The Most Popular Kanban Tools

The workflow management system Kanban allows you to organize and manage your tasks and projects with increased efficiency because by using Kanban, you don't need to focus on the entire project at the same time but you can work on the smaller parts of the project or task. Over the years, Kanban has proved its effectiveness in managing workflows in different types of projects. When Kanban was introduced, companies used physical boards to manage projects. Cards were moved around on whiteboards or other kinds of boards to show the status of a task. But when digitization happened in the world, Kanban also evolved and expanded its realm and digital boards were introduced. These digital boards carried more options than just moving around the cards. For Lean manufacturing companies and organizations working in an Agile environment, these Kanban board tools are a big boost and their utility has increased manifold. These Kanban tools are not just virtual boards where you can move the cards around. They contain a strong functionality through which you can streamline your work as well as continuously improve your process.

Here, we are going to describe some of the best Kanban tools available today. Let's take them up one by one.

The Best Kanban Tools

Monday.com: 

Monday.com is a Kanban software that has been designed for assisting Agile, Kanban, and mixed teams in managing their tasks and workflows more effectively. It is an instinctive tool of Kanban created for automizing work. It has a functionality that helps you in building dashboards that help you in streamlining your processes. A very useful feature of Monday.com is that it is flexible and hence can be scaled. It comes with a user-friendly and contemporary UI that can be customized. Its structure is table based but it has many features like you can attach files and make comments. The drag and drop feature of Monday.com allows you to build boards for every stage of the process or project. It has all the modern features you would need to keep track of the project and keep it on track. The dashboard features include taking data from the Kanban board and displaying it in a different way to provide you with more insight. Kanban templates are available in the tool so that your project can get underway fast and you can keep customizing these templates later. Furthermore, it can be integrated with many apps including Gmail, Jira, Github, Slack, Google Drive, etc. 

Trello:

It is an easy-to-use Kanban tool designed for managing your tasks and getting the work done. It is so user-friendly that you can understand its functionalities in a very short time and start working with it. Trello's UI is really good and you can easily set your boards. It is a web-based tool that allows you to organize your work on Kanban boards. There are features aplenty in Trello including the one that makes automation very easy just by following the given instructions. You just have to write the action that will trigger the workflow and whenever that action happens, the workflow starts. You can customize the cards and add whatever information you need to them like assignee names, deadlines, etc. It helps in enhancing team collaboration through boards, cards, and lists. Trello can also integrate easily with many other tools like Slack and Dropbox and it is easy to set automation with these tools also on Trello. In fact, Trello can be integrated with over 100 tools. Trello Kanban tool is more useful for small teams or individuals who have just started using Kanban. It is more helpful for small teams in visualizing their tasks. However, it is not as effective for big businesses or large projects. Some of the main features of Trello include Kanban boards, Dashboard, workspace, Timeline views, and Activity log.

Wrike:

It is a very versatile and robust Kanban tool. Setting it up and using it is also simple. Moreover, it adapts to the manner in which you decide to organize your work. Being a project management tool, Wrike has strong Kanban features which work with other features without any hassles. You can build dashboards for many uses on Wrike. All the basic features like managing work, creating boards, assigning tasks to the team, and adding deadlines are available in this tool. Besides, any team member can add information to the board so that other members are informed of any changes or new development. A simple Kanban board enables you to visualize tasks, modify views, and set Work In Progress (WIP) limits. There are more than 400 pre-built integrations available on Wrike that includes file management tool from Microsoft, Google, and Dropbox plus sales and marketing tools like Salesforce and Marketo. The Kanban boards of Wrike work in tandem with its other features. Like when you change a deadline, it synchronizes with the team calender and everyone comes to know of the change. Overall, Wrike offers a very simple and fast task management tool.

Smartsheet:

Smartsheet is a project management tool having many features which help you in managing your projects and Kanban boards. It offers multiple templates you can choose from depending on your industry type. It uses sheets like spreadsheets that companies employ to monitor their plans and inventories. Smartsheet has four views one of which is Kanban. Its Kanban boards have the drag-and-drop facility which allows you to easily move the tasks on the board. It has a lot of options for visual customization that enable you to bring out important information about various tasks. It is highly customizable so that you can create it as per your requirements. It contains Gantt charts and performance evaluation sheets so the Kanban schedule and calender are coordinated. You can create personalized dashboards on Smartsheet. Automation features are also available on this tool for setting up alerts or generating reports. Once again, Smartsheet can be integrated with many other apps. This includes Microsoft, Google, Jira, etc. 

