Every client can see our week. It looks like Trello and it is not one.
The first thing a client asks after they sign is some version of "so what are you actually doing this week". The honest answer used to be a status call, which is a meeting whose entire purpose is to read out a list.
I run SharpHaw and I built the workspace we run clients in, so this is me talking about my own product. Worth knowing before you read further.
Boards is the surface that killed the status call. If you have used Trello or Asana you already know the shape: columns, cards, drag one across when it moves. Nothing clever there and I did not try to be clever.
Three decisions made it different from the board you already have.
The first is that a card carries its own page. Not a description box, an actual document in the same workspace, with rich text, images, code blocks and comment threads anchored to specific lines. The brief and the task stopped being two objects I had to keep in step. That sounds small until you count how many times you have updated a Notion doc and forgotten the ticket, or the reverse.
The second is that the same cards read three ways. Kanban when you want to watch work move, a table when you want to sort and filter a hundred rows, a calendar when the question is when. One set of cards behind all three, so nothing syncs and nothing drifts. Saved views on top of that, so "everything waiting on my approval" is a thing you open rather than a filter you rebuild.
The third is the one that actually mattered: the client has a login. Not a shared link, not a weekly export. Their own account, seeing the same board I see, with per card visibility so the internal mess stays internal.
Here is what it cost. Boards is a worse project management tool than the one you are using. No dependencies, no swimlanes, no burndown, no automation marketplace. If you are running a twelve person delivery team you will hit the floor of this thing inside a week and you should just use Asana. I optimised for a board a non technical owner can read at a glance without being taught, and every feature I left out was left out for that reason.
The thing I did not predict is what it does to the conversation. When someone can see the queue, they stop asking for updates and start asking better questions. In early engagements the calls changed shape: people turn up with "why is that still in review" instead of "what's the status". That is a more useful conversation and a much less comfortable one for me.
Detail and a screenshot of the board are at https://sharphaw.com/features/boards
What I do, for context: a growth subscription for owner-operated European businesses, run by one senior engineer. Site, ads, content and automations on one fixed monthly fee, month to month, with the week's work visible in the workspace instead of summarised in a report later. Enquiries go through https://sharphaw.com/contact
If you run client work: how do you handle the status question? I am genuinely curious whether anyone has solved it without giving the client a login.
TL;DR: Boards is a Trello shaped surface with three changes. Cards carry their own page, the same cards read as kanban, table or calendar, and the client has a real login. It is a worse project management tool than Asana on purpose, because it is optimised for a non technical owner reading it unaided.
Posted Aug 29, 2026, 1:30 PM UTC