Kanban basics
What Is Kanban?
Kanban is a method for managing work: visualize every task on a board, limit how much is in progress, and keep work flowing from Backlog to Done.
Play with a real board
Click a task to select it. N adds, E edits, D deletes, and Left/Right moves the selected task between columns.
To Do
5Try dragging me to In Progress →
Use the mouse or keyboard to move tasks across columns.
Press N to add a task
Create new work without leaving the keyboard.
Press E to edit the selected task
Change titles or descriptions inline.
Press D to delete it
Remove tasks once the work is done.
Your agent could move this to Done over MCP
This board is the same shape your agent can use in Kanboard.
In Progress
0Done
0From factory floors to software teams
Kanban started at Toyota in the 1940s. Factory stations used physical cards (kanban means signboard in Japanese) to signal upstream stations to send more parts. The insight: let demand pull work through the system instead of pushing work in and hoping it fits.
In the 2000s, software teams applied the same idea to knowledge work. Tasks became cards, process stages became columns, and the pull signal became an empty slot in a column. Today a kanban board is the default way developers, product teams, and increasingly AI coding agents coordinate work.
The three core practices
Visualize the work
Every task is a card on the board. Nothing lives in your head, a chat thread, or a hidden spreadsheet. When all work is visible, priorities and bottlenecks become obvious.
Limit work in progress
Cap how many tasks can be in flight at once. Finishing beats starting: WIP limits force focus and surface the stage where work gets stuck.
Manage flow
Watch how long cards take to cross the board (cycle time) and how many finish per week (throughput). Improve the process where cards stall, not where it feels busy.
How to start with kanban
Create three columns
Start with Backlog, In Progress, and Done. Add columns like In Review only when your process actually needs them.
Write tasks as cards
Add every piece of work as its own card with a clear, finishable outcome. Put them in the Backlog in priority order, most important on top.
Set a WIP limit and pull work
Limit In Progress to two or three cards. Pull the top Backlog card only when a slot frees up, and move cards right as work completes.
Wondering how kanban compares to sprint-based methods? See kanban vs scrum for a side-by-side comparison, or browse board templates to start from a proven column setup.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a kanban board?+
A kanban board is a visual workspace divided into columns that represent stages of work, such as Backlog, In Progress, and Done. Each task is a card that moves left to right as work progresses. The board makes the state of every task visible at a glance.
What does kanban mean?+
Kanban is a Japanese word that means signboard or visual card. Toyota introduced kanban cards in the 1940s to signal when factory stations needed more parts. Software teams adopted the idea in the 2000s to manage knowledge work the same way: visualize demand, and pull work only when there is capacity.
What is a WIP limit?+
A work-in-progress (WIP) limit caps how many tasks can sit in a column at once, for example at most three tasks in In Progress. WIP limits prevent starting too many things at the same time, expose bottlenecks quickly, and push the team to finish work before starting more.
How is kanban different from a to-do list?+
A to-do list shows what needs doing. A kanban board also shows where each task is in the process, who or what is working on it, and where work piles up. WIP limits and columns turn a flat list into a flow you can measure and improve.
Can AI agents use a kanban board?+
Yes. Kanban's pull-based model maps directly onto how AI coding agents work: an agent picks the top task from the backlog, moves it to In Progress, does the work, and moves it to Done. Kanboard exposes the board to agents like Claude Code over MCP so they can work it the same way you do.
Put kanban into practice
Kanboard is a keyboard-first kanban board built for developers and their AI agents.