Cross-departmental projects involve people from different teams working toward a shared goal. Product Management defines requirements, Engineering develops the product, Marketing prepares the launch, and Sales gets ready to introduce it to customers.
Each department has its own responsibilities, and individual employees may be involved in several projects simultaneously.
The challenge is to give everyone a clear view of their own work while maintaining visibility across the entire project.
Starbrix Core solves this with connected Kanban boards at different levels of the organization. Project managers can monitor the complete project, departments can manage their work in dedicated Workspaces, and individual employees can follow their assignments in personal Kanban boards.
All these views use the same underlying tasks. Task statuses stay synchronized, while cards can be prioritized independently in each board.
Let's look at how this works in practice.
1. Start With a Cross-Departmental Project
Imagine a company preparing to launch a new product.
The project involves four departments:
- Product Management: Define requirements and specifications.
- Engineering: Develop and test the product.
- Marketing: Prepare the launch campaign.
- Sales: Prepare customer presentations and sales materials.
In Starbrix Core, the company creates a project called New Product Launch with four main tasks representing these responsibilities.
Each task can have its own schedule, responsible person, participants, and status.
The project's Kanban board provides an overview of how the work is progressing.
For example, the board might have three columns:
Not Started → In Progress → Completed
As departments begin and complete their assignments, the corresponding cards move between these columns.
The project manager can immediately see which activities have started, which are still waiting, and which have been completed.
The cards also display planned start and finish dates, helping the project manager identify upcoming activities and deadlines.
However, in a larger organization, each department also needs to manage its work across multiple projects. This is where Workspaces become particularly useful.
2. Connect Project Tasks to Departmental Workspaces
In organizations with clearly defined departments, Starbrix Core Workspaces can be created for each department.
For our product launch example, the company could create four Workspaces:
- Product Management
- Engineering
- Marketing
- Sales
When creating the project tasks, the project manager selects the appropriate Workspace for each task.
Once these assignments are made, the tasks automatically appear in their respective Workspace views.
One Workspace Kanban Board, Multiple Projects
Consider the Marketing department.
It may be involved in several product launches, customer projects, and internal initiatives at the same time.
Instead of opening each project separately, Marketing can use its Workspace Kanban board to see all tasks assigned to that Workspace.
For example:
The Marketing team can manage its work across projects from one Kanban board.
When a task moves from Not Started to In Progress, its status is updated in the original project as well.
The task belongs to the project, but it can also be managed from the department's Workspace.
The Marketing manager can also arrange cards within each column according to the department's priorities. This ordering is independent of how the same tasks are arranged in their original project boards.
This is an important advantage for organizations where employees regularly contribute to projects managed by other departments.
The same principle applies to Engineering, Product Management, Sales, and any other team with its own Workspace.
3. Give Every Employee a Personal Kanban Board
Departmental Kanban boards provide a team-level overview, but individual employees need an even more focused view.
An Engineering employee, for example, might be involved in:
- Developing a feature for Product A.
- Testing a feature for Product B.
- Supporting a customer implementation.
- Participating in an internal development project.
These tasks may belong to different projects and Workspaces.
In Starbrix Core, the employee can use a personal Kanban board to see tasks in which they are involved as the task responsible or a participant.
The tasks are brought together automatically, regardless of which project they belong to.
Manage Daily Work by Moving Cards
A personal Kanban board might look like this:
As the employee begins working on a task, they drag its card into In Progress.
When the work is finished, they move it to Completed.
Because the personal board uses the same task information as the project and Workspace boards, the updated status is reflected across the relevant views.
This gives each person a practical way to manage daily work while keeping project managers and department managers informed.
One task can be visible in the project Kanban board, the department's Workspace Kanban board, and the personal Kanban boards of the people involved.
There is no need to update each board separately.
4. Prioritize Work Independently in Every Kanban Board
One of the most useful features of Starbrix Core is that Kanban boards support both shared task progress and independent prioritization.
In every Kanban board, cards can be dragged between status columns as work progresses. Because the boards use the same underlying tasks, changing a task's status is reflected wherever that task appears.
However, the order of cards within each Kanban board can be managed independently.
This means different people and teams can prioritize their work according to their own responsibilities and needs.
For example:
- Project Kanban: The project manager arranges tasks according to the project's current priorities.
- Workspace Kanban: The Engineering manager prioritizes the department's tasks across several projects.
- Personal Kanban: An employee arranges their assigned tasks in the order they intend to work on them.
- Main Task Kanban: The team organizes subtasks according to the priorities of that particular activity.
The same task may therefore have a different position in different Kanban boards without creating conflicting information.
Planned Dates Help Teams Make Better Prioritization Decisions
Each Kanban card also displays the task's planned start and finish dates.
This makes it easier to evaluate priorities when arranging cards.
