint is successful. It means you’re going through the backlog at an acceptable rate.

In contrast, if the team is not able to complete everything on the backlog that had been set up as the sprint goal, then that sprint has failed. The fact that sprints are quick and they are constantly evolving is to avoid ending up with a product at the end of your project that no one wants. This would be a failure, too.

Success is measured by sprint reviews, which ensure that the project is moving in the right direction. If the key stakeholders and end-users are dissatisfied, if the deliverables don’t meet their expectations, this is a failure. If nothing is learned at the end of a sprint, it can also be considered a failure. After all, it’s all about experimenting and the empirical process.

ProjectManager Helps with Sprint Planning

ProjectManager is a flexible project management software. When it comes to planning your next sprint, you can use our sprint planning templates to get you started on the right foot. The template is designed for dev teams. You can easily move tasks out of the backlog and into development on the board view.

Once you have your board, teams can customize columns and collaborate on cards. They can add their own to-do lists and comment with other team members. We have unlimited file storage, so add as many documents and images as you like. They’re all attached at the task level, so no more endless searches for the important paperwork. Also, @ the product owner or scrum master, who’ll be notified by email, and bring them into the conversation.

Our task list view is a great tool for backlogs. You can manage that backlog by filtering the data by the due date, owner, project, etc. Tasks can also be tagged to make them easier to find. ProjectManager is cloud-based, so any status update on tasks is immediately reflected in the software, creating greater transparency.

Finally, there’s our real-time dashboard. It tracks the project across a number of metrics, including tasks, progress and variance. This is another feature that will help with dealing with stakeholders and presenting them with project updates.

ProjectManager.com is a cloud-based project management software that is ideal for whatever methodology you’re working in. We have the tools to help managers plan, monitor and report on their project. Teams get a collaborative platform that gives them the autonomy to work in self-directed groups and boost productivity. Try ProjectManager.com today with this free 30-day trial.

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Scrum artifacts are critical for the success of any scrum team. But before we learn how to use them, we need to define them first.

What Are Scrum Artifacts?

In software development, the term “artifact” refers to information that stakeholders and the scrum team use to describe a product that’s being developed.

Scrum artifacts define the work that must be done, and they always add value during a sprint. In simple terms, scrum artifacts can be seen as nuggets of vital information for the scrum team. They provide structure to the scrum process because they act as guidelines for the product development plan.

This is vitally important, especially for distributed teams who may work from home because it provides a platform where they can see how they’re doing on a particular sprint. This keeps everyone on the same page, no matter where they are.

Who Makes Scrum Artifacts?

Creating and maintaining scrum artifacts is a collective effort, and specific roles are accountable for different items. The product owner is responsible for creating and maintaining the product backlog, and the developers are responsible for the sprint backlog and the increment. The entire scrum team and stakeholders contribute to and use these scrum artifacts throughout the project.

ProjectManager is online work and project management software that connects hybrid teams. No matter where or when your scrum team works, they can share scrum artifacts in real time. Our kanban board makes it easy for scrum teams to manage their artifacts and then collaborate to plan sprints. Product owners get visibility into the process of reallocating resources to avoid bottlenecks.

Seven Scrum Artifacts

There are three main scrum artifacts, according to the scrum guide. We’ll explain each of them below, along with additional staples of any successful sprint.

1. Product Vision

The product vision is the long-term goal of the project or product. It is the artifact you will define to set the overall direction of the project or product. The scrum team will use the product vision as a guide.

The importance of the product vision is emphasized by the fact that the scrum team should know it by heart. That means it should be short and to the point. The product vision is something that should always be in the back of a scrum team’s mind.

2. Product Backlog

A product backlog is a list of everything that needs to be achieved on a project, broken down into individual items. This is where the baseline requirements of every feature needed for the end product are prioritized by the product owner for the scrum team.

It is not a list of unchangeable tasks, and it often evolves. For example, if there is a change in the business environment, marketing conditions or technical demands, the product backlog will reflect those changes. Product backlogs are usually represented using a scrum board.

The product backlog is made up of three different types of items.

• User stories, which are high-level descriptions of a feature, told from the perspective of the end-user of the product.
• Bugs are problems that arise that the product owner wants to be fixed.
• Tasks, which are assigned to the scrum team to complete.

The backlog grows as the product is being built. When changes are added they can include more detail, estimates or a change in priority. The product owner and the team are regularly working on refining the product backlog. This can occur at any time.

The more important the product backlog item, the more detailed it is. When the items in the product backlog are chosen for the next iterative sprint, they are further refined to be developed during the sprint. When the item on the product backlog can be delivered by the team in one sprint, then they are ready for a sprint planning meeting.

Refining the Product Backlog

Refining the product backlog includes activities such as reviewing the user stories of the highest priority at the top of the backlog, and asking the product owner questions about them. This includes, if necessary, deleting user stories and then writing new ones. This is followed by reprioritizing the product backlog.

Then these new user stories need to be estimated in terms of the time it will take to complete them, or others will need to get a new estimate of their duration. Other user stories should be prepared for future sprints, while not losing sight of the big picture of the product architecture as the backlog evolves.

3. Sprint Vision

The sprint vision or sprint goal is often not defined as an artifact, it is still an important part of the scrum framework. The sprint vision is what the scrum team comes up with when planning a sprint. It guides the scrum team as to why they are investing their time, money and effort in the sprint.

4. Sprint Backlog

The sprint backlog is the part of the product backlog that the team will be working on in their sprint. Think of it as the to-do list for the sprint.

The sprint backlog is further broken down into tasks for the team to execute. Every item on the sprint backlog needs to get developed, tested and documented. The product owner helps the scrum team come up with a sprint backlog during their sprint meeting.

The sprint backlog is often represented as a task board, which is broken up into columns that represent the workflow. They tend to have the following titles:

• To-Do, which are tasks that have yet to start
• Doing, where the work has begun
• To Verify, which are completed tasks that are waiting for verification by another scrum team member
• Done, which means no more work is required

Refining the Sprint Backlog

The sprint backlog, like the product backlog, is a living document and can be changed by the scrum team. Work is discussed regularly at the daily scrum and the sprint backlog is modified as needed. This is all happening during the short sprint, and only the scrum team can make these changes as they occur during the sprint.

If there is a requirement for new work, it is added to the sprint backlog. Then as the work is completed, the estimate for what work remains to be done is updated. If there are items that become unnecessary, they are removed. This is known as backlog refining.

But, again, only the scrum team can do this. They have ownership over the sprint backlog and this process. The sprint backlog is highly visible and provides a picture of the sprint as the team is working on it.

5. Definition of Done (DOD)

The definition of done (DOD) means that all aspects of a user story have been completed in a sprint backlog. The scrum team must have a shared idea of what being done means. They should create a definition of done and use this as a checklist as they work on their user stories.

The scrum team can create their DOD during the first sprint planning. It can then be iterated on during their sprint retrospectives. That doesn’t mean a DOD is static. It can change dramatically throughout the project.

6. Product Increment

This is the most important scrum artifact. The product increment is all the product backlog items that have been completed during a sprint.

Each sprint is potentially creating shippable product increments, and so the product increment must fit into the team’s definition of done and be acceptable to the product owner.

The definition of done is a shared one among the scrum team, although it is different for each scrum team. The definition of done evolves as the team matures: it grows more expansive or stringent as the project continues.

The product increment is not only the sum of all the project backlog items completed throughout a sprint, but it is also the value of the increments over the last number of completed sprints. This is transparency not only for the team but for the stakeholders in terms of where the product is at the moment.

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7. Burndown Chart

Though not always considered part of the essential scrum artifacts, the burndown chart is important not to neglect. It is a graphic that shows how fast the team is completing the user stories or items on the product backlog. Therefore, a burndown chart illustrates the total effort against the amount of work for a sprint.

The purpose of a burndown chart is to make sure that the project is staying on track, and that the deliverable is going to meet expectations and arrive on schedule.

The rate of progress of a scrum team is called velocity, which is the number of story points in the user story that have been completed during the sprint. Partially finished work isn’t calculated into velocity.

How to Use Scrum Artifacts

Scrum artifacts improve transparency and adaptation in a scrum framework. Here is how each artifact is used.

Product Backlog

The product backlog is a living document that captures everything that might be needed in the product. The product owner, alongside the developers, will regularly define the backlog, such as adding new items or providing estimates to understand the size and complexity of the work. The backlog also helps guide what developers will work on in future sprints.

Sprint Backlog

The sprint backlog is a plan that developers create for how they will achieve the sprint goal and make the increment during the sprint. It’s a versatile and real-time picture of the work that the developers aim to accomplish during the sprint. Developers select project backlog items and break them down into smaller, actionable tasks. It offers a clear overview for the team of who is working on what and what items in the sprint are remaining.

Product Increment

The increment is a scrum artifact that acts as a stepping stone toward the product goal. It’s the sum of all the product backlog items completed during a sprint and all previous sprints. The developers create it during the spring backlog to ensure quality. It’s presented to the product owner and stakeholders during the sprint review, where feedback is provided.

Benefits of Scrum Artifacts

Numerous benefits stem from scrum artifacts, helping the scrum team and the overall project. They allow for enhanced transparency and a shared understanding for everyone involved. This minimizes misunderstandings and ensures everyone is aligned on the product vision, goals and progress. It outlines what needs to be done and can show the tangible results of the team’s efforts.

ProjectManager for Scrum Teams

ProjectManager has the features that scrum teams need to easily manage their scrum artifacts. Because it is a cloud-based project management software, it’s especially convenient for remote teams, who can stay in the project loop no matter where they are or when they’re working.

Multiple Ways to Manage a Project

There are multiple project views in ProjectManager, making it flexible enough to serve agile teams, teams who work in a more traditional methodology and even a hybrid of the two. The kanban board view is ideal for scrum teams.

Product backlog items can be collected in kanban cards that can be tagged, due dates added, progress tracked, and assigned to one or more team members.

ProjectManager also has unlimited file storage, so goals, user stories and other related sprint materials can be attached to the cards. It’s the perfect tool to manage your product backlog.

Have Easy Backlog Grooming

The kanban board can also be used for the sprint backlog. Columns are customizable to fit the way your team works. Cards can be dragged and dropped from one column to the next as they move through the workflow.

Cards can have personalized to-do lists, and team members can collaborate by commenting on the card. They can even tag the product owner or scrum master, who will get notified by email and brought into the conversation. This provides great transparency for the whole scrum team.

Use Real-Time Tracking

Instead of using a simple burndown chart, ProjectManager calculates your sprint velocity automatically by tracking six project metrics, which are fed instantly to the real-time dashboard. Product owners can monitor task progress, team workload, cost and more to make sure that the sprint is on track.

Free your teams with custom workflows to focus on what matters. Automate busywork by setting triggers that create actions and streamline your sprint. Add task approvals to make sure only those authorized to change the status of a user story can do so. ProjectManager is also collaborative to the core with automated email notifications and in-app alerts. There’s a single source of truth that keeps everyone on the scrum team on the same page. Get more productive today by trying ProjectManager for free.

ProjectManager is online project management software that helps scrum teams better manage their sprints and product owners control the backlog. A real-time dashboard acts as your burndown chart, so you always know where you are in the project as it’s happening. See what else ProjectManager can do for your scrum team by taking this free 30-day trial today.

