doodlepostit00HOW A CARD BOARD WORKS
One note per job. Three columns. A limit.
A sticky-note board shows what is waiting, what is under way and what is done, so everyone can see the work at a glance. The useful part is the limit: only so many notes are allowed in the middle column at once.
Read your board01Principles
02THE SHORT ANSWER
The board shows the work.
The limit on the middle column does the rest.
VISUALISE
Write each piece of work on its own note and move it from To do to Doing to Done. The board becomes a shared picture of the work that anyone can read.
Read your boardLIMIT
The Kanban Guide says teams must explicitly control how many items are started but not finished, and start a new one only when there is room.
Why it helpsMEET
UK government guidance suggests a daily stand-up of 15 minutes or less, at the same time each day, to talk about the work and anything that is stuck.
Set one up03A QUICK BOARD CHECK
Pick what you see in the middle of your board. The bar shows how strongly the flow guidance points to doing something about it.
Based on The Kanban Guide (May 2025) and Little's Law as described by MIT. General information about organising work.
04TWO NUMBERS WORTH KNOWING
One figure on switching between jobs,
one on the factory problem the card idea grew from.
≈ 40%
Productive time lost to switching, at most
The American Psychological Association reports psychologist David Meyer's view that brief mental blocks from shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone's productive time. Fewer open jobs means fewer switches.
SWITCHING · APA
30,000+ parts
Parts in one car, all needing to arrive in step
The Japanese car-making system that inspired kanban had to coordinate more than 30,000 parts per car, making only what is needed, when it is needed and in the amount needed.
JUST-IN-TIME · CAR MAKING
John Little published Little's Law in 1961. MIT describes it as L = λW: the number in a system equals the arrival rate multiplied by the average time each item spends there.
05FOUR STEPS TO A FIRST BOARD
You need a wall, a whiteboard or a large sheet of paper, a pad of notes and a thick pen. The rules matter more than the kit.
To do, Doing and Done is enough to start. Add a column later only if a stage keeps hiding work, such as waiting for a reply.
Write a short verb-first task on each note, big enough to read from a step back. Put them in To do in order of priority.
Pick a limit for the middle column, write it at the top and stick to it. Start a new note only when one moves to Done.
Meet at the board briefly at the same time each day: what moved, what is stuck and what to pull next.
06WHERE THE CARDS CAME FROM
Card-based kanban has its roots in a Japanese car maker's production system, built around making only what is needed, when it is needed and in the amount needed, so that parts are pulled through the line rather than piled up.
Office teams adapted the idea for knowledge work: The Kanban Guide says the practices now called Kanban mainly took shape on one software team in 2006. UK government guidance lists Kanban among the three most popular agile methods.
07Questions
It is a board that shows work as cards or notes moving through stages, often To do, Doing and Done. The Kanban Guide calls it the visual form of a team's agreed workflow.
Controlling work in progress creates a pull system: you start a new item only when there is capacity. The guide says this helps flow and often improves the team's focus and collaboration.
A result published by MIT's John Little in 1961. It states that the number of items in a system equals their arrival rate multiplied by the average time they spend in it, and it applies from factories to health care.
No. The Kanban Guide says the approach is not limited to one industry, has been used in finance, utilities, health care and software, and can be used at any scale.
Either. UK government guidance says a team wall can be a physical wall or a digital board for remote teams. What matters is that everyone can see what is done, under way and still to do.
08Sources
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