For example, an Engineering employee may have five tasks in the Not Started column. By looking at their planned dates, the employee can quickly identify which tasks should be started soon and which have more time available.
Similarly, a department manager can compare upcoming deadlines across multiple projects and arrange the Workspace Kanban board accordingly.
Planned dates are particularly valuable when tasks from several projects appear together. They provide immediate scheduling context without requiring users to open each task individually.
Of course, the nearest deadline is not always the highest priority. Dependencies, customer commitments, available resources, and business importance may also influence the order in which work should be performed.
The combination of shared task statuses, independent card ordering, and visible planned dates makes Kanban useful not only for tracking progress but also for planning and prioritizing daily work.
Each team and individual can organize their own work while everyone continues to share the same underlying project information.
5. Use Kanban Boards Inside Main Tasks to Manage Subtasks
The four main tasks in our product launch example are relatively broad.
For instance, Develop and Test the Product may involve many smaller activities:
- Design the technical solution.
- Develop the required functionality.
- Perform internal testing.
- Correct identified issues.
- Complete final verification.
In Starbrix Core, these activities can be created as subtasks under the main task.
The main task can have its own Kanban board where the subtasks are managed.
This allows the Engineering team to follow detailed progress without making the overall project Kanban board unnecessarily complicated.
Keep Departmental Kanban Boards Focused
An important design choice is deciding which tasks should appear in a department's Workspace.
For example, the main task Develop and Test the Product can be assigned to the Engineering Workspace.
Its subtasks do not necessarily need to be assigned to the same Workspace.
Instead, each subtask can have its own task responsible and participants.
These people will see their assignments in their personal Kanban boards.
The result is a practical division of information:
- Project Kanban: Shows the main project activities and their progress.
- Engineering Workspace Kanban: Shows the main activities assigned to Engineering across different projects.
- Main Task Kanban: Shows the subtasks involved in completing a particular activity.
- Personal Kanban: Shows the work assigned to each employee.
This approach keeps departmental boards manageable while still allowing detailed task planning.
If a department wants to monitor certain subtasks directly in its Workspace, those subtasks can also be assigned to the Workspace.
The structure can therefore be adapted to how each organization prefers to manage its work.
Prioritize Subtasks Without Changing Departmental Priorities
The independent ordering of Kanban cards is particularly useful when working with subtasks.
For example, the Engineering team may decide that a specific technical issue should be handled first within the main task's Kanban board.
At the same time, the Engineering Workspace board may continue to prioritize the main development activities according to their importance across multiple projects.
Individual developers can also arrange their personal Kanban cards according to their own upcoming work.
These different priorities can coexist because the ordering of cards is specific to each Kanban board.
6. Create Reusable Kanban Workflows With Project Templates
Many organizations carry out similar cross-departmental projects repeatedly.
A company might launch several new products every year, introduce new services, or follow a standard process when onboarding customers.
Instead of rebuilding the project structure each time, Starbrix Core allows organizations to create project templates.
For our product launch example, a template could already contain the four main tasks:
- Define requirements and specifications.
- Develop and test the product.
- Prepare the launch campaign.
- Prepare customer presentations and sales materials.
Each main task can already be assigned to the appropriate Workspace.
The template can also contain the subtasks needed to complete each main activity.
What Happens When a New Project Is Created?
Suppose the company creates a new project called Product B Launch using its existing product launch template.
Starbrix Core creates the project with its predefined tasks and subtasks.
The main tasks already have their Workspace assignments, so they appear in the corresponding departmental Workspace views.
For example:
- Product Management sees the new requirements task.
- Engineering sees the new development and testing task.
- Marketing sees the new campaign preparation task.
- Sales sees the new sales preparation task.
Where responsible persons and participants are defined, the relevant tasks can also appear in their personal Kanban boards.
The organization can begin working with a familiar structure without manually creating and organizing every task.
Templates Can Include Detailed Subtask Structures
The template can go further than defining the four main activities.
For example, the Engineering task might already include a standard set of development and testing subtasks.
These subtasks are created automatically with the new project.
The Engineering team can then open the main task's Kanban board and manage the detailed work.
Some subtasks may be assigned to individual employees, while others can be assigned to the Engineering Workspace if department-level visibility is needed.
Templates can also include planned task durations and dependencies, allowing the schedule to be adapted to the new project's start or finish date.
A well-designed project template does more than save setup time. It ensures that new projects immediately fit into the organization's established Kanban workflows.
7. Customize Kanban Statuses for Different Types of Work
Not all departments or project types follow the same process.
A simple three-column board may be sufficient for many activities:
Not Started → In Progress → Completed
But other workflows require more detailed stages.
For software development, a Kanban workflow might include:
Backlog → Ready for Development → Development → QA Testing → UI Testing → Done
For marketing activities, a workflow might instead include:
Not Started → In Progress → Review → Approval → Completed
Starbrix Core allows task status options to be customized to suit different types of projects.