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A burndown chart helps agile project management teams keep track of what’s been done, what needs to be done and how much time is left in the project. While a burndown chart is traditionally a visual tool, it can also act as a list that outlines the work to be done and what percentage of it is complete.

What Is a Burndown Chart?

A burndown chart is a project management chart that shows how quickly a team is working through a customer’s user stories. This agile tool captures the description of a feature from an end-user perspective and shows the total effort against the amount of work for each iteration or agile sprint.

The quantity of work remaining appears on a vertical axis while the time that’s passed since the beginning of the project is placed horizontally on the chart, showing the past and the future. The burndown chart is displayed so everyone on the agile project management team can see it and updated regularly for accuracy.

Types of Burndown Chart

There are two burndown chart variants: a sprint burndown and a product burndown. A sprint burndown is used for work remaining in the iteration, while a product burndown illustrates the work remaining for the entire project plan.

Sprint Burndown Chart

Sprint burndown charts usually track progress within a single sprint, usually 1-4 weeks. It shows the remaining work for that specific sprint to help the team monitor progress and ensure they’re on track. The horizontal axis represents the days within the sprint and the vertical axis represents the remaining work, such as story points or hours.

Product Burndown Chart

Product burndown charts offer a broader view of the project’s overall progress. It tracks the remaining work for the entire product or a specific release that covers multiple sprints. The horizontal can represent sprints or iterations, while the vertical axis represents the remaining work in the product backlog.

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Components of a Burndown Chart

Although the specifics can vary, it’s common to see the below sections of a burndown chart.

Axes

A burndown chart has two axes, x and y. The horizontal axis represents time while the vertical axis displays user story points. The rightmost point of the chart indicates the start of a project or agile sprint while the leftmost point shows its end.

Ideal Work Remaining Line

As its name suggests, the ideal work remaining line indicates the remaining work that a team has at a specific point of the project or sprint under ideal conditions. Project managers use past data to estimate this baseline and draft a straight line across the burndown chart. The ideal work remaining line should always have a negative slope.

Actual Work Remaining Line

The actual work remaining line indicates the remaining work a team has at any point of the project timeline. Unlike the ideal work remaining line, this is not an estimate, but rather a realistic depiction of the team’s performance. The line is drawn as the team progresses and completes user stories. Actual work remaining lines are usually not straight as teams work at different paces as projects are completed.

ProjectManager is online software that offers multiple project views to help you collect and track your burndown chart. Our list view captures your tasks and shows how much work is left before tasks are complete. This real-time data access allows team members to comment and share files as needed. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

Burndown Chart vs. Burnup Chart

A burndown chart and a burnup chart are very similar—they have the same components, achieve the same purpose and are used for agile project management. But there’s one major difference.

On one hand, the burndown chart keeps track of the remaining work by removing user stories from the vertical axis as they’re completed while the burnup chart adds user stories to the vertical axis as they get done.

How to Read a Burndown Chart

The burndown chart has several points. There’s an x-axis, which is the project or sprint timeline. The y-axis is the work that needs to be completed in the project. The story point estimates for the work that remains are represented by this axis.

The project starting point is the farthest point to the left of the chart and occurs on day zero of the project or iteration. The project endpoint is farthest to the right and marks the final day of the project or iteration.

Ideal Work Remaining Line

There is an ideal work remaining line which is a straight line connecting the starting and ending points. This line represents the sum of estimates for all tasks that need to be completed, or in other words, the scope of the project. At the endpoint, the ideal line crosses the x-axis and shows there is no work left to be done. This line is based on estimates and therefore is not always accurate.

Actual Work Remaining Line

The actual work remaining line shows the actual work that remains in the project or iteration. At the beginning of the project execution phase, the actual work remaining and the ideal work remaining are the same, but as the project or iteration progresses, the actual work line fluctuates above and below the ideal work line. Each day, a new point is added to this line until the project or iteration is completed to make sure it’s as accurate as possible.

If the actual work line is above the ideal work line, it means there’s more work left than originally thought. In other words, the project is behind schedule. However, if the actual work line is below the ideal work line, there is less work left than originally predicted and the project is ahead of schedule.

Burndown Chart Examples

A visual depiction of a burndown chart can help bring the concept to life. Below are two more examples to better illustrate a burndown chart.

Burndown Chart Example with Actual vs Ideal

In this burndown chart example, the blue ideal line shows how the project would progress if all things went perfectly. It marks the pace at which tasks should be completed to finish the project on time. The purple line is the actual line that represents the team’s progress. It shows if the team is ahead, behind or on schedule at various weeks throughout the project.

Burndown Chart Example with Estimated Line

This burndown chart example has the work that’s left to do on the horizontal axis, while time is on the vertical axis. There are three lines, each representing different types of progress. The green estimated line shows the estimated progress calculated using the due date and estimated hours.

The ideal line is the blue straight line that averages the number of tasks by the number of days. As time progresses, the volume of tasks decreases. The red line represents the actual progress and any outstanding tasks. As tasks are completed, the estimated hours decrease.

Who Uses a Burndown Chart?

Agile teams, including project managers and scrum masters, often use a burndown chart to track and manage projects. These charts help monitor the project’s progress against the planned schedule, allowing these roles to identify delays before they cause a major impact. Scrum masters may also use a burndown chart to communicate the project status to stakeholders.

Development teams also use burndown charts to visualize how much work remains and if they are on schedule to complete it. It fosters transparency and accountability, helping the development team to self-manage. Other roles that may use this tool include product owners or stakeholders.

How to Use a Burndown Chart in Agile & Scrum

Agile project management relies on agile sprints to plan and execute projects. These sprints are short iterations of work where a team accomplishes specific goals that are initially set during a sprint planning meeting. Burndown charts are ideal for agile project managers as they allow them to keep track of the work remaining, compare performance against a baseline and quickly determine whether they’re behind schedule. Here are some examples of how to use a burndown chart to help you manage an agile or scrum project.

• Create a work management baseline to compare planned vs. actual work
• Complete a gap analysis based on discrepancies
• Get information for future sprint planning meetings
• Reallocate resources and manage tasks to complete sprints on time

What Are the Benefits of a Burndown Chart?

The obvious benefit of a burndown chart is that it provides an updated status report on the progress of the project. Having a visual representation of this key data keeps everyone on the same page.

Displaying a burndown chart prominently for all to see keeps everyone involved and encourages the team to deal with issues before they evolve into problems. It should be the focal point of the workspace so that it helps direct conversation toward the project and its progress.

The simplicity of the burndown chart is also extremely helpful as it outlines the velocity history of the project. Velocity is an agile term that means the total effort estimates associated with user stories that were completed during an iteration.

What Are the Limitations of a Burndown Chart?

The burndown chart doesn’t reveal everything. For example, it only shows the number of story points that have been completed. The burndown chart doesn’t show any changes, for example, in the scope of work as measured by the total points in the backlog.

As a result, it can be hard to tell if changes in the burndown chart are due to completed backlog items or because of an increase or decrease in story points. Having a burnup chart resolves this problem by having a separate line in the graph for the overall backlog size.

However, neither a burndown nor a burnup chart offers any indication of which product backlog items have been completed. While a burndown chart might show progress, it may not represent whether the team is working on the right tasks. These charts are often a way to show trends rather than represent whether the team is delivering the right product backlog items. If you’d like to prioritize project tasks, you may use an Eisenhower matrix instead.

It Relies on Good Estimates

Another issue with burndown charts revolves around the accuracy of the ideal work line. Whether the actual work line is above or below the ideal work line depends on the accuracy of the original time estimates for the tasks. If a team is overestimating time requirements, progress appears on track or ahead of schedule. But if the team is underestimating the time requirements, it will appear that they’re behind schedule.

There’s a way to respond to this issue—incorporating an efficiency factor into the burndown chart. After the first iteration of a project, the efficiency factor is recalculated to allow for more accuracy.

How ProjectManager Helps With Sprint Management

A burnout chart is important but it’s not the only guide that scrum teams can reference. There are many other reports and tools that can improve the probability of success. ProjectManager is an online collaborative software with the features scrum teams need to manage their sprints better.

Real-Time Dashboards

If you need a high-level view of your project, ProjectManager has a real-time dashboard that tracks your sprint as it happens. Data automatically populates for the most accurate view of your project. Teams can make decisions based on current project data as opposed to referencing old data.

Robust Kanban Boards

Reporting on progress is only one part of what a scrum team needs. They also require tools that allow them to manage product backlogs and sprints. ProjectManager has this portion of the sprint covered too, with kanban boards that visualize workflows, collect user stories and prioritize tasks. Scrum teams will always know what to work on and when. The kanban boards feed directly into ProjectManager’s reporting features for total project visibility.

Product owners and scrum masters will also appreciate the kanban for its transparency in the sprint. When going through a sprint retrospectively, the kanban is an archive of what went right and what went wrong, allowing for future improvements.

Managers must keep their eye on the progress of a project. If they don’t, then they’re risking the successful completion of the project. A burndown chart is just one of the many tools that lead to project success. ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that any manager will want to have in their toolbox. It has features such as a real-time dashboard to monitor and report on progress, and an online Gantt chart to streamline scheduling and help with collaboration. Try it today for free with this 30-day trial.

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What Are Scrum Ceremonies?

Scrum ceremonies are meetings that ensure that the scrum master, product owner and development team are in-sync. These ceremonies, or scrum events, are held at key instances in the agile sprint cycle, which we’ll outline below. There are five scrum ceremonies, sprint planning, daily standup, sprint review, sprint retrospective and product backlog grooming.

Scrum is an agile project management framework, so there can be confusion around terminology. For instance, the terms scrum ceremonies, agile ceremonies, scrum meetings and agile meetings are often used interchangeably. However, even though the agendas for these events are similar, it’s important to note that there are key differences between agile and scrum teams.

They do share at least one thing in common, the need for collaborative project management software. ProjectManager is online project management software that connects hybrid teams. Our kanban boards let teams manage their backlog, plan sprints, comment and share files in real time so no matter where they’re working everyone is on the same page.

The Purpose of Scrum Ceremonies

Scrum ceremonies serve several essential purposes for agile teams. They provide an opportunity for team members to communicate and collaborate effectively. During the meeting, they can define what work will be completed during the sprint and ensure all team members understand the sprint goal.

Transparency is another benefit of scrum ceremonies. They offer visibility into the team’s progress and allow them to address any challenges early before they turn into more serious problems. As a result, the team can foster continuous improvement as they reflect on their processes and make real-time adjustments.

In essence, the goal of a scrum ceremony is to:

• Increase communication and transparency
• Enable quick adaption to change
• Deliver valuable increments of work regularly

Who Participates in Scrum Ceremonies?

Scrum ceremonies are important and it’s key to have all involved parties in attendance. That means you’ll have the product owner, scrum master and the entire scrum team.

The development team will also participate in the scrum ceremonies. In fact, even outside stakeholders have been known to attend, though by invitation only. It’s a rare occurrence but illustrates the open and collaborative nature of the scrum ceremony.

This allows everyone to comment on the current product backlog and for there to be feedback from the scrum team to clarify any confusion. The scrum ceremony is like a questions-and-answers session to fully understand the user’s needs and goals for the upcoming spring.

There’s a lot of information to document, store and manage. Scrum masters and product managers use scrum software to keep track of all these events.

