What is the difference between Kanban and Task board?
Difference between Kanban and Task board? Sure, that’s an interesting question. Let’s first find out what these terms mean. It won’t be difficult to find the difference after that.
What is a Task Board?
The Task Board is a type of visual management tool for project planning and keeping track of the work. Tasks are usually represented by ‘cards’. Such cards can be arranged within something as simple as a few columns drawn on a board or dispersed among multiple levels of organization. As Task boards are very flexible, they are applied universally by individuals, teams, or organizations to represent their work and path towards completion.
Well organized task board allows people to collaborate, prioritize and deliver a higher quality end-product on a more regular basis. Such Task boards contain all of the information about each task at every stage of the workflow. That’s why teams are able to stay on the same page and work smarter.
And what is a Kanban Board then?
A Kanban Board is a visual way to manage workflow as well. Basic Kanban Boards usually have three columns. Let’s name them: to do, in progress, and done. Here we also can find cards representing tasks. Any task that is not yet started stays in the to-do column. Once a task has been started, it goes to the progress column. Finally, when a task is completed, it goes to the done column.
As you can see the whole idea of the Kanban Board is very simple and useful at the same time. This powerful combination makes the method so popular. Kanban Boards were originated in manufacturing as a way to improve efficiency but now they are used across all areas of business to manage projects. A Kanban Board works by limiting the number of tasks that are in progress at a time. You can achieve this by using three key components – a visual task board, work-in-progress limits, and inspections. Thus a Kanban Board shows what work is ahead, what has already been done, and what is in progress.
And what do we get out of this?
So now we can easily understand that Kanban is just a type of Task Board. Scrum for example is one more popular type of Task Board. Therefore, the question of the difference between Task board and Kanban is simply incorrect. Any Kanban board is also a Task board at the same time. But not every Task board is designed according to the Kanban method.
Currently, there are quite a lot of online Task management tools designed to simplify the work with tasks and increase productivity. We would like to draw your attention to Kanbanchi. This Google-integrated application was originally designed to work with Kanban boards, and it fits the bill perfectly. However, the application continues to evolve and become more flexible and versatile. Therefore, you can easily use it and follow the Scrum methodology or create a Task board based on it according to your own rules.