Digitalization has been embraced by millions of companies all over the world and the number of companies providing digital services keeps growing. Since digital projects are often very complicated, there is a need for project management systems. Unlike one might think, a growing numbers of Digital Firms are preferring the more traditional analog tools for their project management graphs instead of the digital tools.    

A quote from one of our customers summarizes it: “There are lots of digital tools available, but none of them beats collaboration in the same room with pens and whiteboards in simplicity”.

Board vocabulary (why not learn a little Finnish though):

– Muhimassa: Processing

– Työn alla: Work in Progress

– Odottaa: Waiting

– Tuotannossa: In Production

– Valmis: Done

Different Static Note colors represent different category of the task:

– Green: Videos

– Pink: Visual design

– Blue: Text production

– Yellow: Online tasks

– Orange: Other tasks

Different Static Note sizes indicate the duration of the work:

– Smallest: less than 1 day

– Medium size: 1-7 days

– Large: more than 7 days

According to the article, the project manager suggested giving up on Trello (since the digital tool was not updated regularly) and trying out a physical whiteboard instead. There was no resistance, and in a few days there were two large whiteboards in the office, since the whole team basically works in the same space.

In addition to notes, they agreed that initially everyone would have two magnets with a picture of their choice that would limit the amount of Work in Progress (WIP). Thus, there can be a maximum of two tasks at a time. In addition, they agreed to comply with the FIFO (First In, First Out) principle, i.e the tasks will be carried out in the order in which they arrive on the to-do (or processing) list, taking into account time limits and priorities.

Personalizing the board with a team is nice and moving notes by hand is more satisfying than dragging and dropping pixels with the mouse. During a short morning meeting, it is also more natural to stand in front of a whiteboard.

In addition, customizing the board is quick and easy when new needs arise. For example, they added another section to the board for urgent tasks called On Fire. In matters requiring a quick response, the task card is brought directly into the On Fire section and the magnets of the necessary persons are transferred there to tell who is participating in the extinguishing tasks.

Which Innox Products to use for your Project Wall?

We recommend using 10×7 cm sized notes for the short tasks, 10×10 cm notes for the medium tasks and 20×10 cm notes for the longer tasks. The multicolor packs are very useful in each size as you can categorize the tasks by using different colors. If there is no chance of installing a physical whiteboard, you can also try a Static Whiteboard. 

For projects like this we have created Project Set XXL that contains a tube of 20 Static Whiteboards, and multicolor 5-packs of 10×7 cm, 10×10 cm, and 20×10 cm Static Notes.