Kanban Evernote implementation

[alwayzambitious 16]

Since Leankit and other online Kanban developers dont think we need offline apps, Ill have to make a Kanban board in Evernote.

This post will show different things I have tried that either failed or was successful.

 

Im not interested in using Zapier or Trello. I need a program that when I am on the beach with no internet access, or underground in the train ( Im in New York City)

That I can happily plan.

 

Maybe Im the weird one but its odd no one has built this. Enough complaining here is my proposed solution

 

**Below these are notebooks and notebook stacks

 

1 List of Projects as Notebook Stack

     - Project Name as Notebook

             - Tasks as Notes

2 List of Area of Responsibilities as Notebook Stack

            Financial as Note book

                     Tasks as Notes

3 In progress 

      P1

      P2

      P3

     WIP 

 

4 Review/Continuos Improvement

 

5 Reference Folders

 

 

This is okaay...and I will have to stick with this for now.. but what if the processes are different for each project 

and would need its own workflow, leankit allows for this really well. The only way to do this in evernote 

would be to make each note be one process step and within the note have multiple tasks....

not pretty and hacky huh... For example, it will look something like this.

For this example I will use create website as a project.

 

1 "List of Projects" as Notebook Stack

     - "Build Website" or Project Name as Notebook

             -  "Discovery" or Process Step as Notes

             -  "IA"

             - "Design"

             etc. etc. and within each note will have a list of tasks

 

What do you guys think about that idea....

 

To make it work you would move one task from one process step (ie IA) to another (Design)

 

And then this general workflow below would be for tasks without projects, so that would be satisfied...

 

3 In progress 

      P1

      P2

      P3

     WIP 

 

But jeez clearly its too much work... if you even understood everything above ... I dont need a physical board because i need it portable

and able to handle any number of projects i have... and i dont need a webtool because i hate being locked in to needing internet access..

but to be honest Leankit looks really really good lol...

 

Maybe I will have to change my mind but if anyone has a bettter barebones kanban evernote implementation please share

[Frank.dg 1,385]

 

... but if anyone has a bettter barebones kanban evernote implementation please share

 

I created a series of blog posts on just that - implementing my own version of Kanban in Evernote (which I like to call "Kanban Calendar"). You might find something of worth in the way I set it up. Here's the first post in the series:

 

http://www.productivitymashup.com/blog/2014/10/7/kanban-calendar-evernote-series-1-of-5

[alwayzambitious 16]

Frank,

 

First I want to say thank you, because it was those articles that helped me set this up so far. Thanks a lot for that.

 

The only limitation I see is that it doesnt allow for projects with a different process

as i mentioned in my earlier post...

 

Some boards in Leankit have horizontal lanes that hold different workflows .... and i like that ( see pic below )

Im going to try having another notebook stack that represents each unique workflow I want to represent..

What do you think?

 

Essentially Im asking, how would you display different workflows..not just to do, doing, done?

 

Suggestions?

 

 

 

 

Example Leankit

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Hey @alwayzambitious,

 

If you're a Kanban practitioner, it can be played out in Evernote, however, as you know, unless you create your own tailor-made table in an external program such as MS Word and then copy into Evernote (demonstrated in my first post), you're not going to get the visual appeal of a more complex Kanban workflow. In other words, if you're going to try the approaches outlined in post 2 and post 4 (The Reminder-list setup and the tag-based setup), you're going to get a flat, linear dynamic. 

 

That doesn't mean that you can't have a more "3-dimensional" feel to a linear (and vertical) structure. What I mean by that is that in my "Today" section, you will have noticed that besides the "working on/ doing" and "done" stages, there is also an Eisenhower Matrix in the mix. Everyone has seen the Eisenhower Matrix. A matrix is not linear, but it can be made linear - so instead of working with a quadrant, one would extrapolate it to a linear 1,2,3,4 on either a horizontal or vertical plane. See this preamble for a visual explanation... which includes the graphic I created below:

 

I am now accustomed to using the Eisenhower Matrix concept in both a linear fashion and within an actual quadrant form. So I imagine that one can get used to working with a linear set of notebooks and/or stacks to replace the stages in the image you posted above. Having said that, Evernote is not a Kanban app. The specialist Kanban apps, of course, do have their visual appeal, which may be more preferable in complex project management. By the way, you should take a look at my 2 WorkFlowy Kanban Calendar posts. I have found WorkFlowy to do well with complex projects, laid out Kanban style. Just that you're dealing with a vertical as opposed to a horizontal layout. In addition, being an outliner, one can go to town on indenting with parent/ child nodes, which serves very well for mimicking sub-stages within a stage. The other nifty benefit is that of zooming in on and isolating certain stages and/ or collapsing others, which lends itself to focus and simplicity, especially when attempting to limit your WIP. 

 

As to your suggestion of using another "notebook stack" to represent each new workflow, that may work well. Just tinker until you feel it's a good fit. The advantage of having notebooks in stacks is that you can collapse/ expand stacks in the Left Panel/ on mobile devices in the Notebook list depending on what you want to focus on. Also, remember that if you're going with the Reminder-list setup, you can easily drag and drop reminders between notebooks within the Reminders list on the Windows client. On both Mac and Windows, one can also drag and drop tasks from the Reminders list in the Note list directly into a notebook in the Left Panel. Having stacks to demarcate discrete sub-stages is not a bad idea at all. 

