Question About Kanban Boards

Posted by J J Weimer
Dec 20, 2018 at 08:27 PM

A bit late to the table ...

This is solely for macOS.

WRT multiple projects with numerous sub-tasks: I use a combination of Curio and OmniFocus. I have three or more Kanban boards in one main GTD project file in Curio (and others in other targeted project files). I use the multiple boards to track the status of projects in different areas of responsibility. The projects are hyper-linked to corresponding entrees in OmniFocus, where the task management is handled. The link is two-way, so that I can at any time jump to the OF task level or the Curio overview level.

WRT identifying the status of projects: The advantage of Curio for this is in its Status Panel. I can group projects by a range criteria, including dates, ratings, priorities, or tags (grouped in tag sets). I especially like that I can use the Status Panel to control-click and set various states of the projects (e.g. update the percentage complete). The mirror in OF is the ability to set defined perspectives for the task-level management.

In summary, I also have not seen or have not been excited enough to adopt a “dedicated” Kanban program to try to manage dozens of projects with dozens of sub-tasks. Since I use Curio extensively for other things and since I used OmniFocus to manage the tasks, it was a natural to try to blend the two. For me, it has become a match made in Kanban+GTD heaven.

Ken wrote:
I know that Kanban boards are quite popular right now, and in certain
>work circumstances, they can be quite useful. What I am trying to
>understand, as a solo user, is if there is a way to use a Kanban
>workflow when you manage multiple projects at once. Does the paradigm
>lend itself to this? I can have as many as a dozen different
>projects/activities going at the same time, each with numerous subtasks
>with varying degrees of urgency. I just have not seen a Kanban program
>that easily accommodates a dozen projects without cluttering up a
>screen, nor have I seen one that can easily identify urgent tasks from
>all of my projects so I can see what is currently in need of attention.
>Am I just not seeing the right software, or is this just not the
>paradigm for handling multiple projects with multiple tasks and
>subtasks?
> >—Ken