What is a kanban board?

When your team is facing a daunting amount of work, a kanban board comes in handy. This visual project management tool can help you plot out your workflows, spotlighting important to-dos and potential bottlenecks. With kanban boards, team members can easily see what needs doing to consider a job well done.

Read on to learn more about:

• What a kanban board is, and how it's used across industries
• Benefits of kanban boards, plus a best-practice example
• How to apply the kanban process, including FigJam tools to get started

What is a kanban board—and how does it work?

A kanban board allows teams to organize all their project activities in one place, making it easy to stay in sync while keeping track of progress on key tasks. A kanban board also helps teams bubble up any problems that need ironing out to get projects across the finish line.

Key elements of a kanban board

A kanban board applies an agile framework for project management, with these key visuals:

• Columns labeled To Do, Work in Progress, and Done. Kanban boards can also include a backlog column for new work not yet assigned or prioritized. You can always add more columns to show task status, such as In Review, Testing, or Deployed.
• Cards or sticky notes represent work items or tasks. (Kanban means visual card in Japanese.) With a brand-new project, cards start out in the To Do column. Key stakeholders (such as the product owner) can move cards from column to column, giving team members a clear view of where things stand in the project pipeline.

Putting the kanban method to work—from cars to apps

Toyota’s Taiichi Ohno developed the kanban system in the late 1940s to support its lean manufacturing process. Kanban’s agile project management approach helped streamline different types of work. Toyota used pull systems (aka just-in-time, or JIT, manufacturing) to manage work in progress, boost throughput, and foster continuous improvement. Today, Toyota’s kanban methodology influences workflow management practices across automotive, software development, healthcare, and other industries.

Benefits of kanban boards

Kanban boards allow teams to work smarter, not harder. That’s because they provide clear visual cues that let key players quickly see what they’re on the hook for and when. This helps teams better communicate and collaborate to drive a smooth flow of work. Teams stay aligned on project goals, knocking out tasks with greater speed and precision.

Kanban boards can also support scrum, an agile methodology that involves development sprints with one- to four-week cycle times. When used together, kanban and scrum (aka scrumban) can help devops teams adapt to change in near-real time.

Best practice example of a kanban board

A well-organized kanban helps teams to easily identify bottlenecks, simplify workflows, and make quick adjustments as needed. A kanban works for a wide range of projects, from new product builds to major marketing campaigns. To see best practices in action, check out this kanban board example in the Figma community.

How to create a kanban board in 5 easy steps

Kanban boards are easy to create and implement in just five steps:

1. Build out your workflow on a whiteboard or use Figjam’s kanban template. Identify the steps you’ll need to complete key tasks. Then create columns, or swimlanes, to represent each project stage.
2. Record tasks on cards or sticky notes. Each kanban card represents a specific to-do item. Assign roles and responsibilities, then add the cards to your kanban board.
3. Limit work in progress (WIP), or the number of tasks displayed in each column at any given time. Setting WIP limits on tasks to complete before handoff keeps teams focused and productive. Start with conservative limits in your kanban, so team members aren’t juggling too many tasks at once.
4. Manage your workflow, setting up clear process policies to help guide stakeholders from start to finish. Following project kickoff, move cards across your kanban columns to mirror progress.
5. Drive continuous improvement, using metrics (e.g., lead time, cycle time, and throughput) to gauge kanban process performance. Allow for feedback loops to make fixes that keep improving your workflow.

Build better kanban boards with FigJam

Start mapping out your project activities using FigJam’s online whiteboard or kanban template. With FigJam’s ready-made template, you can use your kanban to:

• Visualize team and individual tasks. Just add colored sticky notes to the To Do, In Progress, Completed, and Backlog columns.
• Track and update progress. Ask team members to drag-and-drop tasks as they finish.
• Spur better teamwork. Invite key stakeholders to collaborate, adding updates and feedback to improve your workflow.

Want to see more kanban board examples? Check out helpful kanban boards shared in the Figma community, like community member Dimm’s kanban board, which already has 8,000 downloads.

Ready to streamline project work?