Tour Tailors boosts efficiency with Kanban Zone and Create IT

The Challenge

Tour Tailors’ creative team plays a vital support role within the organization, handling hundreds of requests from various internal departments, such as travel consultants and back-office professionals. However, their email-based task management system was causing significant issues:

• Overwhelming volume: With 200-300 weekly requests, it was difficult to track what needed to be done and prioritize tasks effectively.
• Lack of visibility: Team members and directors had no clear view of task progress or bottlenecks, making it hard to assess productivity and plan for future needs.
• Collaboration challenges: The creative team needed a better way to coordinate efforts, manage resources, and measure their impact on overall business objectives.
• Inconsistent metrics: Without a way to measure task completion times and workloads, resource allocation and planning were guesswork.

"Before Kanban, everything was managed through email, which made it hard to track priorities or even know if all requests were being effectively addressed. It felt chaotic, and identifying bottlenecks was nearly impossible," starts by explaining Diana Ramos, Director of Product at Tour Tailors.

The Solution

Tour Tailors’ journey to agility began with guidance from Create IT, their long-time technology partner, who recommended adopting Kanban methodology and implementing Kanban Zone as the tool of choice. This approach was tailored to the team’s specific needs, ensuring a smooth transition and long-term success.
Key aspects of the project included:

• Adopting the agile mindset: With Create IT’s coaching, the team embraced the agile principles of transparency, collaboration, and continuous improvement. Kanban, a highly visual and flexible framework, proved to be the ideal fit for their dynamic workflows.
• Implementing Kanban Zone: Kanban Zone’s user-friendly interface allowed the team to centralize task management, define workflows, and track progress in real-time. Create IT worked closely with Tour Tailors to customize the tool, setting up columns, labels, and boards to reflect their unique processes.
• Metrics and automation: Tour Tailors leveraged Kanban Zone’s built-in metrics and extended its capabilities by connecting it with Excel through APIs. This enabled the team to measure task completion times, forecast workloads, and plan resources effectively.
• Team alignment and collaboration: Daily stand-ups, supported by the Kanban board, fostered a collaborative culture where team members could easily see what needed to be done, identify bottlenecks, and support one another in real-time.

"Kanban Zone gave us the visibility and metrics we needed. It’s user-friendly, and with Create IT’s help, we customized it to fit our workflow perfectly," highlights Diana Ramos. "The entire team quickly embraced it once they saw how much easier and rewarding it made their work. Everyone is now more aligned, motivated, and productive."

From Kanban Zone’s perspective, their flexibility stood out as a key factor: "Kanban Zone is designed to adapt to every team’s unique needs. Tour Tailors’ creative use of our platform and their commitment to agile philosophy are exactly what we envision for our users," says Dimitri Ponomareff, Founder and CEO of Kanban Zone.

The Results

The adoption of Kanban Zone and Kanban methodology has delivered transformative results for Tour Tailors:

• Streamlined operations: Task management is now centralized, and priorities are clear, enabling the team to handle requests efficiently.
• Enhanced visibility: Real-time updates provide a clear view of progress, helping team members and directors stay aligned and address bottlenecks quickly.
• Improved team motivation: Team members feel more fulfilled seeing their daily accomplishments, fostering a positive and collaborative work environment.
• Data-driven decisions: Customized dashboards and metrics allow for better resource allocation, workload planning, and long-term forecasting.
• Scalability: Kanban Zone’s flexibility ensures that the tool can grow with Tour Tailors, accommodating new teams and projects. 

"With Kanban Zone, we’ve gained the structure and visibility we needed to handle our requests effectively. It has also improved team collaboration, happiness and morale. Everyone understands their role and how their work contributes to our goals," reflects Diana Ramos.

According to Dimitri Ponomareff, "Tour Tailors’ integration of Kanban Zone demonstrates the power of combining agile methodologies with the right tools. We’re thrilled to see how it’s driving their success."

Tour Tailors is currently exploring ways to further expand the use of Kanban Zone, including automating task creation for travel consultant requests. By integrating forms with Kanban Zone, they aim to make the process even faster and more efficient. As Diana Ramos emphasizes, "We plan to continue using Kanban Zone as our multi-team coordination software, especially as our teams and projects grow. The possibilities for automation and further customization are exciting."