A kanban board is a visual board that shows work as cards moving through columns, from left to right, one column for each stage of the work. The simplest kanban board template has three columns: To do, Doing and Done. Each card is one piece of work, and anyone can see at a glance what's waiting, what's in progress and what's finished.
What makes it kanban, rather than just a to-do list, is two rules: the columns match how your work really flows, and you limit how many cards can sit in the "doing" columns at once. This guide gives you a basic template, ready-made column sets for five kinds of teams, how to set work-in-progress (WIP) limits, what to write on a card and how to run a short weekly board review.
A basic kanban board template
Start with five columns. They work for most teams, and you can rename them later once you see where your work actually waits.
| Column | What goes here | WIP limit |
|---|---|---|
| Backlog | Ideas and requests nobody has committed to yet | None, but review it weekly |
| Ready | Work that's agreed, clear enough to start and next in line | About one week of work |
| In progress | Work someone is actively doing | One or two cards per person |
| Review | Work waiting for a check, feedback or approval | Roughly half the In progress limit |
| Done | Finished work, cleared at each weekly review | None |
The Ready column is the one most teams skip, and it's the most useful. It separates "someone asked for this" from "we've agreed to do this next", so the team always knows what to pull when they finish something.
Kanban board templates by team
The columns should match the stages your work goes through. Here are five column sets you can copy.
Software development
Backlog → Ready → In development → Code review → Testing → Released
Keep code review and testing as separate columns. Code waiting for review is one of the most common bottlenecks, and you can only see it if it has its own column.
Marketing content
Ideas → Briefed → Writing → Design → Review → Scheduled → Published
"Briefed" means the piece has an audience, a goal and a channel. Ideas without a brief stay in Ideas, which keeps the writers from starting work that changes direction halfway through.
Agency client work
Requests → Scoped → In production → Internal review → Client review → Approved → Delivered
Splitting internal and client review shows how much time work spends waiting on the client. Add the client's name to each card, or use one board per client.
Operations and internal requests
New requests → Triage → Waiting on someone → In progress → Done
A "Waiting on someone" column stops blocked work from hiding in In progress. Write who you're waiting on, and since when, on the card.
Personal kanban
This week → Today → Doing → Done
Limit Doing to one or two cards and Today to three. The point of a personal board is to finish things, not to list them.
How to set WIP limits
A work-in-progress limit is the maximum number of cards allowed in a column at once. When a column is full, nobody starts anything new there; they help finish what's already in it. It feels slow at first, and it's what makes work flow faster.
- Start loose. Count the people who work in each column and set the limit to that number, or a little more.
- Watch for two weeks. Note which column fills up and stays full. That's your bottleneck.
- Tighten one column at a time. Lower the limit on the bottleneck's upstream column, so work stops piling up in front of it.
- Treat a full column as a signal. When review is full, the next step isn't to start more work; it's to review something.
What to write on a kanban card
A card should make sense to someone who wasn't in the conversation. Keep it short, but include:
- A title that starts with a verb. "Write onboarding email 2", not "Onboarding".
- One owner. Others can help, but one person moves the card.
- A due date, if there's a real deadline.
- A done rule, in one line: "Done when the email is approved and scheduled."
- Links to the files or the conversation it depends on.
- A blocker note, when it's stuck: what it's waiting for, from whom, since when.
If a card would take more than a week, split it. Big cards sit in one column for days and hide whether anything is happening.
Use the kanban board template in Nova
Open the kanban board template in the process library to start a whiteboard session with the board already laid out, then rename the columns for your team.
How to run a weekly board review
A board only stays useful if the team looks at it together. Twenty minutes a week is enough. Work from right to left, so you talk about finishing before you talk about starting.
- Done (2 minutes). Note what was finished, then clear the column.
- Review (5 minutes). For each card, agree who reviews it and by when.
- In progress (5 minutes). Ask what's blocking each card that hasn't moved since last week. Move blocked cards to a blocked column or mark them.
- Ready (5 minutes). Check that the next cards are clear enough to start and in the right order.
- Backlog (3 minutes). Move up to a week of work into Ready. Delete cards nobody will ever do.
If you track one number, track how long cards take from Ready to Done. When it goes down, the board is working.
Kanban board vs scrum board
| Kanban board | Scrum board | |
|---|---|---|
| Time frame | Continuous. Work flows in whenever there's room. | Fixed sprints, usually one or two weeks. |
| What limits work | WIP limits per column | What the team commits to at sprint planning |
| When the board resets | Never. Done is cleared regularly. | At the end of every sprint |
| Roles | None required | Product owner, scrum master, team |
| Best for | Requests, operations, content, client work, support | Product teams building in planned increments |
Many teams mix the two: they plan in sprints and add WIP limits to the board. Pick kanban when work arrives unpredictably and priorities change weekly.
Kanban in Nova
In Nova, a kanban board lives in a whiteboard session. The whiteboard is an infinite canvas, and its toolbar lets you add a kanban layout, sticky notes, tasks, text, comments, shapes, arrows, files and links. Each card is a sticky note you move from column to column, and the session's people work on the same board, live or in their own time.
When a card needs a real owner and a date, open the sticky note's menu and select Convert To Task. The task gets assignees, a start and due date, a priority, a checklist and comments, and it shows up on the assignee's Tasks and Calendar pages, so the board and everyone's to-do list stay in step.
For the weekly review, add a Board Timer to keep each column to its time slot. To run the review every week, make the session recurring with Make recurring (this needs Nova Pro).
Common kanban board mistakes
- Columns that don't match the work. If cards regularly skip a column or wait somewhere that isn't on the board, change the columns.
- No WIP limits. Without them, a kanban board is a to-do list with extra steps. Everything ends up In progress.
- A backlog nobody prunes. A backlog of 300 cards hides the 10 that matter. Delete freely.
- Cards with no owner. Cards owned by "the team" don't move.
- Hiding blocked work. A card stuck in In progress for two weeks is a blocker, not progress. Mark it and talk about it.
- Never looking at the board together. The board is the agenda of your weekly review. Without the review, it goes stale within a month.
Frequently asked questions
What columns should a kanban board have?
Start with Backlog, Ready, In progress, Review and Done. Then rename or add columns to match the stages your work actually goes through, such as code review and testing for software, or client review for agency work.
What is a good WIP limit?
Start with roughly one or two cards per person in each active column. Watch which column stays full for two weeks, then lower the limit on the column in front of it so work stops piling up at the bottleneck.
What is the difference between a kanban board and a scrum board?
A kanban board runs continuously and limits work with WIP limits per column. A scrum board resets every sprint and limits work by what the team commits to at sprint planning. Kanban suits work that arrives unpredictably; scrum suits planned product increments.
How often should a team review its kanban board?
Once a week works for most teams, in about 20 minutes. Walk the board from right to left, so finishing work comes before starting new work. Teams with fast-moving work also glance at it in a short daily standup.
Can I use a kanban board template in Nova?
Yes. The kanban board template in the process library starts a whiteboard session laid out as a kanban board. Each card is a sticky note, and you can convert any sticky note into a task with an owner and a due date.