The Five Types of Scrum Ceremonies

Scrum is executed in what are called sprints, or short iterations of work lasting usually no more than two weeks. A sprint employs four different scrum ceremonies to ensure proper execution: sprint planning, daily scrum, sprint review and sprint retrospective. Let’s dig a little deeper and explore each scrum ceremony in depth.

1. Sprint Planning

This ceremony helps to set up the entire team for the coming sprint, creating a smooth pathway for a successful sprint. Sprint planning requires the participation of all the scrum roles: the development team, scrum master and the product owner. The planning, of course, is before the sprint. It typically lasts for an hour or two.

The product owner comes to the meeting with a prioritized list of the product backlog items, which is presented to the group. The items on the list, which are also called user stories, are then discussed with the development team. Together, they estimate what it will take to complete the items on the list. From this information, the development team makes a sprint forecast. They will outline how much work the team can complete from the product backlog. This will be known as the sprint backlog.

Some sprint planning ceremonies will flesh out the details of each user story. This will make sure that everyone involved understands the scope of the work. However, some will have a separate story refinement meeting or ceremony. By doing this, the actual sprint planning ceremony is shorter and directed only toward user stories that will be tackled in the upcoming sprint. Then the team can use a scrum board to plan their sprint.

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2. Daily Scrum

This short scrum ceremony makes sure that everyone knows what’s happening. It’s a way to ensure transparency across the team. This is not the time to dive into the weeds. A detailed status meeting this is not, but rather a light and fun informative meeting. It’s a space for each team member to answer the following questions: what did you complete yesterday, what are you working on today and are you blocked by anything?

The daily scrum is, as it says, a daily occurrence, which usually takes place each morning with the development team, scrum master and product owner. The ceremony is short, usually 15 minutes, which is why it’s also called a standup meeting. That will make sure it doesn’t drag on.

The great thing about the daily scrum is that it demands accountability. People report honestly on what they did, what they plan on doing and how they might be getting blocked in the process, and this is all done in front of their peers. Having to report in such a social setting sets up the team for success because it would be embarrassing to not show progress in front of others.

Daily scrum is not limited to teams that share a physical location. If the teams are working remotely, the ceremony can be conducted with video conferencing or another group chat.

3. Sprint Review

After the sprint has been completed, it’s time to get the team together to demo or showcase their work. Each team member reviews the newly developed features or whatever it was that they worked on during the sprint. This provides a space for the team to congratulate themselves on a successful sprint, which is important for morale. It also demonstrates the finished work for the entire team, so they can provide feedback and also get feedback from the stakeholders in the project.

Here, unlike other ceremonies, the review can last as long as it takes to demo all the work done by the team. Again, the participants are the development team, scrum master and product owner, but also in this instance, other teams involved in the project and the stakeholders.

These demos are not partial but a full review of the work. If not, then the point of the sprint review is diminished. The reviews must meet the quality level set up by the team or they’re not considered complete and shouldn’t be demoed in the sprint review.

4. Sprint Retrospective

The last scrum ceremony is called the sprint retrospective. It occurs at the end of a sprint, after the review, and is usually an hour in duration. The retrospective includes the development team, scrum master and product owner.

Because scrum is part of an agile process, it is all about change, which includes getting feedback and quickly acting on it. Scrum seeks continuous improvement and the retrospective is a method to make sure that the product and development culture is constantly improving.

The retrospective is a way for the team to understand what has worked well and what didn’t come together over the previous sprint. The post-mortem exposes fault lines in the team and its process, so they can buttress those weak spots and approach the next sprint in stronger form.

The sprint retrospective isn’t a blame game but a means to identify and rectify issues that have come up throughout the sprint. It is also an instrument to congratulate the team on a job well done when there were no issues. But, if the mantra of scrum is to always seek to improve, then the retrospective must be critical, too, but only as a stepping stone to improvements. Constructive criticism is key here.

5. Product Backlog Refinement

Product backlog refinement, also known as product backlog grooming, is a meeting that takes place towards the completion of a sprint. The reason for the meeting is to review the backlog and keep it clean and orderly so that it’s ready for the next sprint.

The scrum team and product owner participate in the product backlog refinement meeting. As they look over the top items on the backlog, the team will ask the type of questions that usually arise in sprint planning meetings.

Some of the queries include: what should we do if the user’s data is wrong, are all users accessing this part of the system and other what-if scenarios? These questions allow the product owner to answer them and help the team understand what they need to do.

The purpose of the product backlog refinement is not to fully resolve issues but more of a chance for the scrum team and product owner to make sure the backlog is accurate. Therefore, the whole team usually doesn’t participate.

There’s More to Know About Agile & Sprint Ceremonies

Scrum ceremonies are almost an outdated term. They’ve started to be called events. It was first officially noted in the 2011 Scrum Guide. So, even in the fast-moving world of agile, some things change more slowly than others.

But the basic concepts are the same, as is the need to constantly be reviewing and looking at ways to improve. That includes one’s knowledge of scrum and scrum software. We’ve only scratched the surface. Scrum is simple in concept and difficult in mastery.

Free Scrum Ceremony Templates

ProjectManager offers over 100 free templates to help you manage your projects, but here are three that can help you facilitate your scrum ceremonies.

Agile Sprint Plan Template

This template will help you organize all the work the team will work on for a given sprint. It’s set up in a kanban format, so your team can drag tasks from column to column as the work is executed. This is a ProjectManager template, so your agile team can easily collaborate online in each task and track progress.

Root Cause Analysis Template

A root cause analysis template, or fishbone diagram, helps a product team break down why something went wrong. This could be related to customer dissatisfaction or some sort of bug or systems error. This problem analysis template can be helpful during the sprint retrospective ceremony.

Product Backlog Template

This template can help a scrum team with the product backlog refinement scrum ceremony. A product backlog template is a prioritized list of features, enhancements, bug fixes and other work items that need to be completed for a product.

How ProjectManager Helps with Agile Ceremonies

ProjectManager is a cloud-based work and project management software that can help with every scrum ceremony. When you’re sprint planning, you need to have access to that product backlog and be able to filter the user stories to prioritize them. To free your team up, we have custom workflows and task approvals, so the scrum team can focus on what’s important and product owners can change the status when they feel it’s done.

There are multiple project views on ProjectManager, one of which is the kanban board, which is ideal for managing backlogs, user stories and sprint workflows. From the kanban view the scrum team can be assigned the most important user story on the product backlog to work on for that sprint. To keep the scrum team focused on their tasks, we have custom workflows and task approval settings. Automation frees your team of busywork and helps product owners have more control over the status of the work

Collaborate for Better Scrum Ceremonies

Both the daily scrum and sprint review meetings are helped by ProjectManager. Communication is key to getting everyone on the scrum team together about what to do during the sprint. Our software facilitates a collaborative environment. Each user story on the kanban board can be commented on and an unlimited amount of files can be attached to further foster better communications.

Notes from the daily scrum can be added to the product backlog and any recommendations for future sprints can also be put into the product backlog for the next sprint. ProjectManager allows scrum teams to prepare for the coming sprint and learn from it afterward, collecting all that critical data in one place.

Get Insightful Analysis with In-Depth Report

Finally, when executing a sprint retrospective, ProjectManager has one-click reports that help get a picture of how the sprint went. These reports can be filtered to get just the information you need to start the next sprint. ProjectManager gives scrum teams the tools they need to work better in an agile environment.

Scrum ceremonies are a great way to move fast and change quickly as needed when working on a project. To facilitate this agile process, though, one must have the tools to allow them to identify fast and then get the whole team to pivot. ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software with features that do that. From visualizing workflow with Kanban boards to a real-time dashboard that keeps you current with the project’s process, ProjectManager is the only Scrum tool you’ll ever need. See for yourself, by taking this free 30-day trial.

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What Is a Product Backlog?

The product backlog is a list that compiles all the tasks and user stories that must be done to complete the whole project. But it’s not just a simple task list. An effective product backlog breaks down each of the backlog items into a series of steps that help the development team.

The product backlog is important for product management, and the implementation of agile and it’s also one of the seven scrum artifacts that shape the scrum methodology. But even if it’s been planned out, the product backlog is not set in stone. Like most aspects of agile project management, there are going to be changes. Flexibility is crucial.

Agile teams can get help managing a product backlog with project management software. ProjectManager is online work and project management software designed for agile and traditional projects. Our robust task list project view can collect product backlog items, set priorities, add descriptions and assign team members. Since we have multiple project views, teams can then switch to the kanban board view and collaborate to plan their sprints. Get started with ProjectManager today for free.

What Should Be Included in a Product Backlog?

While the concept of a product backlog is simple enough, it can be unwieldy, as it’s composed of everything that must be completed to bring in a successful project. One must know the project inside and out, and then have the skill set to break each of those individual tasks into a series of steps that can then be assigned to the team, who must not only complete it but understand it. Here are the most important elements of a product backlog.

User Stories & Epics

User stories are short, simple descriptions of a feature or functionality from the end user’s perspective, typically following the format: “As a [user], I want [feature] so that [benefit].” Epics are larger user stories that require multiple sprints or tasks to complete and are later broken down into smaller, actionable user stories.

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Technical Improvements

These are backend or infrastructure-related enhancements that improve system performance, scalability, security or maintainability. Examples include refactoring code, optimizing database queries or upgrading frameworks.

Bug Fixes

Bug fixes address defects in the software that impact functionality, performance or user experience. These issues are identified through testing, user feedback or monitoring tools and must be prioritized based on their severity and impact.

Research & Spikes

Spikes are time-boxed investigations or experiments to gain knowledge, reduce uncertainty or evaluate technical feasibility. They are often used when teams need to explore new technologies, architectural decisions or complex requirements before committing to implementation.

Non-Functional Requirements

These define system attributes such as performance, reliability, scalability and security. Unlike functional requirements, which describe what the system should do, non-functional requirements specify how well the system should perform under various conditions.

Dependencies & Constraints

Dependencies are tasks or requirements that rely on completing other work items before they can be implemented. Constraints refer to limitations such as budget, time, regulatory requirements or technical restrictions that influence how a product is developed.

Story Points

Story points are a unit of measure used in agile project management to estimate the effort required to complete a task or user story. They consider complexity, risk, and time, helping teams gauge workload and prioritize tasks without relying on exact time estimates.

Acceptance Criteria

Acceptance criteria are the specific conditions and requirements that a product or feature must meet for it to be considered complete and acceptable by the customer or stakeholder. They provide clear guidelines for successful implementation and testing.

Backlog Items Priority Levels and Status

Backlog items’ priority levels and status help teams organize and track work in an agile backlog. Priority levels (e.g., high, medium, low) define importance, while status (e.g., to-do, in progress, done) indicates progress toward completion.

What Is a Sprint Backlog?

The sprint backlog is a subset of the product backlog. The sprint backlog comes from the product backlog, but it contains only the product backlog items that can be completed during each agile sprint. Think of it as the marching orders for the team as they go off on their short sprint.

The complexity of the project will determine the sprint backlog, but overall the idea is to dedicate the team only to those tasks that can be completed during the sprint. Of course, if it is a complex project the sprint backlog can also grow in complexity and length.

