Whiteboards have always been (and still are) very popular for project planning. Having a visual look at the outline of your project is invaluable for proper execution and completion of the project. From marketing to human resources to engineering, having a visual project area is crucial to meeting goals and deadlines.
The only problem with using a whiteboard to plan your strategy, is that you can’t share that information easily with people in other locations or offices. Noodle’s Task Manager application allows you to build a Digital Workspace where you can outline you tasks and keep track of the progress of these tasks. The application allows you to create Kanban Style columns to outline each step of the project (known as Tasks) and to mark and track the progress of each step.
Wait, What Is “Kanban”?
Kanban is very popular among engineering and computer science to schedule and outline a project. It is a method used in production to manage knowledge and work without overloading team members. Being able to view each step of the process allows team members to communicate more easily on what tasks need to be completed and when. A team member is assigned a task and once it’s marked as completed, the next team member can begin their task.
The common principals of Kanban are:
1. Visualize Work
Having a visible overview of your work, you are able to create a workflow and observe the progress. You are able to view the bottlenecks and queues that may be halting production which will increase communication and collaboration to get the work done to move to the next step.
2. Limit Work In Progress
By having a set priority system, you can limit how much unfinished tasks are in progress. This helps speed up production so team members are not jumping to different tasks or going out of priority.
3. Focus on Flow
By setting deadlines project policies, you can improve the flow of work and keep track of metrics to analyze the flow. This allows you to find problem areas, or where to refine or make improvements.
4. Continuous Improvement
Using the Kanban system is more than just a method, it’s to improve the culture of your business and quality of your product. It’s an ongoing process to refine and learn through analytics such as tracking the flow, quality, lead times and more.
Using Noodle For Project Management
The Task Manager application in Noodle, adopts the Kanban method and combines it with an easy to manage interface. It also doesn’t just have to be used for manufacturing production or software development, it can be used for any project that involves more than one task and more than one team member’s input. Planning to run a booth at a convention? Redesigning your company website? Moving offices, or remodelling? The Task Manager can be used for any collaboration project.
We have already written before about the features of Task Manager, understanding how to utilize other Noodle features in conjunction with Task Manager is the next step.
- Find an employee with desired expertise using our Expertise feature in our Company Directory to assign a specific task to
- Use the Instant Messenger to send files and information between two team members for real-time communication
- Build your own Folder in your Personal Profile to host and create documents and files you are working on, then share the completed document in the Task Manager
- Create a Page or Blog regarding the overall vision of the project and provide a summary
- Working on a visual project? Use our Photo Album to host images that can be easily shared and moved within Noodle
- Provide links to resources that would help aid in the projects progress
- Use Noodle’s Conference Room to hold group status updates on the project and set up notifications for these meetings in Noodle’s Calendar
- Built a knowledge base for your project using the Questions applications where others can post solutions to questions from other team members
These are just some ways other Noodle applications can work alongside the Task Manager to increase collaboration in your workplace and improve overall quality and turnaround time. Team members will not longer feel “lost” in a project or feel they are on their own. They will have a visual representation of what’s expected of them and many different tools and resources to complete those tasks.
Try out the Task Manager now and allow us to build you a custom prototype and show you the tool in action.