How Popular Kanban Tools Surprised Their Users in 2019
By: Pavel Ku
Tags: Software Development, Kanban, Project Management, Software, Agile

Kanban is objectively not the most complex project management system. However, as soon as teams begin to use the method, it immediately becomes possible to standardize and optimize work processes.

Agile transformation is a current trend. One of the most popular representatives of Agile methodologies helps teams to organize all segments of the workflow, quickly identify weaknesses, motivate collaboration, adapt to remote work conditions, and also reduce costs.

Today, online project management tools with Kanban functionality are actively replacing the usual physical Kanban whiteboards with stickers. With the help of interactive boards, teams can reduce work time and simplify processes.

This has naturally provoked the development of software with Kanban functionality. The current year has brought new features, interesting updates and the introduction of innovations. How Jira, Hygger, Asana, and others pleased their users in 2019? What news did Trello and Monday announce? Our short review is just about that.

The Power of Kanban

By the way, today Kanban is actively used not only by IT teams; it can be also adapted in any environment and direction. Different agencies and start-ups, financial institutions and healthcare centers, education and construction organizations are actively used Kanban. Using convenient boards with cards and columns, you may plan tasks in a sports club, manage a bank’s rebranding campaign, lead clients of an insurance company, manage the work of a logistics center, and much, much more.

One of the most important strengths in Kanban is the visual order and satisfaction that the entire team and manager receive while observing how the workload is competently distributed in all directions. This naturally affects the increase in productivity of all team members.

What was the outgoing year for mastodons in the field of Kanban management? We’ve checked the news of Jira, Trello, Hygger, Monday, and Asana. But first, let’s recall what Kanban boards look like on these platforms.

Kanban board, Jira

Kanban board, Trello

Kanban board, Hygger

Kanban board, Monday

Kanban board, Asana

JIRA

Jira is a multifunctional and convenient tool that is preferred by many companies around the world. It is famous for not the easiest but powerful functionality for scheduling tasks, prioritizing, appointing objectives, working with sprints and more.

Users often left Jira due to a lack of functionality for planning a roadmap. In 2019, this feature was added. So far, Jira Roadmap is only available as part of the new Jira Software project, which is available to all Jira Software Cloud customers.

Trello

In the world of project management, Trello is also a well-known and multi-functional tool for organizing tasks and initiatives, conducting to-do lists and discussions on compact Kanban boards. Unlike the complex and multi-level Jira, Trello is easy and intuitive.

In 2019, the Trello team also did not rest. One of the important achievements of the company was the updating of pricing.

Trello added the feature of limiting teams at a free level to 10 boards.

The Enterprise plan now has 13 new features, including new admin controls and visibility settings.

The free plan still includes many useful features: boards, lists, attachments, etc.

A business plan costs $ 9.99 for a user per month (if paid annually). The costs of a corporate plan depend on the number of users.

Hygger

Hygger has been also declared itself as a robust multifunctional project management tool. The representative of a new wave of management software combines all the best that Jira and Trello propose. Hygger offers cozy Kanban boards with Swimlanes and WIP limits, to-do lists, timelines, prioritization frameworks, and more.

Actually, six prioritization models at Hygger were introduced in 2019. Prioritization is becoming an increasingly important and significant feature that helps to evaluate and sort tasks by their importance and select the most profitable for further development.

You can choose different types of prioritization systems in Hygger: a 2×2 priority matrix, Value vs Risk and Value vs Effort, Weighted scoring matrices, as well as ICE and RICE prioritization models.

Monday

Monday.com helps teams of any size to professionally plan tasks and carry out projects at a high level. Users get quality features to increase productivity and time tracking, as well as convenient Kanban boards.

In 2019, Monday was named one of the fastest-growing project management systems — the company raised $150 million to develop new functionality. The company also faced a large increase in its customer base (plus 80,000 companies).

In the future, Monday plans to add global features and innovations related to the expansion of free use, geographical distribution, the expansion of supported languages, etc.

Asana

Asana is chosen by companies focused on task management, tracking deadlines and setting priorities. The online service allows monitoring the status of tasks and the status of the project as a whole. The most popular features in Asana are to-do lists and basic Kanban boards.

Last year, the team of Asana developed a special program for non-profit organizations with small teams and limited resources. This program offers them a 50% discount on Asana Premium or Asana Business plans. Since the launch of the program, more than 1000 such organizations have used it.

The company also introduced an increase in the limit of projects in the team calendar, automatic removal of empty tasks, new templates in products, the ability to sort and filter on boards, and much more.

Modern tools with Kanban functionality help companies to save thousands of working hours and reduce their costs, as well as open up additional opportunities for developing communication in a team and with customers.

What Kanban tool do you prefer? Could you suggest anything else to complete this post? Feel free to comment.