Unlike the product backlog, though, the sprint backlog is unchanged during the period of the sprint. It can be changed, but only during the sprint planning meeting. Once agreed upon, the items and steps to complete them are frozen for the length of the sprint.

Product Backlog Example

The product backlog example below shows the epics, user stories, bug fixes, spikes and technical improvements a software development team plans to work on over two different sprints. It also shows a priority level, story points, assignee status and acceptance criteria for each backlog item.

Sprint Backlog Example

A sprint backlog contains the tasks the development team commits to completing within a sprint. Below is an example of a two-week sprint focused on improving user authentication and enhancing the checkout process.

Sprint Goal:

Enhance user authentication and improve the checkout experience for a smoother purchasing process.

Sprint Backlog Items:

1. User Story: As a user, I want to reset my password via email so I can regain access to my account. (High Priority, Assigned to Development Team, In Progress, 5 Story Points)
   • Implement the “Forgot Password” functionality (High Priority, Assigned to John, In Progress, 3 Story Points)
   • Design the password reset email template (Medium Priority, Assigned to Sarah, To Do, 2 Story Points)
   • Integrate email service for password reset (High Priority, Assigned to Mike, To Do, 3 Story Points)
2. Bug Fix: Fix the checkout button not responding on mobile devices (Critical Priority, Assigned to Emma, Done, 2 Story Points)
3. Technical Improvement: Optimize database queries for faster page load times (Medium Priority, Assigned to James, To Do, 5 Story Points)
4. Spike: Research two-factor authentication (2FA) implementation options (Low Priority, Assigned to Linda, To Do, 3 Story Points)
5. Non-Functional Requirement: Ensure password reset meets security best practices (High Priority, Assigned to Development Team, To Do, 2 Story Points)

Throughout the sprint, tasks move through different statuses such as To Do, In Progress and Done, ensuring that progress is tracked effectively.

We created the product backlog and sprint backlog examples above using our free product backlog template for Excel. However, while Excel templates can be useful for agile teams, they can’t compete with ProjectManager, a project management software for agile and product development teams.

ProjectManager’s product backlog shows project tasks and user stories, as well as their deadline, who’s assigned to complete them, their priority level and percent complete. Managers can easily drag and drop these tasks to refine the product backlog. In addition, ProjectManager also allows team members to interact in real time.

Who Owns the Product Backlog?

The product backlog is created by the product owner, who is the project’s key stakeholder and therefore has a full vision of the project. The product backlog is a guide for the agile team and therefore must be written out clearly and simply to avoid any miscommunication or misunderstandings.

To make the process as thorough as possible, it must be organized, and each item explained in full as part of the plan to move successfully through the project.

The product owner knows what the customer wants and can work backward from there to make sure everything is done to meet that goal. That’s the product owner’s lodestar, and if the customer’s interests are always leading the backlog, the work will be effective.

Who Owns the Sprint Backlog?

The development team owns the sprint backlog in scrum. While the product owner is responsible for prioritizing and managing the overall product backlog, once a sprint begins, the development team selects the work they commit to completing and has full ownership of the sprint backlog.

The scrum master ensures that the team follows scrum practices, but they do not control the sprint backlog. Only the development team can add, remove or modify tasks within the sprint backlog during the sprint, based on progress and new insights.

Product Backlog Template

We’ve created a free product backlog template for Excel, which allows agile project management teams to manage their backlog items and plan sprints.

How to Manage a Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog

It’s clear that for the team to work effectively, they must understand the difference between a product backlog and a sprint backlog, and how these two scrum artifacts interact to move the project forward.

1. Identification of Product Backlog Items

Identifying project backlog items involves gathering, defining and prioritizing requirements that contribute to the project’s goals. This includes user stories, features, bug fixes, technical improvements and research tasks. Inputs come from stakeholders, customers and the development team. The product owner ensures backlog items align with business objectives, while refinement sessions help clarify and estimate their effort.

2. Product Backlog Refinement or Product Backlog Grooming

To respond to changes and adapt to an agile framework, agile teams constantly update their product backlogs. That’s known as backlog grooming or backlog refinement. It consists of adding, deleting and prioritizing tasks in the agile product backlog to maximize the efficiency of an agile workflow. This is done during an agile event called a product backlog grooming meeting. The product owner is responsible for overseeing this process, but everyone in the agile team helps.

3. Product Backlog Prioritization

Product backlog prioritization ensures the most valuable and impactful items are addressed first. The product owner prioritizes backlog items based on factors like business value, customer needs, dependencies and technical feasibility. Techniques such as MoSCoW (must-have, should-have, could-have, won’t-have), WSJF (weighted shortest job first) and value vs. effort help determine priority. Regular backlog refinement keeps priorities aligned with project goals.

4. Effort & Complexity Assessment

Effort and complexity assessment helps the development team estimate the time and resources required for backlog items. Techniques like story points, T-shirt sizing (S, M, L, XL) and planning poker are used to gauge complexity and workload. Factors such as technical difficulty, dependencies and risks influence estimates. Accurate assessments support sprint planning, ensuring realistic commitments and balanced workloads.

5. Sprint Planning

During the sprint planning meeting, everyone on the development team should discuss what must be done and how it will be completed to determine what product backlog list and the items from that list are then moved to a sprint backlog list.

At this point, each item on the sprint backlog is broken down into tasks or steps that will be taken to complete the item. All of this must be communicated and agreed upon. As noted above, once started there can be no changes to the tasks and steps needed to complete them.

6. Execution of Product Backlog Items

This occurs during sprints, where the development team selects high-priority tasks from the backlog and works on them incrementally. Tasks are broken down into actionable steps, assigned to team members, and tracked using scrum boards or kanban. Daily stand-ups help monitor progress, address blockers and ensure alignment. Completed items undergo testing and review before deployment.

7. Sprint Review and Retrospective

Sprint review involves the development team presenting completed work to stakeholders for feedback. This session ensures that the product aligns with business needs and allows for adjustments to the backlog based on insights gathered.

Sprint retrospective focuses on internal team improvements. The team reflects on what went well, what could be improved, and action items for enhancing future sprints, fostering continuous improvement.

Product Backlog vs. Sprint Backlog: Key Differences

Understanding the difference between a product backlog and a sprint backlog is essential for effective agile project management. While both are key components of scrum, they serve different purposes. The product backlog is a dynamic, high-level list of all project requirements, while the sprint backlog is a focused subset of tasks selected for a specific sprint. The chart below highlights the key differences between the two.

What Does an Effective Sprint Backlog Look Like?

By definition, the sprint backlog is easier to create. It’s smaller and more digestible, but that doesn’t mean it can be developed without thinking strategically about the capacity of the team and the resources at hand. If you give a team more than it can handle, the product gets bogged down.

Teams might feel they can do more than they can, so it’s up to the development team and the scrum master, an expert in scrum methodology who guides through skill and experience, to know what the team can do by having a good estimation of their ability.

Define Parameters for the Sprint

Remember, a sprint is usually only over two weeks, though this time can differ depending on the size of the team and project resources, so the sprint length is another variable to determine. The sprint, while short, must not overtax the team or force them to rush and produce a sloppy deliverable.

Therefore, as the sprint backlog and the steps necessary to complete are being figured out by the development team, brainstorm with them, and open a dialogue to determine what is feasible in terms of a strategy for the sprint.

Before moving a task from the product backlog to the sprint backlog, the product owner and scrum master must be sure the team is clear on the steps needed to complete that task. Get them to sign off, so no confusion could cause trouble during the sprint.

Don’t Forget to Prioritize

It’s always a good idea to prioritize tasks on your product backlog from crucial to less important. This is a task for the product owner, being the one most intimate with the needs of the stakeholders.

While the scrum master would seem a logical choice to help with prioritizing, it’s important to remember that the scrum master is only there to help with the process, not with the product. But that’s another term and process for another time.

With knowledge of the product backlog and sprint backlog, you’re well on your way to using agile to help with your project management. It’s a great organizing principle, and one more arrow in your quiver.

Agile Project Management Templates

As stated above, agile is an important project management methodology used in many industries such as product and software development. There’s a lot to learn about agile and for that reason, we’ve created free guides and templates to help you manage your agile projects. Here are some of the most important templates to help with your product backlog.

Requirements Gathering Template

Our free requirements gathering template for Word can help you collect what information you need to solve the problem or achieve the objective of your project. This is where the product backlog starts to help stakeholders and users understand what is required. Once they all agree, teams can start to develop the tasks necessary to get there.

Product Development Template

You have the requirements, but you need to know the pathway to deliver the product to market. That’s where our free product development template comes in. It helps you organize all the parts so they work together to deliver the product on time and within its allotted budget. Get everyone involved in product development, from idea to product design.

Agile Sprint Plan Template

The whole point of having a product backlog is to prepare your team for upcoming sprints. Our free agile sprint plan template lets you involve the entire team in the collaborative process of planning for a sprint. See the phases of the sprint and fill in the details, which saves time and gets your team to work faster.

Manage Your Backlog with ProjectManager

ProjectManager is award-winning software that helps agile teams manage their product backlog and collaborate in planning sprints. Our multiple project views let agile teams work with the tools they prefer while giving other departments that might manage their work differently the features they require. All project views share real-time data so there’s a signal source of truth that keeps everyone working together.

Manage Your Backlog on Kanban Boards

One of the multiple project views in the kanban or scrum board, an essential agile project management tool. This visual workflow feature allows teams to manage their backlog on cards and then work together in planning sprints. Managers get transparency as cards move from one column to the next, representing the production cycle. If there’s a potential bottleneck, managers can reallocate resources quickly to clear it up and keep teams moving forward.

Track Progress With Real-Time Dashboards

For a high-level view of the progress and performance of your team, we have real-time dashboards. There’s no setup required as with other inferior tools, and the software automatically captures and calculates six project metrics that are then displayed in colorful and easy-to-read graphs and charts. Managers get critical information that provides them with valuable insights in real time to make better decisions.

Generate Reports With One Click

When you need more detail than the dashboard can provide, there are several real-time reports that you can generate with a keystroke. Get reports on project status, variance, costs and more. All our reports can be filtered to show only the data you want to see. It’s easy to share them as PDFs or even printed out, depending on how your stakeholders prefer to be updated. More data means a better understanding of your project for you and your stakeholders.

Our software is collaborative to the core, which is what agile teams need to work better together, whether that’s managing their backlog or planning sprints. Comments can be made at the task level, you can even tag someone not in the team if you require their opinion. Teams can also share files. All updates are delivered by email notifications or in-app alerts so everyone is always working together.

When creating a product backlog and sprint backlog, it’s crucial to have the right tools to organize, prioritize and assign all those tasks. ProjectManager is online project management software with a real-time dashboard to track the progress of the project and offers a robust online platform with kanban boards for teams to collaborate during sprints. Try it today and see for yourself with this free 30-day trial.

The post Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog Management: A Quick Guide appeared first on ProjectManager.

So, which is the best project management method if we compare kanban vs. scrum? Well, it’s a trick question, because it depends on what that project is, the nature of your organization and which path is best for your team. And certainly, both methodologies have their value.

In fact, there are lots of methodologies you can use for your projects, but kanban and scrum are often debated. So for the sake of argument, let’s compare them head to head, and may the best project management methodology win!

What Is Kanban?

