Portfolio Kanban Software for Lean Management
4.8/5 (41 reviews)Pros
1) Feature development is well thought out. Rather than adding to visual clutter, features are constantly refined to allow simple visual management. This is harder than it sounds and is not often achieved in agile software development.
2) Regular releases. Releases are on time and only 1 month away.
3) Great customer support. Real people answering your questions and looking at possible bugs. Replies are quick and direct.
4) Price is very reasonable.
Cons
1) Break in subscription value. They just recently divided their subscribers into two tiers leaving original users that do not upgrade their subscription contract to only original features. This is a bad mistake and breaks the premise of SaaS. If a company needs additional revenue they should be raising the cost of the subscription for all in a seamless manner and not bifrucate their user base.
2) Metrics are well developed but it is not easy to get started. Additional thought needs to be given on how to get metrics in the hands of even basic users.
Thank you for the feedback.
We are trying to improve the product on a regular basis, so we can meet users expectation and needs.
We are glad to hear that your are happy with our support, regular releases and features.
Kind regards.
Kanbanize team.
I like to describe Kanbanize as the Swiss Army Knife for IT leaders in mid-sized businesses. Since we at Xuviate started talking about it in our IT Leader Masterminds and 1-1 Coaching sessions so many individuals started playing with it and later adopted the software ... to the point where there is currently no other main-stream Kanban software that is regularly used by any of the IT leaders we interact with. This is both testament to the quality of the product as well as the ability of Kanbanize to stay ahead of what users need.
Pros
- The software is extremely flexible and supports almost any use-case
- It is super easy for people to get started (even if they have never used Kanban before or are not in IT)
- It is not just another Kanban tool and right from the start it is clear how Kanbanize (the company) is trying to change the way we run our businesses (e.g. by supporting and evangelising Portfolio Kanban)
- The reporting engine is top-notch and provides both overview and many drill-down opportunities
Cons
- Individuals often are role players on multiple boards. Currently there is no easy way to show all tasks assigned to an individual and to properly prioritise daily workload.
- No integration with their personal Kanban tool flow-e exists at the moment
The Kanbanize folks are so knowledgeable and so ready to help when ever we need it. We deal with many saas companies and Kanbanize are at the top of the field. They get how to nurture and support their users.
They also roll out new functionality every month. The application just keeps getting better and better.
Pros
Kanbanize is a very flexible tool set that allows us to clearly map out specific workflows for our clients. Clients love it because they can see and update the status of all of their work within their specific workflow not a workflow imposed on them by a software package.
We also like the flexibility of the cards made possible by custom fields, attachments, images and so on.
Cons
Kanbanize is very feature rich. When users initially get on the platform, they can suffer some intimidation. However, Kanbanize is so easy to use and so well thought out, it's amazing to watch people work with it for the first time. Within hours and even minutes in some cases, our clients are moving through the boards and managing their work, all while having lots of fun!
I have been in the commercial software development business for 20+ years for Hi-Tech Industries and this is one of the finest products I have ever seen. Fantastic Product and Support. Regardless of your maturity level with the Kanban, Kanbanize will add amazing value to you and your team.
Pros
This kanban solution is extremely powerful due to the simple intuitive interface design and the ability to quickly customize it to your work. It has a rich set of features and powerful integration. My favorites are Simple Cards Design, Easy Customization, powerful metrics, flexibility, and scalable views. It provides extreme power without complexity!
Cons
Business Rules and extremely powerful but could be more accessible.
Thank you Dan.
We are trying to improve the product on a regular basis, so we can meet users expectations and needs.
Thanks for taking the time to write this review. Our team appreciates it.
Kind regards.
Kanbanize team.
Pros
Easy to use and easy to adapt the boards to the needs of our company.
Also very visual designed and very frequently updates that makes the program better.
Cons
There is no dutch version. The boards you can name whatever you like but the helpdesk en the rest is in English
As a consultant a major part of my work evolves around process optimization or creating flow. I use Kanbanize to show clients how flow can be created, or how you can work towards an optimised process.
Another part of my work is about business strategy consulting. Here Kanbanize is also awesome thanks to the possibility of relating boards and the portfolio lane.
Kanbanize is always a great starting point for organisational change because it is accessible.
Pros
Although feature rich, Kanbanize is easy to start with. Simple templates, explainers and a knowledge base are there to guide you if you need it.
I knew Kanban when I started with Kanbanize and it was a great experience to work with a true Kanban tool. It felt very familiar and with a great UI it quickly became my favorite tool.
Cons
Kanbanize offers rules for automation. This is really awesome. However, for me there are never enough rules, so I liked the limitation of rules the least.
