Kanban board examples: the columns 9 kinds of team use

The simplest kanban board has To Do, In Progress and Done. Most boards are this, plus a column or two for the place work tends to get stuck. Add a column when you notice cards waiting at the same step again and again, not before.

2 habits make every board below work better: a WIP limit on the busiest column, so the team finishes before it starts, and one card per piece of work someone could finish in a few days.

Backlog, To Do, In Progress, In Review, Done

Backlog holds everything you might build. To Do is what the team agreed to do next, often for a sprint. In Review catches the pull requests and design checks that otherwise hide inside In Progress. The sprint planning template in craaft starts with these columns.

Reported, Confirmed, In Progress, Testing, Fixed, Won't Fix

Splitting Reported from Confirmed stops the team fixing bugs nobody has reproduced. Won't Fix is a done column too, so closed bugs stay closed instead of piling up. See the bug tracker template.

New, Triaged, In Progress, Waiting on Customer, Resolved

Waiting on Customer is the column that matters. It separates tickets the team can act on from tickets it can't, so the In Progress count is honest. Put a WIP limit on In Progress per person.

Ideas, Writing, Editing, Scheduled, Published

Each post is a card, and its due date is the publish date. Editing is usually the bottleneck, so it's the column to limit. See the content calendar template.

Lead, Contacted, Proposal, Won, Lost

One card per deal, with the next follow-up as its due date. Won and Lost are both done columns, so dead deals leave the board instead of lingering. See the sales pipeline template.

Applied, Screening, Interview, Offer, Hired, Not Hired

One card per candidate, with their CV and interview notes on it. A WIP limit on Interview stops the team booking more interviews than it can give proper attention to.

Now, Next, Later, Shipped

Columns show order without promising dates. Real dates, like a launch, go on milestones beside the board. Keep Now short. See the roadmap template.

To Do, Doing, Waiting, Done

A personal kanban board is the 3 basic columns plus Waiting, for things you've started but can't finish until someone replies. Limit Doing to 2 or 3 cards, and the rest of the list stops feeling urgent. See the task tracker template.

To Sort, To Pack, Packed, Unpacked

A board isn't only for work. One card per room or per job, like "Book the van" or "Redirect the post", with due dates on anything tied to moving day. Columns are just the stages things go through.

1. Write down the steps a typical piece of work goes through, in order. Each step is a candidate column.
2. Merge steps that are always done by the same person at the same time.
3. Add a waiting column where work regularly stalls on someone outside the team.
4. Mark the last column, or columns, as done.
5. Put a WIP limit on the busiest column.
6. Run it for 2 weeks, then change what isn't working.

In craaft you can rename, reorder, colour and add columns at any time, and set a WIP limit on any column. Start from the kanban board template, or browse the templates.