What is our primary use case?
Predominantly, we are using LeanKit for our agile management. Basically, we are a PMO. We belong to the PMO organization within our company, and we deploy products that are used by our project management team. Typically, we use LeanKit for that purpose.
LeanKit is a SaaS application. They update the version, and everybody gets the same version, as far as I understand. I don't think we are going to be in a prior release and then jump into the new release.
How has it helped my organization?
We have a monthly release cycle. Before using the LeanKit board, we used to use many other tools, and we always would see the crunch on the day we needed to release. Sometimes, our work would extend into overtime. We have also seen some of the features slip through the cracks in the sense that we would miss releasing them. It was, in a way, a bit chaotic. Once we started using LeanKit, we haven't missed a single feature from deployment. We are also able to better manage the capacity so that we're not over-booking ourselves for work where there is no capacity, and that has really helped. For over a year now, we have not missed any deadline.
It helps us not to over-promise. Basically, the motto we all have is "Under-promise, over-deliver." That's what it helps us do. So, we know what we plan to deliver, and we don't crush ourselves by promising beyond our capacity.
We use LeanKit's board and card hierarchies. We have an initiative board, which is basically a high-level board where any new projects that are coming into the pipeline, or basically into the backlog, will move from one lane into the other. This helps the scrum master in looking at how the projects are moving. We also have trial boards, where the stories, the features, and the tasks are managed. For example, if there are a couple of projects that are impacting a particular feature, then we can link those two projects to this feature so that we know which updates are impacting which projects or initiatives. This way, whoever is managing the projects will know the progress of work as well as the impact on those individual projects. So, it removes the risk of doing something that will impact some other project. These boards help us this way, and it is one of the many examples.
It provides a visual ability to look at the deadlines. When we use a card, we always have a scheduled finish date. As the date is approaching, the color of the date icon changes, so it has a visual way to say that we are nearing the finish date, which makes us take a look at it and check whether we can meet the deadline or not. So, as we are near a deadline, the date icon's color changes to yellow, and once we pass that date, it changes to red. When it is in yellow state, we do a deeper review of the card and see whether we are still okay or not, and most of the time, we are okay with those dates. If not, it helps us to replan and see where we go from there. This is absolutely helpful in project delivery.
The main thing is that we know what's in the current sprint and what we have planned to deliver. We know what those dates are. All the deliverables are in front of our eyes in the form of cards, like a schedule. There are lines, dates, etc. We know who is working on what. We typically have a daily standup meeting in the morning in which we review the cards in the Develop lane. We have multiple processes, and in general, if somebody is working on a feature, we already know what is happening. We do a one-minute review of each card and look at it and say, "Hey. Are we still on target? Is there any issue that is stopping us from working on that feature or functionality?" That's basically what it is. So, we know whether we will make it or not. It basically gives us the flexibility to look at any risk to delivery beforehand, and that way, make adjustments so that we won't miss a delivery.
We use the Card Health feature, and we also use other reporting features on the card. Generally, we do a review on a daily basis where we are with things. We are a small team, and we know what's happening with each card and whether we are going to make it or not. So, we already know what's happening on each card, and typically, only when we are doing our sprint introspection, we go and take a look at the predictability aspects. We sometimes look at the predictability that a particular report is giving during the standup meetings, but usually, we review the Card Health information retrospectively to see whether we can make any improvements in the future so that it is much smoother.
The Card Health feature activity stream affects our project management and delivery, but we have always looked at this after the fact. We usually don't use that on a daily basis. However, we do look at every card every day so we know where it's going. We will get to know if there is any risk in delivering a certain feature. It takes our attention to those cards to say that there is something going on with it, and we need to look at it. It needs a different analysis.
The board analytics helps with the speed and looking at how we are doing. It helps us to see if we can accommodate additional features within the sprint. In case, we have everything on target, we can pull additional cards to work on them, and board analytics helps with this. It also tells us how we are doing and how we are estimating.
LeanKit has reduced our cycle times because as we finish the planned work, we now know if there is more room to do additional work. So, we have the ability to know how we are doing. In this sense, it has easily reduced 50% of cycle time.
What is most valuable?
Every feature is valuable. LeanKit is a Kanban-based tool where you have a visual interface that you can use to create various cards and to create boards to house those cards. You can create a board for managing project work. You can create a board to do PI planning. It is pretty close to the agile way of doing business.
The Board Layout Editor is excellent in terms of flexibility. They have been improving its usability. Their development is very much agile, so for any feedback that we give them, they let us know if and when they would act on our request for enhancements or change, and then they make those changes. They are responsive.
