It should come as no surprise that creative minds often connect best with strong visuals. That’s why the Kanban method of organizing work with visual cards is so impactful to the creative workflow. Whether you’re fully agile or new to project management altogether, Kanban is simple to learn and implement. Plus, it’s extremely gratifying to move a card from one status to the next, just like scratching off your to-do list!
First, let’s review – how exactly does Kanban work? Work is represented by tile cards, organized into columns based on the status of each task. This visual board view lets you quickly and easily see which items are to do, in progress, in review, returned, and completed. When a task needs to change status, such as moving from “in progress” to “completed,” you can drag and drop its card into the appropriate status column. Because of its intuitive and easily adoptable nature, Kanban is extremely effective at promoting continuous collaboration across any member of your team.
Tip: inMotion ignite takes Kanban to the next level for creative projects! Statuses that relate specifically to creative proofs and approvals are also available in Kanban boards since these are critical stages of your workflow.
Without further ado, let’s break down how creative teams can harness the power of Kanban:
- See What to Focus on Next
Whether an item is currently in progress or has an upcoming due date but hasn’t been started, Kanban view will help you quickly prioritize what to tackle next. When you’re working with creative assets, there might be a proof that’s awaiting your feedback or a design that’s ready for round two. Kanban boards make it easy to identify where critical content pieces are so they can get to market faster! Bye-bye, backlog. - Collaborate Easier Across Teams
Sometimes you only need to focus on your own assigned work, but it’s often necessary to see the big picture of an entire project at once, especially if you’re the project manager! By looking at the status of an entire project’s work, you can get a pulse on how much has been accomplished across the board (pun intended). Goodbye, bottlenecks. - Make Progress Feel Real
It might be hard to believe, but the biggest reason for Kanban’s effectiveness is purely psychological. Beyond its power in pushing creative projects forward, teams love Kanban because it just makes progress feel real. Much like checking off a to-do list, or watching the progress bar on your pizza tracker, as humans we feel good when we see something reflecting our momentum. Tapping into this psychological need, Kanban encourages you to complete work by rewarding you with that “feel-good” moment of success when you move work into a new status, or see a visual representation of how much your team has accomplished. Hello, achievement!
No matter your role in creative projects, using Kanban is a surefire way to manage your workload and continuously collaborate with team members while staying agile. Kanban will bring you the simplicity of increased focus and the satisfaction of accomplishing work efficiently.
While there are countless tools that offer Kanban on its own, you’ll find the most success if you incorporate it into a larger workflow or project management system. A tool that supports your entire creative workflow will facilitate the project from end to end and keep your team on track. inMotion ignite is tailored to supporting creative projects, with features like request intake for creative briefs, collaborative project management, proof review and approval, and a reporting suite to help you monitor productivity outcomes. To see how ignite would work for your team, schedule your free demo!
As a digital marketer at inMotionNow, Joel Fogleman blends creativity with analytics to make marketing impactful. He has a fondness for crafting messages that resonate, whether via catchy ad copy, enlightening blog posts, or garden-variety poetry.