Kanban

Why It Matters

Most teams struggle with visibility: nobody has a clear, shared picture of what is being worked on, what is blocked, and what is waiting. Kanban solves this by making work visible. When every task is represented as a card on a board, the team can see at a glance where work is flowing and where it is stuck. This shared visibility replaces status meetings, reduces duplicated effort, and surfaces bottlenecks before they cascade.

How It Works

Kanban originated in Toyota's manufacturing system in the 1940s as a way to manage inventory using visual signals (kanban translates to "visual card" in Japanese). In knowledge work, the method was adapted by David Anderson in the mid-2000s. A Kanban board has columns representing workflow stages. Work items (cards) move left to right through columns as they progress. The board itself becomes the single source of truth for work status.

The Role of WIP Limits

The most powerful feature of Kanban is the ability to set WIP (work-in-progress) limits on each column. A WIP limit caps how many items can be in a given stage at once. When a column hits its limit, no new work can enter until existing work moves forward. This prevents the chronic overloading that slows everything down. Research consistently shows that limiting work in progress increases throughput and reduces cycle time.

• Every work item is visible on the board with its current status
• WIP limits prevent overloading any stage of the workflow
• Bottlenecks become visually obvious when cards pile up in a column
• The team pulls work when capacity is available rather than having work pushed onto them

Kanban vs. Scrum

Kanban and Scrum are often compared but serve different needs. Scrum uses fixed-length sprints with committed scope. Kanban uses continuous flow with no fixed iterations. Scrum prescribes specific roles and ceremonies. Kanban starts with whatever process you have and improves incrementally. Many teams use a hybrid ("Scrumban") that combines sprint cadences with Kanban's visual management and WIP limits.

Getting Started

The simplest way to start is with three columns: To Do, In Progress, and Done. Map your current work onto cards and set a WIP limit on the In Progress column (a good starting point is two items per person). Run this for two weeks and observe: where do cards get stuck? Which column accumulates the most cards? These observations tell you where your process needs attention.