Kanbanize:

Kanbanize is an Agile management tool that brings Kanban features and business automation to one platform. It is a powerful tool created around Kanban boards. The best feature of Kanbanize is that it is so flexible that you can build a single board as well as a complicated structure on it to show all the tasks happening in your company. You can plan, arrange, and track the workflow on both teams as well as portfolio levels. Its business rules engine has a strong analytics element for process automation. A prominent feature of Kanbanize is that it allows you to create a network of boards that you can build horizontally focusing on teams or vertically for different levels of management. This way, the progress of work can be clearly seen by everyone. Workflows can also be created across levels so that you can avoid bottlenecks. It also allows you to create sub-columns so that you can break your tasks into smaller stages on the Kanban board for more clarity and better collaboration. Kanbanzie also integrates nicely with so many other tools, some of which are Google Drive, Github, Data Studio, Jira, Slack, and Power BI. It also offers dependency management and time-tracking.

Asana:

Asana is a flexible tool to manage your workflow. You can customize its Kanban board to suit your specific requirements and to track the most important things. You can easily visualize in-depth, your "to-do" work and monitor the work in WIP.  You can add multiple columns on its Kanban board to display additional stages of the work. It has a timeline feature that allows you to see how different parts of your work are combined and then plan accordingly. The automation feature of Asana simplifies your workflows with its drag-and-drop feature. You can easily streamline work requests on Asana. And when your work requests are streamlined, your time management gets better and the productivity of the team improves. You can build customized calendars and views and track your tasks. Asana provides real-time updates and alerts whenever any changes are made or tasks are assigned. One drawback of Asana is that it becomes difficult to track larger projects on it. It easily integrates with many useful apps. So, it is a very good tool for workflow management.

SwiftKanban:

SwiftKanban is a powerful Kanban tool for both, the teams working from the same location as well as the teams working across different locations. It has many advanced features along with all the basic features of a Kanban tool. It has a strong combination of visual management, Kanban, and Scrum that makes it a powerful tool for Lean/Agile software development. It is very easy to set up boards and move and edit tasks on SwitKanban. The option of Making templates for new cards and customizing them when needed is one of its special features. This way, you can avoid repetitive tasks. Since SwiftKanban provides better visualization, it makes the collaboration between the teams a lot easier and better. Teams working in different locations can see what other teams are doing in other locations. Features like spelling out WIP limits and highlighting the bottlenecks are in-built into SwiftKanban. You can automate actions on the basis of any criteria you choose. It has features for the complex configuration of cards and boards. You can integrate SwiftKanban with many other tools like TFS, Agile Central, and other enterprise-level tools from Microsoft and IBM. All in all, its features make SwiftKanban a very powerful tool for Kanban.

Click Up:

It is the last but not the least on our list of the best Kanban tools. ClickUp is a Kanban tool that does not just provide a customized user experience but it gives a lot more than that. It is very flexible and you can create workflows and dashboards for multiple uses. You can organize your tasks in multiple views like Kanban board, Gantt, and Calendar views. It comes with more than a hundred exclusive features that give you the power to display what you want and hide what you don't want to display. You can use its advanced workflow feature to track progress from remote locations. This feature of the Kanban boards allows you to customize your workflows as per your needs and the requirements of every task. Status columns are available in the board view to enable you to see the status of every task in your workflow. Further, you can arrange the columns to visualize your work in different ways. For example, you can organize tasks on the basis of their stages or you can arrange them on the basis of the assignee. Data can be viewed from more than one board on a single view. ClickUp also allows you to enable WIP limits making it easy for you to identify which tasks need urgent attention. ClickUp can be integrated with more than one thousand other apps through Zapier. Otherwise, also, it can be integrated with multiple apps like Slack, GSuite, Dropbox, etc.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of Kanban tools but we have included these tools in our list considering their features, utility, and ease of use. We have also made sure that the list above includes tools that can serve organizations of different sizes. Also, it includes a range of tools that have basic features as well as advanced features. You can also check out tools like Kaban tool, Zoho project, Proofhub, and Project Manager. These are also good tools to use. The biggest benefit of using Kanban tools is that you can store all the information in one place. You can choose the Kanban tool that suits you best from the above list.

Simpliaxis is one of the leading professional certification training providers in the world offering multiple courses related to Agile methodologies. We offer numerous Agile related courses such as Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)® Certification Training, Certified Scrum Product Owner (CSPO)® Certification Training, Certified Scrum Developer (CSD) Certification Training, Agile and Scrum Training, PMI-ACP® Certification Training, Professional Scrum with Kanban™ (PSK) Training, Certified Scrum Professional® - Product Owner (CSP®-PO) Certification Training, Agile Sales Management Training, Behaviour Driven Development (BDD) Training and much more. Simpliaxis delivers training to both individuals and corporate groups through instructor-led classroom and online virtual sessions.