Kanban

Updated September 30, 20262 min read

In short

Kanban is an Agile method that visualizes work on a board of columns and limits how many items can be in progress at once to keep work flowing smoothly.

What is Kanban?

Kanban is a way of managing work that makes every task visible on a board and controls how much work is in progress at the same time. The Japanese word kanban means signboard or visual card, and the idea comes from the Toyota Production System, where cards signaled when a factory station needed more parts. It was adapted for software and other knowledge work in the mid-2000s, most notably by David J. Anderson.

A Kanban board has columns that represent the stages of work, such as To Do, In Progress, Review, and Done, and each task is a card that moves from left to right. The key rule is a work-in-progress (WIP) limit: a column may only hold a set number of cards, so the team must finish work before pulling in something new. Teams track metrics such as cycle time, the time a card takes to move from start to finish, and throughput, the number of items finished per week, to spot bottlenecks.

Kanban suits work that arrives continuously and unpredictably, such as support tickets, operations, maintenance, and bug fixing, but many product teams use it as well. Think of a busy coffee shop: the barista only starts a new drink when there is room on the counter, so orders keep moving instead of piling up half-finished.

Kanban is often compared with Scrum. Scrum plans work in fixed-length sprints with defined roles, while Kanban has no sprints and no required roles; work is pulled whenever there is capacity. A board with columns alone is not really Kanban either: without WIP limits and attention to flow, it is just a task list.

Key takeaways

Kanban shows each piece of work as a card on a board of columns.
Work-in-progress (WIP) limits cap how many items each stage can hold.
Work is pulled when there is capacity, not pushed on a fixed schedule.
Kanban has no fixed-length sprints and no required roles.
Cycle time and throughput are common measures of flow.

Example

A Kanban board with WIP limitsyaml

# Each column is a stage; wip_limit caps how many cards it can hold
board: Web team
columns:
  - name: To Do
    cards: [Add search filter, Fix login timeout, Update docs]
  - name: In Progress
    wip_limit: 3
    cards: [Dark mode toggle, Export to CSV]
  - name: Review
    wip_limit: 2
    cards: [Password reset email]
  - name: Done
    cards: [Signup form validation]

Readers ask

What is a WIP limit in Kanban?

A WIP (work-in-progress) limit is the maximum number of cards allowed in a column at one time. When a column is full, the team helps finish existing work instead of starting new work, which exposes bottlenecks and shortens cycle time.

Is Kanban better than Scrum?

Neither is better in general. Kanban fits continuous, unpredictable work such as support and operations, while Scrum fits teams that benefit from fixed planning cycles; some teams combine the two in a hybrid often called Scrumban.

Does Kanban use sprints?

No. Kanban uses a continuous flow of work instead of fixed-length iterations, although teams may still hold planning and review meetings on a regular schedule.

Often compared

Scrum vs KanbanScrum organizes work into fixed-length sprints with set roles and goals, while Kanban is a continuous flow on a board that limits how much work is in progress.