The Best Kanban Apps of 2018

What Is Kanban?

Kanban is a method for managing work using a board with spaces for cards representing tasks. There are only so many spots on the board for the cards, so managers are forced to prioritize tasks instead of just adding them to a bottomless to-do list. These days teams that follow the kanban philosophy typically implement it by using a kanban board app. Two major benefits of using kanban boards as opposed to other kinds of work-management systems and collaboration apps are (1) they're highly visual, and (2) they're very good at limiting the amount of work on any one person's plate at a time. There are many other benefits, as well. The easiest way to learn how kanban works is through an example.
Imagine you have a board and a stack of sticky notes. You create three columns on the board called To Do, Doing, and Done. Next, take a sticky note and write a task on it. Now place that note in the To Do column. Write a few more tasks on a few more sticky notes. Bring everyone who's responsible for getting these tasks done into the room. Either assign tasks from the To Do column to them, or let them self-assign a few tasks.
When an assignee starts a task, she moves the sticky note into the Doing column. If she wants to add some notes about the task or her progress, she writes them on the sticky note. Whoever manages the work can create a rule saying no one is ever allowed to have more than five active assignments in the Doing column at any given time. When an assignee completes a task, she moves it to the Done column.
Kanban can be much more involved, but that's the gist of it.

 Kanban Apps for Collaboration

Online kanban applications duplicate the general idea of the board and sticky notes (they're typically called cards in kanban applications). In an advanced domain, in any case, the framework can do significantly more for you. For instance, each card can contain rich data about an assignment, for example, the due date and any notes one may need to complete the undertaking. Undertaking cards may have documents appended to them, and also labels, numerical fields for logging how much time was spent on the assignment, et cetera. Advanced kanban frameworks can hail up and coming due dates, alarm fitting gatherings when assignments are finished, and produce reports about work advance.

While kanban applications fit into the general class of coordinated effort applications, they are very not the same as undertaking administration administrations, however individuals once in a while utilize kanban applications to deal with specific sorts of tasks. Kanban is by and large thought to be more suited to continuous work, for example, settling and keeping up programming or noting bolster questions, than to ventures. Task administration applications, be that as it may, are intended to deal with ventures, the key distinction being each undertaking has a starting date, an end date, and a deliverable. Continuous work does not.

Each kanban application incorporated into this rundown of the best kanban applications has its own particular qualities, and some have shortcomings, as well. Which application is best for you and your group to a great extent relies upon the sort of work being overseen, how your group conveys, and whether and how you have to impart any of your advance to individuals outside your association, for example, customers or specialists.

 Best Multifaceted Kanban App

Asana takes the PCMag Editors' Choice for best kanban board application by and large, which may appear like a strange decision, as Asana didn't begin having some expertise in kanban. Asana started as a work process administration apparatus, something like a super-fueled plan for the day application. As it developed, it in the end added the capacity to imagine work in a board see, à la kanban. Asana was at that point so solid at helping groups oversee work, that the change to supporting kanban seemed well and good and occurred effortlessly.

A couple of parts of Asana make it exceptional. It's amazingly adaptable, and it's anything but difficult to explore different avenues regarding the application. Asana is magnificent for groups that wouldn't fret persevering through a little experimentation for the sake of finding the most ideal arrangement. It's not precisely a turnkey benefit, however; every group should do some genuine work to get it set up for their specific work process.

Asana is additionally an application where you can compose records, scribble down thoughts, and keep a chronicle of what your group has achieved. In spite of the fact that the application doesn't have each component under the sun locally included, it plays pleasantly with others. It can coordinate with an extensive variety of devices, including Salesforce, for client relationship administration, and Harvest, for time following and timesheets. Those increases make Asana much more flexible.

Kitchen-Sink Kanban

On the off chance that you can't be tried to incorporate outsider applications and administrations to make the work administration framework you need, you're in an ideal situation picking a kanban board application that incorporates bunches of highlights. As you can likely tell from the table at the highest point of this article, LeanKit and Kanban Flow incorporate significantly more than a large number of their rivals.

Two desirable features found in both LeanKit and KanbanFlow are work-in-progress (WIP) limits and swim lanes. A WIP limit restricts the number of tasks allowed in a column at any given time or the number assigned to a particular person or department at any given time. When using a kanban methodology, it's common for teams to self-impose WIP limits; KanbanFlow and LeanKit make it so you don't have to. Once you set the limit, the app won't let you exceed it. Swim lanes refers to the ability to reformat a kanban board so that it includes not only columns, but also rows. A common swim lane visualization is to use the horizontal rows to show who is responsible for tasks.

Easiest to Learn

Trello makes its name among kanban apps for being easy and fun to use. When you work with a lot of clients and external partners, easy and fun are words you want to hear when discussing ways to collaborate and share information.
Trello's interface is more bubbly than serious. You can add stickers to cards to express ideas visually, or just to have a bit of fun. As with many of the other apps mentioned so far, Trello easily integrates with other online tools and services.

Best for Teams With Visual Assets

Volerro may not have every feature under the sun, but it still earns a high score in PCMag's testing, in part for one unique strength: When you upload documents to Volerro, everyone on the team can view them and annotate them, right in the browser. The ability to annotate documents facilitates communication for files that have graphics or design elements, such as slideshow images or advertisements, in particular. Annotating a PDF or image file is a much clearer way to deliver comments about it than simply typing comments into a text box.