LeanKit, recognized as the leader in electronic Lean/Kanban software, announced the launch of groundbreaking new features that will allow even the largest enterprise portfolio and projects to be managed using multiple levels of drill-down Kanban boards, detailed taskboards, and roll-up Lean metrics – as well as a complete overhaul of their user interface that makes LeanKit more attractive, more intuitive, and easier to manage.

LeanKit Kanban allows companies in any industry to model their processes as lanes on a whiteboard with cards representing work flowing from step to step. Now with Portfolio Kanban, LeanKit Professional Edition users on one board will be able to delegate a card to a team on another board, where they can break it down into however many smaller pieces they need – each of which is connected as a “child” to the “parent” card. For example, an organization might have a portfolio board where each card represents a project. This board would be for the executive team to view the company project roadmap. They can then delegate each project card to a project team board where the project manager and team leads will break it into smaller work items like deliverables, risks, and issues.

Those work items can then be delegated further, to the boards of the actual teams who will do the work. Each specific team’s board might contain work delegated to them from several different project boards plus routine non-project work for that group. At each level, users can view snapshot metrics for any card that has been delegated to another board, letting them quickly see how well the work is progressing on that other board. And, while this example describes three levels of hierarchy, there’s no system limit to the number of levels that may be drilled down. And cards can just as easily be delegated from one peer team to another. The possibilities are endless.

Finally, both Team and Professional Edition users on any board will be able to create one or more taskboards inside each card to keep track of the smaller work items required to complete the main card – for example making phone calls, scheduling meetings, getting paperwork approved, etc. The kinds of things that need to be tracked, but teams don’t want cluttering the main board. Any card that contains a taskboard will show a percent complete indicator on its front to show that there’s a taskboard inside and how well those tasks are progressing.

These Portfolio Kanban features are accompanied by a complete overhaul of LeanKit’s user interface. This drastically improves the appearance of the Kanban tool and, more importantly, it makes the system more intuitive to learn and easier to use. Here are some of the highlights:
* The home screen is transformed from a text list of boards into a dashboard showing a snapshot of what each board looks like at that moment so you can immediately check their status: card colors that indicate problems, work-in-progress limit overrides, bottlenecks, etc.
* The template library has been made easier to explore and use to create boards
* The toolbar has been moved from the left to the top of the board so it’s always available on screen as users scroll left and right, up and down
* Admin functions like user security, board viewers, and analytics are accessible from the board so users don’t have to switch back and forth from the board to the home screen
* Administrators can filter, search and mass edit users for much faster user security management
* The new board filter palette allows users to immediately see the results of their choices on the board unlike the old options tab which required switching back and forth.

According to LeanKit CEO, Chris Hefley, “With these changes, LeanKit solidifies its place as the leader in the Kanban tool market making Lean-Agile visual management a practical approach for organizations of any size in any industry using Lean, Agile, Scrum, waterfall, or any hybrid approach that makes sense for them. This will truly be Enterprise Kanban.”

About LeanKit

LeanKit is recognized by Lean community leaders and practitioners alike as the most flexible and powerful tool available for implementing the Kanban method. The company is also making a name for itself in the Lean community beyond software with ventures into construction, manufacturing, education, and more. Since its founding in 2009, LeanKit has grown rapidly to serve more than 70,000 users around the world at companies such as Rolls Royce, Spotify, Glaxo Smith Kline, NBC Universal, BBVA, Geico, Nokia, and the government of Ontario, Canada. Enterprise Kanban @ LeanKitKanban.com.