 

Basically, as you are discovering with your tinkering and reshuffling, there is more than one way to visualize the exact same workflow, whether it be on a dinkum Kanban board, within an outliner, in a mind-mapping app or kludged into Evernote's ecosystem. The "visual sacrifice" when re-purposing Kanban in Evernote" is offset by an overwhelming number of benefits, suffice to mention throwing date-specific reminders in the mix, the ability to email and clip material into your Kanban workflow, IFTTT integration, note links within notes, TOC's, audio... basically the full Evernote treatment. It's a bit of a give-and-take affair adapting Evernote to implement the Kanban principles, but there's a lot more taking than giving :-)

[alwayzambitious 16]

Frank,

 

1. Apologies for being misleading, I know Evernote is not a Kanban App the point of the pic was not to show the visual way its displayed to say i want it like that.

But just to show what i meant when i different processes..I am totally fine with it looking as a long list, because the value

there is seeing how many tasks I have at each stage.

 

2.  I saw your workflow posts, workflowy I would use but the thought of not having access to it without internet access on the train turned me off since Im on the train underground often.

Not sure why that is a trend tho. How long did it take you to get used to the fact that you had to be online to access your plans? Ill try it out.

 

3. Ill post my setup when Im done..

 

 

Thanks

[alwayzambitious 16]

Wow Frank, thats funny, your second post on Kanban is the same question I had for you but in regards to Evernote...

http://www.productivitymashup.com/blog/2014/9/5/workflowy-double-kanban

 

Interesting...

[alwayzambitious 16]

http://blog.workflowy.com/2013/12/18/an-offline-desktop-app-for-workflowy/

 

Update, I stand corrected it does have a workaround for an offline version. Ill put it to the test against evernote.

[Frank.dg 1,385]

Frank,

 

1. Apologies for being misleading, I know Evernote is not a Kanban App the point of the pic was not to show the visual way its displayed to say i want it like that.

But just to show what i meant when i different processes..I am totally fine with it looking as a long list, because the value

there is seeing how many tasks I have at each stage.

 

2.  I saw your workflow posts, workflowy I would use but the thought of not having access to it without internet access on the train turned me off since Im on the train underground often.

Not sure why that is a trend tho. How long did it take you to get used to the fact that you had to be online to access your plans? Ill try it out.

 

3. Ill post my setup when Im done..

 

 

Thanks

 

I didn't realize you were being misleading 

 

I'm familiar with some of the Kanban apps themselves, so I was just giving you some ways in how it could most closely play out in Evernote. 

 

Hmmm... WorkFlowy... I use it on iPhone, iPad and the desktop app. To be honest, I can't remember how I installed it... might have been in tandem with Google chrome... but basically I have an icon on my desktop which when I click opens up a distinct but almost identical app to the web app. I never worry about being offline... If I am, whenever I am connected again, all of my devices sync up. I don't ever really use the web app. 

 

Looking forward to your setup!

[Frank.dg 1,385]

http://blog.workflowy.com/2013/12/18/an-offline-desktop-app-for-workflowy/

 

 Ill put it to the test against evernote.

 

Make Evernote and WorkFlowy play nice together.   They're both indispensable in their own ways.

[alwayzambitious 16]

This is not the greatest but im using it for now..

 

 

Major points..

 

1. Inbox at the for tasks I need to do
2. Inbox Ephinanies are for ideas that need forming or things i realize
3. The titles starting with a. b. and c. are my individual process steps. Remember my only with Franks was how to represent different project workflows...I was going to duplicate the 01. Progress stack for every project but that would have been too long vertically. I decided to keep the process in a seperate notebook but keeping the progresst steps and tasks within visible using the "Snippet View". I would manually pull each tasks to the seperate notes... I may change this next month but this is what it is for now.
4. In order to see if i am being balance by completing tasks, another hack is that when i complete items I drag them to the done notebook then tag them  with the project or area of responsibility. yes, this would mean kinda sorta duplicating the project lists i have as notebooks as tags... maybe too hacky
5. Non project tasks go in a notebook for them under 01. In Progress
6. Also In Progress I have the priority level p1, and then the wip limit 7. im clearly not following the limit but thats another stor

Its rough, I made it work 

Maybe Ill give workflowy another shot

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9503377/Screen%20Shot%202015-03-28%20at%208.21.23%20AM.png

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9503377/Screen%20Shot%202015-03-28%20at%207.53.38%20AM.png

 

Hope this post was clear, Its early in the am

[alwayzambitious 16]

Hello Evernote Users,

 

I updated the below so thats out of date, and will post soon.

 

As you can see above, I am deciding to make this post be the "repository" for the workflow for using Scrum Kanban and indirectly Kaizen methodologies.

 

Franks methodology also inspired me, shoutout to him.

 

Even though Evernote is not LeanKit ( and by that I mean visual ) Im learning to give up on that, but focus on using what I have in evernote

while doing my best NOT making it complicated and cumbersome to do so.

 

The reason why Im not using LeanKit is because they and many others do not have an offline option, surprisingly.

 

Stay tuned for the latest iteration...

 

Thanks,

Dwayne

[evernote_rocks 0]

Couldn't one use www.moh.io to get the visualization of a Kanban schedule in Evernote?

[Kvistgaard 0]

I've been using Evernote for Kanban for a few years now. This is my first entry in this forum. I have described how I do it in this post. I wanted to share it here as a new discussion but I couldn't find how to do it - it seems I'm able only to write comments.