Kanban is from Japan, originating in the factories of the Toyota car company in the 60s as a lean manufacturing tool for workflow and inventory management. The name kanban means billboard in Japanese, and you can see why, as the process involves placing tasks represented by cards on physical or digital kanban boards.

Kanban boards allow you to assign tasks to your team members and track their progress as they go through each workflow step until completion. It’s important to note that there’s more to the kanban methodology than just kanban boards. There are also kanban principles, practices, metrics and other elements of this methodology you should be familiar with.

If you’d like to use kanban boards for managing tasks, projects or workflows you’ll need project management software like ProjectManager. ProjectManager’s kanban boards offer advanced planning, scheduling and tracking features to help you manage your team’s workload and track their performance. Assign work to your team members, manage resources, estimate costs, automate workflows and much more. Get started for free today.

One value of using this method is that it’s easier to identify bottlenecks and other issues that could delay the completion of tasks and address them before they affect your project budget or schedule. Such advantages have seen kanban used in visual planning apps, where it can help with storyboarding user stories and sprint backlog planning.

For more information on using kanban board software, watch the short video below. It outlines practically exactly how kanban can work for your team.

What Is Scrum?

The scrum methodology has been around since the mid-1980s and has been a core sub-methodology of agile since 2001 when Ken Schwaber and Mike Beedle wrote the book on it: Agile Software Development with Scrum.

Scrum is a project management framework with well-defined roles, guidelines and procedures that ensure this methodology is implemented consistently. Scrum is often used by smaller teams in what they call sprints, made up of tasks of a shorter duration, to make the project more flexible and adaptable to change. The cycles are roughly two weeks long and led by a scrum master, which can be but doesn’t have to be, a certified CSM (Certified Scrum Master) position.

The scrum master is the team expert on the process, and they are instrumental in guiding the team to optimize the use of scrum in the project. This can be through scrum meetings, which are held daily in scrum, but they act almost as a teacher throughout the project to support the team and give them direction.

While scrum has been scaled to apply to bigger projects and organizations, its roots are in agile software development and has come to work seamlessly in that smaller, nimble environment. That hasn’t stopped practitioners from using scrum in varying industries, from retail logistics to event planning.

What Is the Difference Between Scrum and Kanban?

The main difference between scrum and kanban is that scrum is a method that has strict rules when it comes to the roles and responsibilities of the scrum team, and guiding their everyday activities such as how they should plan their work and how often they should meet, among other things. This means this methodology greatly influences how your team operates and might even require you to make hiring decisions based on it.

On the other hand, kanban doesn’t have such strict rules. While the kanban methodology also has a framework of principles and best practices, they’re much more flexible than scrum. For example, the kanban method doesn’t require you to have a specific team structure or hold meetings. Because of this, kanban can be applied by a wider variety of teams.

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Kanban Board Template

Use this free Kanban Board Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

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Scrum vs. Kanban In-Depth Comparison

Many similarities between scrum and kanban make them evenly matched. For one, both are ideal for lean and agile projects, limiting work in process and favoring a continuous scheduling flow as opposed to pushing through a schedule.

Both methodologies use boards as a visual tool to manage work. Scrum boards and kanban boards break the project into smaller, more manageable pieces. They’re embraced by self-organizing teams who continuously optimize based on project data.

Kanban vs. Scrum: Kanban Pros & Cons

Now let’s zoom into the advantages and disadvantages of implementing the kanban methodology in your organization.

When to Use Kanban

Kanban boards can be used by any organization that needs to manage tasks, workflows, projects or business processes. For example, a manufacturer might use a kanban board to map all the stages of the order fulfillment workflow, which involves manufacturing products and then picking, packing and shipping orders to customers.

In addition, there are many applications for kanban such as workflow automation, inventory management and production planning, which makes kanban boards popular across industries such as manufacturing, product development, marketing and many more.

Kanban Pros

One advantage is that kanban doesn’t require the training and experience of scrum. It’s easy to learn and understand, which is a big plus. You can hit the ground running. Kanban is great for managing workflows and minimizing the time cycle, but also increases process flexibility. If you’re looking for a methodology that can bend, not break, with the winds of change, then kanban is for you.

You’re going to have less waste from the process of running your project because you’re going to see it sooner and can trim what you don’t need. It also improves the delivery flow, so you get what you want from the project, faster.

One way it does that is by reducing the time cycles of the project, which again speaks to its workflow efficiencies. Anyone in the project can use kanban, both general team members and more skilled ones can all work on the same kanban board.

Speaking of the kanban board, there are no required time boxes. So, no sprint. You don’t have to reset the kanban board as you move through the project. It flows as long as the project needs it to.

Kanban Cons

Kanban is simple, so the problems that arise tend to be associated with using the kanban board incorrectly. For example, an outdated kanban board creates problems in the development process of your project.

Another issue is when teams make the board overly complex. Kanban is known for its simplicity, so adding complexity goes against the logic of using kanban, and your project will suffer for it. The advantage of not having a timeline can also be a disadvantage. Without a hard deadline, it’s more likely that a task or phase will be stagnant and take longer than it needs to.

Kanban Board Template

Our kanban board template is the perfect tool to get started with the kanban methodology. Simply add your project tasks, assignees and priority level and then move the kanban cards across the kanban board columns as your team members finish their tasks.

Kanban vs. Scrum: Scrum Pros & Cons

Now let’s zoom into the pros and cons of scrum so you can better understand how it compares to kanban.

When to Use Scrum

If you’re looking for a methodology to manage projects where conditions are uncertain and sudden changes might be required, scrum is a good fit for you. Scrum allows you to create flexible project plans that can be adjusted at any point without impacting your project or budget.

While it was designed for software development, other industries such as finance, professional services, engineering, IT and even government agencies have started to use scrum because it helps their teams establish clear roles, responsibilities and procedures, which improves their overall productivity.

Scrum Pros

There is more transparency and visibility in scrum than even in kanban, and certainly more than in most other methodologies. That works to your benefit when you want to get everyone on the same page so they can collaborate and work as a fully integrated team.

Another advantage scrum has going for it is that scrum increases team accountability. Because you’re moving quickly, you’re meeting often, at least daily. This adds to the transparency of the project tracking, naturally, but also keeps scrum team members accountable for their work. That means you can reward those that are performing and help those that aren’t.

Change is often a problem in big projects, which are like tanker ships, in that they take time and effort to turn. But not with scrum. It was designed to stay as a nimbler process that can pivot whenever that is called for. In fact, it wants to change, or at least it can easily accommodate change.

Because of its makeup, speed and tendency for small teams, scrum is also a money-saver. That’s a huge boon to startups and other institutions where the bottom line is being scrutinized (and, honestly, when isn’t it?)

Scrum Cons

Scrum has come out of its corner fighting, and it looks strong, but there are some openings where it might suffer some damage. First off, it’s that scrum master. You need to have experience, and at a high level, to get scrum working. If not, you’re going to risk scope creep.

Not only must the scrum master live up to their name, but the team requires a level of experience, too. If your scrum master or team is not up to snuff, there’s going to be trouble. Likewise, if the tasks are not well-defined, then you’re going to have inaccuracies. Of course, that’s true in any project, but it’ll come fast and furious in a scrum environment.

Secondly, the daily scrum meetings might pose a bit of a problem to your team, especially if you have remote team members or an especially large team. It can be hard to keep scrum meetings efficient over a webcam or with dozens of people, which is why scrum is usually best used by a small, local team. This is key in the scrum vs. kanban, debate, as kanban doesn’t have any team size limitations.

And the Winner Is… Scrumban?

There’s no clear winner of the kanban vs. scrum fight. It’s a case-by-case contest as both of these methodologies are champions of continuous improvement and as such are well-suited to tackle any kind of work. It’s up to you to decide which one is best for the needs of your project and team.

But before you make a final decision, there’s one more thing you should know. You can use both scrum and kanban, it’s a methodology called scrumban!

What Is Scrumban?

Scrumban is a project management methodology that, as its name suggests, combines the visual project management approach of kanban boards with the structure that scrum teams and meetings provide. Because scrumban is a combination of both methods, you can decide which elements to keep from both and customize the methodology to suit the particular needs of your team.

Scrum Board vs. Kanban Board

Scrum took the idea of using boards to manage work from the kanban methodology, which is why there is no visible difference between kanban boards and scrum boards at first glance. However, the scrum methodology establishes certain task management rules for the use of scrum boards that don’t apply to kanban boards, which makes them work in a slightly different way.

Here are some of the differences between scrum boards and kanban boards.

• While both kanban and scrum boards are used for managing the work-in-progress of a team, the scrum master is the one who defines the workload of the team as he plans each sprint, while kanban boards limit the maximum number of work items on each column.
• Scrum boards don’t allow you to add tasks to them once a sprint has started, if you wish to do so, you’ll need to add those tasks to a backlog and wait for the scrum master to schedule them in the next sprint. On the other hand, tasks can be added to a kanban board at any point of the project life cycle.
• Scrum boards can only be edited during the sprint planning meeting, while kanban boards allow team members to add or move their tasks as they need to manage their work.

ProjectManager Has Robust Kanban Boards

ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that offers a kanban board view with advanced project planning, scheduling and tracking features, which are ideal for implementing the kanban methodology in your organization. Here are some of them.

In-Depth Kanban Board Functionality

ProjectManager’s online kanban boards can be customized to reflect the stages of any workflow and allow you to assign tasks to your team members, assign them a priority level, track their percentage of completion, tag them and more.

On top of that, ProjectManager’s kanban board allows you to manage recurring tasks, use workflow automation settings, manage resources, track costs and use a variety of project management tools.

Manage Resources & Track Costs

Simply specify the hourly pay rate for your team members and ProjectManager’s kanban board will automatically calculate the labor costs of your tasks based on their work hours. You can also manually enter the estimated costs for each task to make a budget and then compare your estimates against the actual costs of your project so you can determine whether you’re over or under budget.

On top of that, ProjectManager’s kanban boards automatically sync with timesheets, real-time dashboards and project reports that allow you to further zoom into your resource utilization and project costs.

Multiple Project Management Tools

Kanban boards are important when managing tasks and workflows, but other tools can help you manage other areas of your project. For example, in addition to kanban boards, ProjectManager offers a suite of project management tools such as Gantt charts, task lists, project calendars, workload charts and more.

Related Kanban Board Content

There’s a lot to learn about kanban and scrum, which is why we’ve created dozens of blogs, templates and guides to help you master these project management methodologies.

• Best Kanban Software: Top Free & Paid Options Ranked
• Kanban Cards: A Quick Guide (Examples & Templates Included)
• Kanban Card Template for Excel (Free Download)
• Kanban Inventory Management: How to Run a Kanban System
• Gantt Chart vs. Kanban Board: Pros, Cons, Similarities & Differences

Whether you practice scrum or kanban, you want to have the best tools at your fingertips to get the job done fast and right. ProjectManager is a cloud-based project management software that has Gantt charts for traditional waterfall projects and kanban boards and task lists for more agile and flexible strategies. See how it can help you by taking advantage of this free 30-day trial now!

The post Kanban vs. Scrum: What’s the Difference? appeared first on ProjectManager.

Historically, kanban was used in manufacturing and development teams, but managers across industries now use kanban boards after seeing just how helpful the tool can be. In this article, we’ll show you how to set up a professional kanban workflow that will work wonders for your team.

What Is a Kanban Workflow?