This flexibility is particularly valuable when an organization manages several kinds of work.
The goal is to make the board reflect the actual workflow without introducing unnecessary complexity.
Keep Status, Responsibility, and Priority Separate
These three concepts serve different purposes:
- Status: Describes the current stage of the task, represented by its Kanban column.
- Responsibility: Identifies the task responsible, participants, and relevant Workspace.
- Priority: Can be expressed by the card's position within a particular Kanban board.
For example, a task may be In Progress, assigned to the Engineering Workspace, and positioned at the top of an employee's personal Kanban board.
Another employee or department manager may arrange that same task differently in their own board.
The status remains shared, while the card ordering can reflect different priorities.
This distinction makes Kanban especially useful in organizations where many people and departments collaborate.
8. Coordinate Dependencies Between Departments
Some cross-departmental tasks can proceed independently, while others depend on work being completed elsewhere.
For example, Engineering may need the approved product specification before development can begin.
Marketing may need certain product details before finalizing launch materials.
These relationships can be defined using task dependencies in Starbrix Core's Gantt chart.
Once the dependencies are established, teams can continue managing their daily activities primarily through Kanban boards.
The planned start and finish dates remain visible on the Kanban cards, helping users understand when tasks should be performed.
The Gantt chart supports planning and coordinating the sequence of work, while Kanban provides a convenient way to manage progress and priorities.
The two approaches complement each other without requiring separate task structures.
9. Review Progress and Priorities From the Right Kanban Board
One of the strengths of this approach is that different people can use different Kanban boards during their regular meetings.
Project Meetings
The project manager opens the project's Kanban board.
The discussion focuses on the main activities, their progress, and any obstacles affecting the overall project.
The project manager can also rearrange cards to reflect the project's current priorities.
If more detail is needed, the team can open a main task and review its subtasks.
Department Meetings
The Engineering manager opens the Engineering Workspace Kanban board.
The board shows the department's assigned tasks across different projects.
The team can review upcoming deadlines, discuss priorities, and rearrange cards to establish the order in which work should be addressed.
This does not change the card ordering in the original project boards or employees' personal boards.
Individual Work Planning
Employees use their personal Kanban boards to decide which tasks to work on next.
They can arrange cards according to their priorities, taking planned dates and other commitments into account.
As they begin and complete tasks, they move the cards between status columns.
The same tasks can therefore support project reviews, departmental coordination, and individual work planning.
A Consistent Way of Working
For this approach to work effectively, employees should update task statuses as their work progresses.
Project managers and department managers can then rely on the Kanban boards during regular reviews.
A task that has started should be moved to In Progress. When the work is completed, it should be moved to Completed.
Meanwhile, each team and employee can continuously adjust the order of cards in their own Kanban boards as priorities change.
Shared progress information and independent prioritization make it possible to coordinate work without taking away the flexibility that individual teams need.
10. A Practical Structure for Cross-Departmental Kanban
Let's summarize how our product launch example could be organized.
All these boards provide different perspectives on the same underlying task information.
In every board, users can move cards between status columns and arrange them in their preferred order.
Moving a card to another status column updates the task's shared status. Reordering cards within a board allows priorities to be managed independently in that particular view.
The planned start and finish dates shown on the cards provide additional context for these decisions.
A project manager can monitor the overall project without being overwhelmed by every detail.
Department managers can focus on their own team's work across projects.
Employees can manage their individual responsibilities and priorities from their personal Kanban boards.
And when more detailed coordination is required, the Kanban board within a main task provides an additional level of control.
Make Kanban Work Across Your Entire Organization
Kanban is often introduced as a simple way for a team to visualize its tasks.
But its value becomes much greater when Kanban boards are connected across projects, departments, and individual employees.
With Starbrix Core, organizations can combine:
- Project Kanban boards to monitor overall progress.
- Workspace Kanban boards to coordinate departmental work across projects.
- Personal Kanban boards to manage individual responsibilities.
- Kanban boards within main tasks to organize detailed subtasks.
- Independent Kanban prioritization to let project managers, departments, and individual employees arrange tasks in their preferred order.
- Visible planned start and finish dates to support scheduling and prioritization decisions.
- Project templates to reuse established workflows and Workspace assignments.
- Customizable task statuses to support different working methods.
The result is a flexible structure where each person sees the work relevant to them, while everyone works with consistent and up-to-date project information.
Task progress is shared across the organization, but prioritization remains flexible at every level.
Whether your organization manages product launches, customer deliveries, internal development, or other cross-departmental initiatives, connected Kanban boards can make coordination simpler and more transparent.
Start Using Kanban Across Your Teams
Starbrix Core brings project planning, task management, Kanban boards, and team collaboration together in one flexible system.
Start with a small team, build your first cross-departmental workflow, and expand as your organization grows.
Free for teams of up to three members.