Hi.
Thank you for spending the time to write this review. We really appreciate the feedback.
Kind regards.
Kanbanize team.
From organizations and teams to my own personal work management, Kanbanize helps me implement the concepts of the Kanban Method without having to fight the tool or wish certain features were present. It's made for the professional who wants to optimize kanban practices in a team or organization. I have to smile when I see the "how likely is it that you would recommend this product" because I'm constantly actually doing it -- nothing hypothetical about it.
Pros
Easily the best features in the marketplace for kanban and work-visualization and management software, continuously improving; customer support is among the best I've ever experienced (for any product type).
Cons
A minor complaint is that I occasionally wish it were available as mobile app.
Thank you Matthew.
We are trying to improve the product on a regular basis, so we can meet users expectation and needs.
We appreciate the feedback.
Kind regards.
Kanbanize team.
Implementing big Kanban systems is not easy. Lots of task/cards, teams in different locations, lack of metrics and indicators, etc could make it really challenging.
Kanbanize solves all these problems and gives many additional features to improve the efficiency.
Pros
Great set of features. Full support for any Kanban scenario (both IT and non-IT).
Very useful integration API (REST).
The tool itself and integration API are very stable and bugless.
There is very interesting mechanism for sharing information with 3-rd party stakeholders. E.g. use to share project status with a final client.
Really good support (both technical and commercial)
Cons
Pricing for small teams could be improved
Hi Sergey.
Thank you for spending the time to write this review. We really appreciate the feedback.
Kind regards.
Kanbanize team.
The customer service from this company is like no other. I looked at over 20+ vendors when moving my IT Program with 15 teams, but this one beat them all hands down. They run their ticket support by .. yep, kanban and it is exceptional. Even though I am in Australia in a time zone on the opposite side of the world.
Pros
Kanbanize makes doing multiple types of work with 3 different workflows by one team, on one board so easy. You would need 3 boards in Jira and it is impossible! By contrast, Kanbanize is sooo easy to use, and you don’t need an IT degree to set it up. Our marketing teams use it too.
Cons
Would love to see something no other software does like multi-team prioritisation and estimated cycle time. (Oh, but they’re working on that soon to release too!)
Wish they put their knowledge base and help videos in the one place.
Hi Becci.
Thank you for spending the time to write this review. We really appreciate the feedback.
Kind regards.
Kanbanize team.
Visualizing what has up till now been invisible. Using Kanbanize has introduced an increased sense of urgency and have allowed my teams to focus. This has in fact decreased the stress level, and I have had comments such as: "It is such a relief that I now only have to focus on few activities. Before I was hopping between 10 different tasks, but now I have only 2". Kanbanize helps to stick to the WiP limits agreed.
Managers also see a big advantage in the overview they get over their teams and work progress. They can also see why activities get blocked, and many start to react on what they see. This has strengthened the communication between teams and their managers
Pros
Kanbanize is made for Kanban. This becomes very clear when you have had to use other SW that does not really support visualization and flexibility to the extent that you would like. Kanbanize is really easy to use and you can adjust your boards so they fit the specific contexts that you are working in. Making workflows that fit your situation is very simple, just as playing with colors, working with different types of blockers and sticky notes are built in.
There are a lot of online tutorials that can help you get started and can give you answers to probably any question you may have.
Cons
The analytics part require that you take a deeper look into what you want to measure and how you interpret the reports. But I guess that is a 'must' anyway if you want to know the progress of your team or organization
Thanks for your review Annette!
We appreciate your feedback and your endorsement. If you ever need anything, we're online and ready to help!
Kind regards.
Kanbanize team.
I have been using Kanbanize for personal and professional projects very well. Everything has been smoothing very nice.
Pros
One of the thing that I liked most of Kanbanize is its simplicity and friendly way to use it. You don't need any (or almost any) help to start creating their Kanban boards. Indeed, it is so intuitive to build new swim lames and cards.
Furthermore, Kanbanize always notify me about the new features as soon as they released them.
Cons
Kanbanize can add more metrics but my point of view is biased about helping managers to understand very well the power of using Lean metrics.
I have to highlight the responsiveness of the Kanbanize team to queries and support issues. Very impressive!
Pros
Very intuitive to use (but beware, there is much more under the hood than meets the eye at first).
A powerful business tool and awesomely responsive support team.
Cons
As with any software, there are areas where the functionality does not meet our needs, but the benefits far outweigh the negative areas. To name two limitations that come to mind:
- The automation is very powerful, but there are not too many options and one cannot really start building advanced logic.
- There also is no native link to external reporting tools, but there is a work-around to export an advanced query to Excel and then use that as source.