A kanban workflow is a work management system that allows organizations to manage workflows by using kanban tools and principles. A kanban workflow can help you manage any type of business process, which is why they’re used by businesses across industries such as manufacturing, software development, marketing and more.

To do so, you’ll need to customize kanban board columns so that each represents a stage of a process or workflow. Then you can use kanban cards to represent tasks, which you’ll then move across the kanban board columns as they go through various workflow stages.

ProjectManager is award-winning project management software that offers kanban boards that allow you to assign tasks to your team members, monitor costs, track their progress and automate your workflows. In addition, you can use Gantt charts, project dashboards, timesheets and many other tools to plan, schedule and track your manufacturing process. Get started today for free.

What Is Kanban Workflow Management?

Establishing a kanban workflow system for managing your organization’s business processes it’s only the first step. Then you’ll need to oversee its implementation by taking actions that include:

• Onboarding your team with the kanban methodology principles and best practices
• Allocating resources needed for activities and ensuring they’re available when they’re needed
• Managing the costs of resources such as labor, materials and equipment
• Establishing work-in-progress (WIP) limits to avoid bottlenecks
• Defining key performance indicators
• Monitoring your team’s performance by calculating activity lead time and other metrics
• Managing recurring tasks
• Balancing your team’s workload to avoid overallocating team members with tasks

Kanban boards can help you manage almost any type of process or workflow, which is why they’re used by organizations across industries. Let’s take a look at some kanban workflow examples so you can better understand how they’re used.

Kanban Workflow Examples

As stated, there are hundreds of possibilities when it comes to creating kanban workflows, here are some examples which we hope will inspire you to create your own.

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Kanban Board Template

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Project Management Kanban Workflow Example

A project can be simply defined as a set of activities that are executed within a defined timeline. A marketing campaign, for example, meets those requirements so it can be considered a project.

In the example below, you can see how kanban boards can be used to manage simple project workflows. In this case, the kanban board columns define the four workflow stages that all the marketing campaign activities must go through: “to do, in design, in production and ready for approval.”

This kanban board allows the marketing manager to assign tasks to team members, allocate resources, track due dates and assign a level of priority to all these activities. In addition, ProjectManager’s kanban board also allows you to track the costs of these activities, track their percentage of completion, collaborate with your team members online and much more.

Manufacturing Kanban Workflow Example

Besides project management applications, kanban boards can also be used to manage ongoing activities, such as the daily operations of a manufacturing team. This manufacturing kanban workflow example works almost identically to the previous example, but in this case, the kanban cards represent tasks that members of a manufacturing team execute to produce their products.

Order Fulfillment Kanban Workflow Example

In this order fulfillment kanban workflow example, each kanban card shows the details for a customer order such as its scheduled delivery date, production costs, priority levels, files and more. By using this kanban workflow, you can visualize your customer orders in one place, track their status and identify bottlenecks and issues.

Inventory Management Kanban Workflow Example

Kanban boards were created as a lean manufacturing tool that could greatly help with inventory management. In a kanban inventory system, kanban cards have information about inventory items such as order quantity, unit price and minimum inventory level, among other details that employees need to know when ordering these items from suppliers.

When an employee notices that an inventory item has reached its reorder point, he’ll need to take the kanban card for that item and place it in a physical kanban board to indicate that the item must be ordered.

However, you can use a kanban board software like ProjectManager to use digital kanban boards and cards to manage your inventories instead. The kanban workflow image below shows the various steps of the ordering process, which you can use to manage your inventory restock workflow.

Kanban Board Template

This free kanban board template for Excel is a good place to get started with kanban boards for managing tasks, processes and workflows. Simply follow the instructions to customize its kanban columns and cards.

If you’d like to use kanban boards for managing your inventories you can get started with ProjectManager. You can also download our kanban card template for Excel.

Kanban Card Template

This free kanban card template for Excel can help your organization maintain optimum production inventory levels by allowing your team members to easily know when to place an order for restocking inventory items, only when they’re needed which minimizes operational costs and helps avoid inventory excess or stockouts.

Why Make a Kanban Workflow?

When a workflow is represented visually on a kanban board, a team can learn loads of information about how they work together. Teams can see which stages of a project are efficient, where bottlenecks are occurring, and whether other team members might need help to keep things on track.

Kanban workflows offer an easy-to-read glimpse into work, so naturally, managers love them. Managers can monitor the workflow in real time to understand their team’s productivity, and then optimize their work processes for future projects.

Kanban workflows are also helpful for keeping stakeholders in the loop. Your boss won’t have to chase you down for a project update if they can simply look at the workflow and know exactly what’s going on in the project. Workflow management software makes this process even easier.

How to Make a Kanban Workflow in 6 Easy Steps

Kanban boards are deceptively simple. They are easy to set up, but first, you have to understand the mechanics. Here’s how to create a kanban workflow.

1. Sign Up for a Kanban Tool

The first step in making your workflow is to sign up for kanban software. ProjectManager’s kanban tools are free for 30 days, so sign up for a free trial. You can try out the tools before paying any money or making any commitments.

2. Add Your Team Members

While kanban boards can be used to manage the work of a single person, they’re extra helpful when used by a team. Once you are in the kanban software, invite all of your team members so that they can collaborate with you on your projects.

At this point, you can also invite any stakeholders that you’d like to keep informed. However, you may want to wait until your workflow is built out so that they have something to look at the first time they log in.

ProjectManager makes it easy to invite new people to your workspace at any time and offers different permission levels for each new team member. This gives you control over who sees what within the workspace.

3. Make a New Kanban Project

Once your team members have been invited to the workspace, you’ll need to create your first project to house the workflow. Navigate to the big green “+” in the top right corner of your screen and click it to add a new project. Give your new project a name, choose who will be working on this project and click “create project.”

All of your project planning details can be edited later, so don’t worry about getting this perfect. The most important thing is that you get a new project launched so you can begin building your workflow.

4. Add All of Your Tasks

Now that your new project is created, navigate to the “Board” tab in the menu and select the kanban board view. This is where you will build out your entire kanban workflow.

On the default board screen, you’ll see three columns that are already built for you: To Do, Doing, and Done.

• To Do: This column will host all of the tasks that need to be done to complete your project.
• Doing: This column will show all of the tasks that are currently being worked on.
• Done: This column will show which tasks are complete.

Start by adding all of your team’s tasks to “To-Do.” Give each new task a name and create a kanban card for it. In our example, we’ll be creating a kanban workflow for a manufacturing business that needs a kanban board to manage their order fulfillment workflow.

We’ve added two tasks called “New Webpage 1” and “New Webpage 2” to the To Do column. You should then click on each task and add a little bit more information about this task so that team members have the information they need once they begin working. You can add a task description, start dates and due dates, and attach any necessary files.

5. Make Custom Columns

Now that a task has been created for each piece of the project, we can begin customizing the columns to fit our team’s workflow.

We know that we need to build two new web pages, but that’s easier said than done— many different people will be involved with this project. Therefore, we’ll create custom columns to represent each stage of the creation process. The different stages of creation for a webpage are content writing and editing, design, publishing and promotion.

Since this kanban workflow will be more complicated than the standard three columns that are currently in place, we will update the columns. The old columns were:

• To-Do
• Doing
• Done

But after we customize our project, the new columns are (from left to right):

• Outstanding Orders: Customer orders that have been received and need to be scheduled for production
• In Production: Indicates that the team is actively working on the manufacturing of a customer order
• Picking and Sorting: Products have been manufactured and now the warehouse employees need to pick the right type and quantity of product
• Packing and Shipping: The products for a customer order have been packed and are either submitted to a third-party logistics service or delivered directly to the customer by the manufacturer

6. Assign the Work

Now that the kanban board columns have been customized to reflect the unique stages of this workflow you can assign tasks to your team members and track their progress as they flow through kanban board columns as this manufacturing  organization completes its order fulfillment process, hence the name “workflow.”

Best Practices for Kanban Workflows

Once the workflow is up and running, it’s important to keep an eye on it to make sure things are going smoothly. Sometimes you’ll find that you need to add a new column to the workflow if new people become involved, and the process becomes more complex.

It’s also important to keep an eye out for bottlenecks in the workflow. A bottleneck is where a project gets stuck and stops moving forward.

To use our example workflow again, maybe you notice that the two new webpages are due for publishing in three days, but both are still sitting in the “Design” column. In this case, your web designers might be overloaded with work, so you may want to see if another designer can help.

Related: 12 Resource Allocation Tips for Managers

This is why kanban workflows are so useful: they can help you catch problems as they happen, and prevent problems that could cause delays in project completion.

ProjectManager Takes Kanban Even Further

You can build your kanban workflows in ProjectManager to collaborate with your team and get more work done efficiently. Thousands of teams all over the world utilize our platform daily to stay organized and do amazing things.

Advanced Kanban Workflow Features

ProjectManager’s kanban board allows you to track detailed information about the tasks that make up your team’s workflows such as priority, percentage of completion, due dates, assignee and more. In addition, ProjectManager offers advanced kanban workflow management features such as recurring task scheduling, workflow automation settings, cost and resource tracking and real-time collaboration with unlimited file storage.

Manage Resources & Track Costs

ProjectManager has robust cost and resource management features for projects and workflows. By using its kanban boards or Gantt charts, you can enter the duration of tasks and the software will automatically calculate labor costs based on the work hours and pay rate of your team members.

In addition, you can estimate the duration, due dates and costs of each task in your workflow to make estimated budgets and timelines and then compare them against the actual duration and costs of your workflows to control costs. The best part is that you can monitor resource utilization and costs for multiple workflows that your organization might be executing simultaneously with real-time dashboards.

Multiple Project & Workflow Management Tools

In addition to kanban boards, ProjectManager also offers a suite of useful project management tools. These include Gantt charts for making project plans, timesheets for tracking time on work, and project reports for analyzing the productivity of a team.

ProjectManager is an award-winning tool that organizes teams and projects. Our online software gives you real-time data, so you can make better decisions and lead the project to a successful end. Try our kanban boards and see how we can streamline your workflow by taking a free 30-day trial.

The post How to Make an Ideal Kanban Workflow for Your Team appeared first on ProjectManager.

The kanban method can be used to manage projects, business processes and inventories, among other things. Taiichi Ohno first introduced it on the floor of the Toyota factory as a just-in-time manufacturing method that delivered only the materials needed at the time they were needed.

Since then, many industries have adopted the kanban system. Teams have responded to the visual style of kanban software as an easy way to limit work in progress and focus on the task at hand. Project managers love the transparency in the project workflow that kanban offers.

But before we dive into kanban cards and kanban software, let’s quickly define what a kanban board is and how it works.

What Is a Kanban Board?

A kanban board is a visual tool used to manage work in progress. Kanban boards are made of kanban cards, columns and swimlanes. Kanban cards represent tasks, also called work items. Kanban columns indicate a stage of completion of those tasks, and generally, measure progress from left to right. Swimlanes are horizontal lines limiting different types of work or tasks.

What Is a Kanban Card?

A kanban card is a visual element that represents a task or work item on a kanban board column. As team members work on their tasks, they move their kanban cards along the kanban columns. Teams can create their physical kanban cards with sticky notes, but most project managers use digital kanban cards.

