Kanban Time Management – Boost Your Insights

Developed in the 1940s in Japan as a framework to ensure just-in-time manufacturing processes, Kanban is often used for process management today, but less so for time management or time tracking. This is a shame because combining Kanban and time-tracking features can provide a powerful combo when you know how to use it.

This article introduces the concept of Kanban time management and explains its benefits and how it works, in the hope that you find this useful when it comes to personal Kanban time management as well as time management efforts with your team.  

What is Kanban Time Management?

We already know that Kanban Boards are a great way to measure productivity and visualize workflows. When used for time management, you simply select a Kanban software tool with time-tracking and reporting features that provide you with a customizable timesheet report that contains time logs, making it easy to understand what was done during the time tracked. 

Kanban makes it easy to track and manage your team’s work. Want to see what’s happening and when? A Kanban board gives you that visibility instantly. Kanban boards don’t just track completed and pending tasks—they also reveal patterns in backlog growth, helping you prioritize effectively. Make sure to use effective backlog management practices to go through it.

This gives you a clear idea of your productivity and your capacity for taking on more work at any given time. Adding time-tracking data into the mix grants another layer of valuable information. You can see not only lead and cycle time, but also more precise data on each phase in your process and analyze what can be improved.

How does Kanban help teams manage their time better?

Kanban helps you manage time by showing workflows, tracking progress, and highlighting bottlenecks. With a Kanban board, you see tasks in “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done,” so you know what needs attention. Time-tracking shows how long tasks take at each stage, helping you improve your workflow. This cuts down on overwork, helps you prioritize, and simplifies processes. Kanban also improves communication and collaboration across teams.

Other Benefits of Kanban Time Management

There are several benefits to using Kanban time management practice for your personal and team needs. 

1. The first is that it gives you a good idea of your team’s capacity for taking on more work. If you have a large backlog then you know you have limited opportunities to take on more. This is actually one of the biggest benefits, as it reduces the risk of taking on too much, which can result in missed deadlines, upset customers, and overworked team members. 
2. The second benefit is that it highlights opportunities for improvement in your process or workflow. Because you’re tracking how long things are taking your team and individual team members, you can see where you have potential bottlenecks and issues that you can solve.
3. It allows communication of progress more easily. This is true for individual team members as well as between teams and between teams and senior management. Tracking time gives you additional insights into how long each process phase usually takes. All of this is valuable information when communicating the progress with other teams or other stakeholders.
4. By breaking down tasks into manageable steps on a Kanban board, you eliminate unnecessary complexity, making it easier to focus on what really matters. It’s easy to overcomplicate projects – especially when managing or overseeing multiple projects at once. Using Kanban for time management is a great way to cut complexity and streamline processes as much as possible.

Discover time-tracking best practices, like using WIP limits to avoid burnout or analyzing cycle times to improve workflows.

Here are some key rules that will help when using Kanban for time management purposes:

• Keep Work in Progress to a minimum and limit WIP. The standard columns in Kanban include “To Do”, “In Progress”, “Review”, and “Done”. One of the keys to staying productive with time tracking is to limit the number of tasks you have in the ‘In Progress’ and other columns at any one time. This helps to measure productivity on specific tasks, as well as minimizing overwork. Once you see how long it takes to get the ‘In Progress’ tasks done, you can feed that back to estimate how many tasks you’re comfortable having in your “To Do” column.

• Finish a task before adding another. If you keep adding tasks to your Kanban board before finishing the ones you’re working on, you make it more difficult to track the time spent on each one. That’s especially true if you’re moving resources from task to task to get them done. You may well find it harder to work out what you need to get everything done.
• Communicate success. As tasks get completed, it’s important to recognize success within your team as well as the wider organization, as this will help keep motivation high, which will in turn help boost your productivity. 
• Look for bottlenecks or other issues to resolve. Every process can be improved, so as you track your productivity, look for those tasks where you’re having trouble. You are likely to find that certain issues that are slowing you down will be the same each time, so you can investigate why that’s the case and look into resolving those issues. Use insights such as Performance metrics to spot which tasks have been left in progress for too long and aim to solve them immediately.

Best Kanban boards with time tracking

Looking to implement time tracking in your Kanban board solution? Here are some of the best options on the market.

	Teamhood	Asana	Monday	Businessmap	Wrike	Jira	Kanban Tool
Brand
Capterra rating	4.9/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	4.4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐	4.6/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐	4.8/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐	4.3/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐	4.4/5 ⭐⭐⭐⭐	4.8/5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Free plan	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Business pricing	Paid from $9.50	Paid from $10.99	Paid from $8	Paid from $149	Paid from $8	Paid from $14	Paid from $14
Active time tracking	✅	✅	✅		✅		✅
Tracked time reports	✅	✅		✅	✅	✅	✅
Personal time log	✅					✅
Hourly rates	✅		✅			✅
WIP limits	✅			✅	✅	✅	✅
Swimlanes	✅			✅			✅
Lead & Cycle time	✅			✅			✅

1. Teamhood

Teamhood is a visual tool that offers a good selection of Kanban time tracking and reporting features. With this tool, you can use Kanban time management manually or automatically and then review the tracked time in a customizable timesheet report. You can add a comment to each time log, making it easier to understand what was done during the time spent.

Moreover, you can track project spending by entering custom hourly rates for each team member.

2. Asana 

Asana offers a board with Kanban time tracking options through a third-party app. Using this integration, you can track time in Asana as well as view the Asana timesheet reports for their totals. However, there is no ability to enter the hourly rates, which means there are limited options for tracking the budget.

3. Monday

Monday is a Kanban board tool that allows you to add a time-tracking column to the list view of your tasks. From here, you can start tracking time on the selected item or enter the data after the fact. There is also a possibility of adding the hourly rate and calculating expenses for your efforts. However, there is no Monday.com time tracking report or timesheet report. All the calculations would have to be done manually.

4. Businessmap

Businessmap is the next solution on the best Kanban boards with time tracking list. Here, you can track time on the items live or by entering data after the fact. To review the tracked data, you will have to generate a report that will be then exported to your device.

5. Wrike 

Wrike is another Kanban board tool with time-tracking features. With this solution, you will be able to track time and review the automatically generated reports like timesheet Wrike. Making it easier to evaluate efforts and report to clients.

6. Jira

Jira allows you to log tracked time on issues and then review the tracked data in the time tracking report, which shows how it compares to the original estimate. You can also choose which of your team members can log and edit the tracked time when you need more control over what is going on.

7. Kanban tool 

The Kanban tool is a visual solution that allows one to build the Kanban process and track the results. Here, you will find built-in time tracking and tracked time reporting features. One difference from the other Kanban boards with time tracking is that the tracking starts as soon as you drag the chosen item to an ‘In progress’ column.

Ready to start using Kanban time management in your organization?

Kanban time management is just one of the many useful functions that Kanban software offers. Now you understand how Kanban time management works, you should have a clearer idea of how time tracking could help improve your team or project productivity.

If you’re interested in using Kanban time management in your organization, the logical next step is to research the available options to see which is likely to work best for you. That’s why we put together this article which compares and contrasts the main Kanban software tools with time trackers.