How to Build a Kanban Board

The basic Kanban board

This is the basic Kanban board.

It’s a pull system. You populate everything that you can possibly think of (as of now) of what you or your team want to do in the Backlog. From the Backlog you pull items that you want to take care of in the near term (e.g. this week) into the To Do column. Anything that you are currently working on goes into the WIP (work-in-progress) column. Finished worked is moved into the Done column.

You can build a Kanban board for just yourself, or for your team. If it’s for your team, build it together.

You can build a Kanban board anywhere you want. You can build it on a physical wall with post-its, on PowerPoint, on digital whiteboards such as Mural and Miro, and on dedicated software such as Trello, Asana and Jira.

Backlog building step 1: Define your team or product/service goal

First, let’s build the Backlog.

Start with your goal. What is your personal or team goal? Or product/service development goal?

Articulate it and write it down.