ProjectManager’s digital kanban cards allow you to assign tasks to team members, track their progress, and manage their workload in real time. Our kanban board view is simple to use for both managers and team members alike and can be easily customized to fit your organization’s needs. Get started for free.

What Can You Use ProjectManager’s Kanban Cards for?

In the most basic sense, kanban cards allow team members to see the work assigned to them in the to-do column and then manage their work as they complete tasks. But that’s only the beginning. When you’re deciding which is the best kanban software for your team, you need to make sure it allows you to do the following.

Track Lead Time & Due Dates

One of the key purposes of kanban cards is to measure lead time or the time it takes for a work item to be completed from start to finish. The columns on your kanban board should cover the lead time of all work items, and kanban cards help managers get more insight into each stage of completion and the due dates for deliverables and subtasks.

Improve Team Collaboration

Kanban cards include key information that helps team members understand what everybody’s working on. In addition, digital kanban cards allow managers to assign tasks, leave comments and share files. These and other features help build a collaborative atmosphere with teams.

Limit Work In Progress

Work-in-progress limits, or WIP limits, are an important part of a kanban system. While the term “WIP limits” might sound complicated, it simply means that you can limit the work in progress of your team by defining the maximum number of kanban cards that can be on a column simultaneously.

For example, setting a WIP limit of two kanban cards in a given column will guarantee that the team only focuses on those two tasks before moving to the next work items. This increases your team’s efficiency and helps avoid bottlenecks.

These are only some of the things that you can do with ProjectManager. Our kanban boards have advanced project management features that can be used with other project views such as Gantt charts, task lists and project calendars. Our kanban view allows you to customize boards, columns and cards to fit the needs of your team.

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Kanban Card Template

Use this free Kanban Card Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

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Manage Tasks & Processes Across Industries

ProjectManager has customizable kanban cards and columns so you can use them for managing any of your business processes, such as order management, inventory management, production activities and more. You can create a kanban board for each of the business departments of your organization so you can manage all the projects your organization executes, no matter what industry you’re in.

Manage Resources and Track Costs

There are many kanban software alternatives to choose from. However, few offer the resource management and cost-tracking features that ProjectManager has. ProjectManager’s kanban cards allow you to allocate resources, estimate costs and create budgets. The best part is that these kanban cards automatically sync with other cost and resource management tools such as dashboards, timesheets, workload charts and more.

Automate Workflows and Recurring Tasks

ProjectManager’s kanban boards have built-in workflow automation settings that allow you to configure them to automatically take actions whenever certain conditions are met, such as moving kanban cards from one column to another when they reach a set percentage of completion or assigning them to a team member whenever they have a specific priority level.

However, if you’re not ready to use kanban software, use our free kanban board template or our kanban card template for Excel, depending on whether you need a kanban for project management or inventory control.

Different Uses of Kanban Cards Across Industries

As stated, kanban cards are a versatile task management tool that can help you plan and track any task sequence, process or workflow.

That’s why kanban cards have a range of applications in many industries, but they’re mostly used in manufacturing, project management and operations planning.

• Manufacturing: Kanban cards were created as a lean manufacturing tool for managing production inventories. But today, there are more applications for kanban cards in manufacturing. Kanban cards are used for planning workflows, assigning tasks to employees, managing the order fulfillment process and establishing a kanban inventory management system.
• Project Management: Kanban cards can be used to represent project tasks which can then be moved across kanban board columns to track the different stages of completion from start to finish. If you’re using an advanced kanban software like ProjectManager, you can also set a priority level for your tasks, allocate resources, track costs, duration and progress, set up workflow automation rules and more.
• Operations Planning: Because of their ability to manage any task, you can use kanban boards to manage all the business processes your organization needs to operate efficiently. To do so, business departments in your organization should create kanban cards and boards for managing activities, each with columns, tags and team members.

Kanban Card Examples

To better understand how kanban cards can be used for different purposes, here are some kanban card examples made with ProjectManager, an online project management software equipped with robust kanban boards, Gantt charts, task lists and other task management tools.

Order Management Kanban Card Example

Any business that takes purchase orders from customers can use kanban boards to manage the stages of the order fulfillment process, from receiving the order to producing the goods, sorting them, packing and shipping them to the customer.

This order management kanban card example shows the columns that a manufacturer can use to visualize all the outstanding, in-process and completed orders in one place. As you can see, ProjectManager’s kanban view allows you to add due dates, priority levels, tags, percentage of completion and other details to your orders which helps you better track them.

Inventory Management Kanban Card Example

To manage your inventories using kanban cards, you’ll need to implement a simple 2-bin kanban inventory management system that allows you to order production inventory items only when they’re needed, which helps you keep your operations running, minimize warehousing costs and avoid ordering unnecessary items.

In this example, you can see a kanban board with various columns designed to track the process of ordering inventory items. Every time an employee notices an inventory item has reached its minimum level and it’s time to order it, he can place the order and use the kanban card to document information such as the scheduled delivery date, order cost, lead time and more. Then you can track steps such as order placement, shipping and receiving by moving the kanban cards across the columns.

A kanban card system can be used to manage various types of inventories such as the raw materials needed for manufacturing products or delivering services, controlling inventory levels of product stock for sale, or any other tangible goods or supplies an organization might need to manage.

Project Management Kanban Card Example

Kanban cards help project managers assign tasks to their team members and track their progress as they go through different stages of completion. ProjectManager’s kanban cards also allow you to enter detailed information about project tasks such as their estimated costs, duration, due dates and priority and share files and collaborate with your team in real time.

The best part of using ProjectManager’s kanban boards is that they automatically sync with Gantt charts, project dashboards, portfolio roadmaps, timesheets and many other project management tools.

However, if you’re not ready to use kanban software yet, you can use our free kanban board template or our kanban card template for Excel, depending on whether you need a kanban for project management or inventory control.

Kanban Board Template for Project Management

This free kanban board template for Excel allows you to create a basic kanban board for managing your team’s tasks. Using this kanban board is simple, just format cells to create kanban cards and then cut and paste them to move them across the kanban board columns.

Kanban Card Template for Inventory Management

This kanban card template for Excel can help you implement a 2-bin kanban inventory system for your organization, which is ideal for managing your production or product stock inventories. It allows you to enter detailed information about inventory items, which can be used every time they need to be ordered from suppliers.

More Kanban Card Templates

We offer dozens of project management templates for different industries such as construction, marketing, manufacturing and product development. Here are three samples that show how kanban cards can help you streamline your processes.

• Marketing Campaign Kanban Card Template
• Agile Sprint Kanban Card Template
• Product Launch Kanban Card Template

5 Tips for Using Kanban Cards Effectively

The kanban card is a task, but it’s a means to track progress as it moves from one column to the next in the workflow. This gives the production of that task greater transparency. To master this process, here are five tips to get the most out of your kanban cards.

1. Add Critical Data

The kanban card should have the critical data necessary to complete the task. This includes who on the team is responsible for the work, what that work is in a brief description, when it’s due and if there are any dependencies linked to the task. Supporting documents and images are attached to the card for greater direction and clarity.

2. Keep It Simple

The point of kanban cards is to keep your focus on what must be done now. When you start using kanban cards, start simple. You can always ramp up later. A kanban card will go through three iterations: to do, doing and done. Of course, it can do much more than that, but at first, it’s best to stick to the basics. As you get comfortable, expand what your kanban does.

3. Set Up Policies

Before starting to use kanban cards, set up clear policies on methodology. If everyone on the team understands what the kanban cards do, the process will be more successful. For instance, when can a card be worked on, what can it move from one column to the next, etc.? These are important boundaries to set up to make sure your agile workflow is smooth.

4. Feedback Loops

The kanban card isn’t written in stone. As the project changes, so should the kanban card and board. There’s always room for improvement in your workflow and the kanban is there to respond. Take a moment regularly to look at your kanban and see if it can be improved.

5. Don’t Clutter Your Doing Column

You don’t want to have a bottleneck clogging the process of your work. The idea of limiting your work in progress (WIP) column keeps that queue from getting too many kanban cards and potentially leaving a lot of those cards undone. You don’t want cards in an unfinished state or to start multitasking to get things done too quickly. Just work on priority cards.

ProjectManager Is the Best Online Kanban Software

We’ve previously mentioned some of the advantages of using ProjectManager’s kanban cards, but there are other reasons why ProjectManager can help your organization plan, schedule and track projects, programs and portfolios.

A Customizable Experience

Some kanban boards might as well be written in stone: they aren’t open to how you work. ProjectManager has customizable kanban columns, so you can name them whatever is appropriate for your project. Create as many as needed for the project.

Teams want a kanban that’s easy to use and flexible. Cards can be dragged and dropped from one column to the next to easily update progress. But these cards are more than mere tasks.

ProjectManager’s kanban cards are highly dynamic. For example, you can add a to-do list to the card assigned to you and manage your workflow. Each card can be tagged and prioritized to make it easy to sort. Plus, project managers can attach as many relevant documents and images as necessary to the card.

Collaboration Features

Once the card has been formatted and assigned, you don’t want it just to sit there. ProjectManager has cards that make it easy for teams to work together.

Teams can comment, tag other project members and attach files. All of this is attached to the task so you don’t have to shift through emails to find what you need.

Managers have different priorities when assigning and tracking the project. With ProjectManager, you can assign tasks from the kanban card. Team members are notified when they’re assigned so everyone is on the same page.

Multiple Project Views for More Control

Not everything you do in a project can rest on kanban boards, though. That’s why ProjectManager has multiple project views. Teams might prefer the visual workflow of a kanban view, while managers might want to see tasks laid out on a timeline on a Gantt chart, so they can link dependencies. There are also task lists and calendar views.

Actionable Reporting

It’s important to have data to track a project. You don’t want to switch to another software to see how the project is going. ProjectManager has it all under one roof. One-click reports tell you how tasks are progressing, as status updates are instantly reflected in the software. It gives you the data you need to make the right choice.

Stakeholders also want to know how the project is moving forward, but they don’t want you to go in the weeds with them. ProjectManager has a real-time dashboard for a high-level view, including task progress, to keep stakeholders in the loop.

Kanban isn’t just for manufacturers. It’s also a favorite tool for scrum teams working in an agile environment, marketing teams, HR teams and anyone managing a project. With Kanban cards, your project is sure to be a winning hand.

ProjectManager has a robust kanban tool that provides visibility into projects and allows teams to have the autonomy to work together more productively. Its online software gives project managers and teams the most up-to-date data possible, which means more informed decisions. The kanban is one of five project views, all of which are fully integrated into the software, keeping everyone on the same page. Try the kanban tool from ProjectManager today by taking this free 30-day trial.

The post Kanban Cards: A Quick Guide (Examples & Templates Included) appeared first on ProjectManager.

A kanban board is a project management tool that lets project managers track the completion of tasks and visualize project workflow. Kanban boards can be used for task management in a variety of industries such as software development, manufacturing, marketing, engineering and many others. Kanban boards consist of two main elements, cards and columns.

Project management software like ProjectManager, allows you to create robust kanban boards that let you assign tasks to your team members, collaborate in real time, share files with unlimited file storage and keep track of costs on each kanban card. In addition, ProjectManager offers multiple project management tools such as Gantt charts, project dashboards, timesheets and workload charts so you can track project schedules and budgets. Get started for free today.

What Are the Elements of a Kanban Board?