What needs improvement?
Within the current features, if they can give some ability to show more icons on the card, it would be helpful. It would help us in showing more data on the cards.
For how long have I used the solution?
I have been using this solution for close to three years.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
In the last three years, I have only seen it once that LeanKit was not available. They had a technical glitch for about 10 to 15 minutes. That was the only time, and it was only for a brief duration. Otherwise, it has been pretty stable. I've not seen any issues with performance either.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
It is very much scalable. We started with one board, and over time, we have transformed our work into multiple boards. We have links within each board. So, it is very flexible.
Currently, mostly the project management team uses it. We have about 20 users who are using LeanKit. We have analysts who do the development work, and we also have project managers and program managers who use it. We do plan to increase its usage in the coming years.
How are customer service and support?
I have not used their technical support for an issue. I have only used them when we needed to renew our secure certificate.
We've been using LeanKit for almost three years. In the beginning, we weren't much aware of it, but now, we are very much aware of it. The reason for not using their help is because we know how the application works. New people in our organization have to go through the videos that Planview has provided for LeanKit. We also give peer-to-peer training. So, in general, we all know this application because we've been using it for a while now.
LeanKit conducts a webinar every month. We attend those webinars so we know what the new features are. That webinar also shows how we all can use it. In a way, we are getting trained by attending those webinars.
Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?
Before LeanKit, we were using Planview's Enterprise One application, but that application was more for the traditional way of project management, but of late, I feel it is gearing more towards agile. So, we've used that, but mostly, it used to be spreadsheets. We replaced spreadsheets with LeanKit, and the plan is that we're going to integrate Planview LeanKit and Jira. That's the future vision.
How was the initial setup?
It was very straightforward. LeanKit is a SaaS application, so implementation is mostly configuration. There is no on-prem option for LeanKit.
You buy the licenses, and Planview implements the space for you. They provide template boards that you can use to have a quick start, and then, you can modify them to fit your process, which makes it very simple. They have templates for various methodologies. They have a template for sales; they have a template for DevOps. There are quite a lot of templates. We picked their templates for PI planning, and it was very quick.
One of the main processes for its implementation is that you need to get all the security clearances and establish a single sign-on. Once the paperwork was complete, it took a week. We did have a strategy, and we went through that. So, basically, most of it was securing IT security clearances. Because this is a SaaS application, we needed to ensure that we comply with all the security requirements before we use the application. We had to ensure that we have non-disclosure agreements and business associate agreements with any company we do business with, so we had to get an agreement in place. After that, we bought the licenses that we wanted.
Once that was done, we had meetings with the Planview LeanKit team to set up a single sign-on. We didn't want to use a specific user ID password, so we discussed implementing that and the requirements associated with it. They worked with our IT infrastructure team to get the setup for single sign-on, and they had to do certain integrations with our other internal systems so that we had the ability to add users and manage users. We worked with Planview to get the single sign-on in place and set up all the certificates for a secure connection, and we got access.
We had already done prep work on how we planned to implement the boards and how we planned to do our work, so we started with it. Then over time, we have reformed our boards and the methodologies on implementing as we learn more and more to make our work efficient.
It doesn't require any maintenance. They update the version regularly. Sometimes, we can request to be added to some of the features that they have implemented so that we can do testing or something like that.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
As far as I understand, it is not an expensive application.
Which other solutions did I evaluate?
We already had Jira in our organization, so we looked at Jira. We decided to go with LeanKit because we were looking for a simple Kanban-based application. Because we had already used Planview's Enterprise One application, we thought we could try LeanKit and see how it works, and we have been with it for three years.
What other advice do I have?
I would highly recommend this solution to others. I would definitely ask others to take a look at the application and evaluate it. We have really benefited from it from the delivery perspective as well as from the perspective of planning the work. It is very simple and intuitive. It doesn't need too much training. Any new person who comes in can pick up the features and start using it very easily.
The LeanKit team has been adding new features, which is another good aspect. They have very recently introduced KPIs, which is where the industry is going. We hear a lot about it. Even our organization is talking about KPIs. LeanKit is very responsive to any feature requests that we provide.
We have Jira in our organization but not in our team. We have only been using LeanKit. We don't use its integration with Jira at all, but we do have plans for that.
I would want to rate it a 10 out of 10, but I won't because there is always room for improvement. So, overall, when compared to all Kanban-based tools, I would rate LeanKit a nine out of 10.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.