We're using to coordinate the tasks in a 20 people team, with 6 sub teams with different expertises (Development, UX, SEO, SEM, CRM, Content). We start 3 weeks ago and we could already identify our bottlenecks.
Pros
The most interesting feature for my use, as a manager is the broad view, for many boards, simultaneously. This helps identifying bottlenecks and the flow of value.
Cons
Prioritization of backlog is a not an easy task, as
I really feel I can help my team with fast decisions with Kanbanize. Daily and weekly are more productive and faster too.
Pros
It's really easy to use and it was the best tool we could find to manage different teams. At Escale we're using Kanban with SEO, Content, Paid Media, CRO ... and everyone is able to interact with other boards. We are feeling really productive.
Cons
I'm not so happy with the portfolio views, trying to figure it out how to work with both OKRs and Initiatives.
Pros
The software provides horizontal swim lanes, which many of the Kanban based products did have. I also like the flexible licensing models.
Cons
I think the biggest drawback is that you cannot convert the subtasks into individual cards and cannot assign due dates to subtasks.
Hi Michael. Thank you for the good words. And thank you for spending the time to write this review. We really appreciate it.
Kind regards.
Kanbanize team.
Ability to manage my workload.
Pros
Ease of use, filter functionality. I can plan my week in advance then filter out the noise and stay focused.
Cons
The linking of tickets to other tickets needs a little bit of work. You have to create a ticket first then go back and link it.
Hi Thasigan. Thank you for spending the time to write this review. We really appreciate the feedback.
Kind regards.
Kanbanize team.
I am using in my own business to organize our work and I also use it in my clients adopting Lean, Agile or Kanban. This is the only tool I recommend.
Pros
This software comes from people who really understand Lean, Kanban and software development. It 's a perfect fit for any team and service doing knowledge work (not only software).
Probably, what I like most is how everything is interconnected.
Cons
Nothing I would highlight. Minor things that every new release is solving based on listening to their customers.
Incredibly Powerful Tool for Visualization, Collaboration, and Delivering Value. Simplicity is Power and the critical success factor in making this a game changer for team collaboration.
Pros
Immediate Use, Easy to Customize for Advanced Users, Very Powerful Analytics
Cons
Pricing is very reasonable, but there is no option for a Personal User only a small team.
kanbanize solves for less hand-offs while still maintaining strong communication.
Pros
ease of use and great way to track work and visualize all tasks...very customizable and adaptable for our processes
Cons
portfolio lane is not really robust yet like standard lanes
Pros
The most visual and simple way to track the team tasks
Cons
I haven't found any features that didn't work for me
Working with Kanbanize really changed the way I approach my professional and personal tasks. I use a Kanban board to get the most out of my time and money which means in the past year of my life, I have managed to get more done than ever before. WIP limits really help fix my multi-tasking problem. Columns and swimlanes sort my work and analytics and reports means I have the data I need to make decisions for the future. You can create a work breakdown structure for any project. So handy!
Pros
Helps you structure your workflow and it's super handy when you want to boost quality but decrease time. It makes you the most efficient you can be with the resources at hand. Great for enterprise teams! Great for small teams! Works well applied to all fields.
Cons
It's not free but it's worth it.
We love this software. So reliable, neat and feature rich. For us by far the best out of the similar we have tried.
Thanks for your review Ozan! We appreciate your feedback and your endorsement. If you ever need anything, we're online and ready to help!
Pros
What I liked most about the software is that everything is visually easier to see and understand what follows easily and what gets blocked and why.
The functionality of creating tasks, assigning to other people and other cards is also a very useful feature.
Cons
The option to create multiple subtasks in a more visual way, only appears after you click and publish the card.
Pros
I like the software's design, because it's very simple to use and to visualize, which makes it easier to organize and prioritize the tasks.
Cons
When I create new tasks, I find it a bit repetitive to always have to put the assignee, custom fields, etc.
So it would be great if there was a way to do it all automatically.
This is the software you need if you have difficulty monitoring your process! Great visibility, user friendly and amazing analytics to help enhancing efficiency. People are more productive and everything can be tracked live. Nothing gets lost, it has inspired us to set higher goals! Customer support is amazing and every part of the experience is a pleasure! Thanks!
Pros
Efficient, looks fresh, great support, no bugs so far, easy to use, secure
Cons
It can't be used offline; needs a bit of time to adapt and acquire the habit to work by its flow.
Thanks for the kind words, Roxanne! We appreciate your support. If you ever need anything, we're online to help.
-The Kanbanizers
Excellent product - very happy with the company. We are glad to use them for the visual management.