A kanban board consists of two main elements: kanban columns and kanban cards. By using them together project managers can plan, schedule and track tasks and workflows. Here’s how they work.

Kanban Cards

Kanban cards represent project tasks. Each kanban card should describe details such as who the project task is assigned to, its requirements, the due date for its completion and any other information that’s relevant to the project management team.

Kanban Board Columns

The columns of a kanban board indicate the level of completion of tasks. For example, a basic kanban board might have three columns to group project tasks: to-do, in progress and done. The individuals responsible for executing those tasks will move their kanban cards from one column to another as they complete their tasks. Kanban boards don’t have a specific requirement when it comes to columns, so each team can create as many columns as needed to manage their workflow.

Kanban Board Swimlanes

Kanban board swimlanes are horizontal rows that can be customized to allow project managers to categorize tasks as they can do with kanban columns. For example, kanban board swimlanes can be used to indicate the projects to which tasks belong, create a kanban swimlane for each team member or use them to group kanban cards by priority level.

However, most kanban software alternatives don’t offer kanban board swimlanes but usually have other features that can replace them.

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Kanban Board Template

Use this free Kanban Board Template for Excel to manage your projects better.

Download Excel File

Kanban Board Examples

Here are some examples of kanban boards created with ProjectManager for various industries to better understand how a kanban board can be used as a workflow management tool in different scenarios.

Manufacturing Kanban Board Example

As stated, kanban boards can be used to manage any process or workflow, so it’s no surprise that there are many applications for kanban boards in manufacturing, from production planning to customer relationship management and anything in between.

The image below shows a kanban board that’s been created to manage the order-fulfilling process of a manufacturing business. In this kanban board example, each kanban card doesn’t represent a task, but a sales order.

The columns of this manufacturing kanban board example represent the stages of the order fulfillment workflow, such as “in production,” “picking and sorting” and “packing and shipping,” which allows organizations to monitor the status and progress of all their sales orders at a high-level view.

To see more detailed information about each sales order, click on each kanban card, which will show a description, due dates, priority level, the estimated time that it will take to produce the goods, the estimated cost of production and any relevant files and documents.

Inventory Management Kanban Board Example

In this inventory management kanban board example, kanban cards represent each inventory item in a two-bin kanban inventory system. The kanban board columns track the various stages of the ordering process for these items such as placing an order, monitoring in-transit orders and logging received orders.

Once an order is received, the kanban card is moved back to the column that shows all the items that are fully stocked in the two-bin shelves. Now, let’s review the origins of kanban boards and how they’ve evolved to become one of the most important project management tools.

Free Kanban Board Template for Excel

We’ve created a free kanban board template for Excel for those who are just starting with the kanban method. While this free kanban board template might be a good choice for beginners, you might want to use a kanban board software like ProjectManager when you’re ready to manage projects and teams.

History of Kanban Boards

Meaning billboard in Japanese, kanban was codified at the Toyota automotive company in the late 1940s. The concept, however, dates back a bit earlier to WWII. English factories that were manufacturing fighter planes called Spitfires used something called the “two bin system,” which was a precursor to kanban.

But it was Toyota that founded kanban as we know it. To do so, they studied supermarkets. They noticed that supplies matched demand, but didn’t exceed it. These stock techniques were applied to the factory floor, where workers required certain parts at specific times in the production schedule.

The idea of taking what you need only at the time you need it, no more and no less, was revolutionary for Toyota. Kanban as a process was used to keep inventory levels balanced with the consumption of that inventory. A signal would alert suppliers that more stock was needed.

Evolution of the Kanban Board

Since then, kanban has matured and abstracted into a board and cards that represent workflow. This helps to increase efficiencies by highlighting points in the production cycle where waste can be eliminated. This has led to kanban being applied outside of the manufacturing of automobiles and into just about any industry you can think of that has a production cycle.

Software developers who use an agile approach embrace kanban as it aligns with Scrum in many ways. Once the process was digitized, its use became even more widespread and now can be found in more progressive project management software.

Types of Kanban Boards

There are two main types of kanban boards, physical kanban boards and digital kanban boards.

Physical Kanban Boards

When kanban boards were first invented, kanban software didn’t exist, so they had to use physical tools such as wooden frames and paper sheets to represent kanban board columns and cards. Even today many organizations use sticky notes and physical boards to create their physical kanban boards.

Digital Kanban Boards

Most project management teams use software to use kanban boards. For example, ProjectManager allows teams to create and customize kanban boards. Here’s a video to help you better understand what a kanban board is and how it can be used as a project management tool.

What Is Kanban Board Software?

Kanban board software, as its name suggests, is a solution that makes digital kanban boards for managing your projects. Some kanban board software alternatives like ProjectManager also offer other complementary tools, such as Gantt charts, task lists, project calendars and dashboards, to manage a team’s work from different perspectives.

Choosing the best kanban software for a team can be very challenging due to all the different choices that are available on the market, especially because the kanban board features change from a software provider to another. This is why we’ve ranked the best kanban software alternatives in our blog to help you learn about their key features, pros and cons and make an informed decision.

ProjectManager is one of the best kanban software thanks to its advanced features, user-friendly interface and a variety of project management tools. However, if an upgrade to kanban software is not immediate, get started with a free kanban board template for Excel.

What Can Be Kanban Boards Used For?

As stated, kanban boards started in the manufacturing industry and expanded to many other fields. Here are some of the most popular uses for kanban boards.

Kanban Boards in Manufacturing

Kanban boards were initially designed as a lean manufacturing tool by Taiichi Ohno for the Toyota Production System (TPS), a just-in-time manufacturing approach that revolutionized inventory management and production planning in the car manufacturing industry to then move into other fields.

Kanban Boards in Project Management

After its successful implementation in manufacturing, project managers realized that kanban boards can be used for managing all the project tasks, processes and workflows that make up a project schedule, so they’re a popular project planning and task management tool.

Kanban Boards in Agile Project Management

While kanban boards can be used for any type of project, they’re especially good for planning agile sprints, which are short iterations of work of one to two weeks in which teams execute a specific number of high-priority work items.

Kanban boards allow project managers to assign these tasks to team members and track their progress as tasks move through the workflow stages represented by the kanban board columns.

Kanban Boards in Software Development

Most software development teams use an agile or scrum methodology for planning, scheduling and tracking their work. They use scrum boards, which are a variation of the kanban board that’s tailored specifically for these types of teams.

Kanban Board vs. Scrum Board

Kanban and Scrum are similar agile project management methodologies that can be used together, even though they both have their principles, practices and rules. Both of these methods help you manage a team’s work by prioritizing tasks and planning the execution of projects. In fact, the scrum methodology borrowed kanban boards from kanban and adapted them to fit the scrum process, teams and principles.

The main difference between a kanban board and a scrum board is that scrum boards are a more specialized tool, which are mostly used for planning work in sprints and are software development projects while kanban boards can be used to manage any type of task, process or workflow, which makes them ideal for project management.

There are other differences between a kanban board and a scrum board. Here are some of them.

• Kanban boards’ work-in-progress limits set a maximum number of tasks that can be at each kanban column which represents a stage of a workflow, while scrum boards have a set number of tasks, which are planned by the scrum master and the scrum team during sprint planning meetings
• Scrum boards should only be used by some specific scrum roles such as the scrum master, product owner and the development team, while kanban boards can be used by anyone as there are no set roles
• No work items can be added to scrum boards during a sprint, while tasks can be added to a kanban board at any point of the project as they don’t have restrictions
• Scrum teams use scrum boards that hold sprint planning, sprint review and sprint retrospective meetings to plan and track work, while kanban boards don’t usually require these meetings and can be used simultaneously by team members who are free to add or move their tasks as needed and use kanban boards to manage their work

How to Make a Kanban Board Online With ProjectManager

ProjectManager has online kanban boards that take the rudimentary physical kanban method and supersize it. While other software programs might have similar tools, few have the robust and dynamic project management platform that ProjectManager offers to serve all your project needs.

Each kanban card can be assigned to one or more team members, who then can use that card to communicate through a comments window. When a comment is added, the assigned team members are notified by email and if they want to alert someone who isn’t assigned, they can simply tag them in the comments and they’ll get an email notification. This facilitates collaboration and keeps everyone on the same page.

Furthermore, any supporting documents and images can be attached to the card. This keeps conversations about the task and the various documents about the subject in one, easy-to-find place. This takes the kanban process, one with the mandate of increased efficiencies, and makes it even more efficient.

ProjectManager also gives you the flexibility to adapt the kanban board to reflect your work. If the three-column template is too simple, add as many columns as necessary. If team members want to set up their kanban board to track their tasks, they can.

Multiple Project Planning Views for the Same Project

With ProjectManager, kanban boards are just one tool in a larger toolbox. Once a task list is uploaded into ProjectManager it creates a project that can be viewed through many lenses. Project managers might prefer the online Gantt chart view, but team members can visualize that workflow at a glance on the kanban board view.

Teams have the option of also looking at the online Gantt chart, but can also see their tasks laid out in a task list on the calendar view. However, the kanban board is more than simply a bird’s-eye view of the project. It’s a collaborative platform that makes teams work together for greater efficiency.

Because ProjectManager is online project management software, all status updates immediately populate in the software. There’s no delay. Changes show up instantly, and updates can be done anywhere and at any time, which is a boon for remote or distributed teams. Now, teams can collaborate in different time zones, in real time.

Kanban Board FAQs

Here are some frequently asked questions about kanban boards, to better understand what this project management tool can do for an organization.

Can You Make a Kanban Board in Excel?

Yes, you can make a kanban board in Excel by manually creating kanban board columns and cards, or use ProjectManager’s free kanban board template for Excel.

Can You Make a Kanban Board Online?

Yes, you can use a cloud-based software like ProjectManager to make kanban boards online and use other project management tools such as Gantt charts, project dashboards, workload management charts and timesheets.

What Is a Personal Kanban Board?

A personal kanban board helps manage your projects and everyday tasks. One of the main advantages of using kanban boards in your organization is that you can make multiple kanban boards to manage different types of work.

For example, you might have a kanban board to plan your tasks, one for managing each of your organization’s projects, or even create a kanban board for managing programs and project portfolios from a high-level view.

Does ProjectManager Have a Kanban Board App?

Yes, ProjectManager has a mobile app that allows you to use kanban boards in the field, whether you work at a shop floor, warehouse, construction site or any other place where you need to manage tasks. With it, you can schedule tasks, move kanban cards from one column to another, attach files such as photos and communicate with your team.

Related Kanban Board Content

Kanban boards are one of the most important task management tools, which is why we’ve created dozens of blogs, templates and guides to help you get started with the kanban methodology.

• Best Kanban Board Software: Paid & Free Options Ranked
• Jira Kanban Board: A How-To Guide With Pros, Cons & Alternatives
• Trello Kanban Board: Key Features, Pros, Cons & Alternatives
• What Is Scrumban? How It Differs from Scrum & Kanban
• How to Make an Ideal Kanban Workflow for Your Team

ProjectManager is more than just a kanban tool. It’s a suite of powerful project management features that work together and seamlessly integrate with other software to give project managers and teams greater control over their projects. From planning, monitoring and reporting, no matter what stage of the project you’re in, ProjectManager has your back. See what it can do for you by taking this free 30-day trial.

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