A Kanban (Japanese for sign) developed by Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer for Toyota, in the 1950s is a visual project management and workflow optimization tool that emphasizes continuous delivery and improvement by visualizing the steps needed to complete a task on a board. The actions are placed on a board written on sticky notes or cards and get moved around the board depending on the stage of the process the task is in.
The board is typically broken into four columns representing the different stages of the process. The various columns of the board are “Backlog,” where all work starts. What you are actively working on goes in the “WIP” column; ideally, you shouldn't be working on multiple things simultaneously. The next column is “Pending.” This step can be skipped, but you put anything waiting for someone else to complete. The last column is “Done” for tasks that have been finished.
Physical
In my Integrated Marketing Communications class taught by Dan Purdy, I was tasked to develop my own personal kanban throughout the quarter. I decided to do mine physically on the door to my bedroom. Before this quarter, I was constantly stressed about missing deadlines, which added unnecessary stress to my life. With this tool, I could see every deadline right in front of me every time I went into my room. This kept me on top of my assignments and allowed me to plan around my work and school effectively. Another way to do a physical kanban is in a notebook that you can bring around and move stuff when they finish.
Digital
Also, in IMC, I was placed on a team of students tasked with building a page on the marketing program website. In this team, we used a digital kanban called Trello. Trello works great, is simple to pick up, and allows you to add your name to a card, making collaboration and accountability much more manageable. Seeing what everyone was actively working on was a great help so that we didn't accidentally do the same work, making our team more effective because of this organization. Trello isn't the only way to do a digital kanban. Many in my class made their kanban on Notion, another excellent organization tool. It has a learning curve, but once you figure it out, it works incredible for everything organization.
Physical
The best thing about physical kanbans for me is the satisfaction of moving a card into done and seeing the pile of done sticky notes get bigger and bigger as you keep completing more tasks. Another thing I enjoyed was the accessibility of the kanban when I was home. I had it shoved in my face every time I walked into my room, which I appreciated. It kept my assignment deadlines at the front of my brain, and I didn't have to pull out my phone and pull up a website and app to move the card or see what I needed to do; I often just knew what needed to be done.
The biggest con to a physical kanban is being far from it. If you aren't near the kanban, it can be a pain to remember to move the card or know what the next step in the process is if you still need to memorize it. One way to solve this is by taking a picture of the board to remember what needs to get done, but now you have hundreds of photos of this board on your phone. Another thing about physical kanbans is how hard it makes collaborative work. When everyone is always working in the same office, physical could be okay in a business setting. That was not the case for my team, and doing a physical kanban and having everyone stay on top of it would have been impossible.
Digital
The digital kanban solves all of the problems of the physical kanban. Digital kanbans can be brought anywhere at any time, making where you decide to do your work not a problem. Collaboration is also infinitely easier for teams to see real-time updates from anywhere, see what everyone is working on, and have a way higher chance of everyone actively moving their cards. Digital can also notify you if your card is moved, a deadline is approaching, or any other important news.
Digital has a lot of good benefits, but the most challenging part about digital kanbans for me is out of sight, out of mind. If I don't actively see what I must do, I can sometimes forget about it. Luckily, there are notifications, but that only sometimes works for me as I get so many notifications that it can be easy to tune them out. Another con to digital is that it is reliant on a stable internet connection. You can only access the kanban if you have a good internet connection.
Kanbans are a great organizational tool that everyone should use. It helps keep you on task and is great for time management. It lets you quickly see what needs to be done and helps prioritize essential tasks. In terms of digital vs physical, the answer to that is the same as most answers in marketing: it depends. If you are working on a team, digital is the way to go, but if you are doing it for yourself, I think that physical feels better and keeps me on task more effectively than digital does. So whether you use digital or physical, stay organized, move your cards, and don’t multitask too much.
.png)