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To-Do or Kanban? That Is the Question

Transforming the slings and arrows of outrageous workflow into context and clarity

Laurel Thoennes @ Quality Digest
Thu, 04/14/2011 - 09:28
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Body

“What makes a personal kanban any better than a to-do list?” asked Julie, crossing out a completed task on her “ta da!” list with exaggerated strokes.

“With personal kanban you visualize your work, it becomes tangible, you get kinesthetic feedback, it’s flexible, contextual, and it promotes completion and clarity,” said Kara. “To-do lists don’t.”

“What do you mean?” Julie frowned at her co-worker, pen hovering doubtfully in midair. “I’m looking right at it and writing on the board! I flex; I do stuff out of order all the time. And it feels great when I cross things off.”

“Here,” Kara said, handing over her copy of  Personal Kanban. “Read chapter two while I run an errand.”

“Where are you going?”

“To buy more sticky notes.”

What is Personal Kanban?

Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry have written an excellent book, Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life (Modus Cooperandi Press, 2011). The best way for me to tell you about it is to give you my mini version of what I think using a personal kanban is. By all means, let me know if you think I’ve missed a point or the point altogether.

 …

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Comments

Submitted by Theo on Thu, 04/14/2011 - 10:22

To-do list vs Kanban board

A to-do list is great when you need to cross out some tasks and be done with them.

Kanban works better for tasks that require multiple steps. For example, writing a blog, reviewing it, posting it could the steps for a blogger. For muti-step tasks Kanban is just a better visual representation.

A whiteboard with post-it notes can be used for that. Or, on web, apps like smartQ (www.getsmartQ.com) offer a friendly solution.

 

 

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Submitted by ecnstein on Fri, 04/15/2011 - 14:37

Kanban

I think we call it project management.  The depth of description and number of sub-tasks are determined by the complexity of the tasks.  I think it is helpful to remeber the concept of "ditchikow tsigachi - you need more than one ring master when the circus has more than three rings." 

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Submitted by Jake Belite on Fri, 03/06/2015 - 04:18

kanban

My choice is Kanban as it allows you to have more control over your tasks and it's easier to manage when more complex projects happen especially when you have to collaborate with others.

Kanban has been really trending and has been implemented in various processes like software development, project management, marketing and more. The physical Kanban may not be flexible enough so you can always use a digital version like this kanban solution - Kanzen. This app has some cool features that our team absolutely loved.

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