Kanban project management: All you need to know

Trying different project management methodologies is never easy. It disrupts routine, takes time to learn, and often feels like it slows things down, at first.

But for my team, that initial friction was worth it. We’re a smaller team than the others doing similar work, yet we consistently deliver more value, at a higher quality and in less time. Not because I’ve hired mythical developers who work 20x faster, but because we get more out of every hour.

Like many of you, we used to accept the chaos. Constant context-switching. Endless meetings. Unclear responsibilities. That’s just how cross-functional teams worked …right?

But then someone asked the question we’d all  been avoiding: “What if this isn’t the only way to work?”

That’s when we found Kanban project management – a visual, flexible, and intuitive approach to manage work that brings clarity, focus, and flow.

No more wondering who was doing what. No more scattered updates. ProofHub’s Kanban gave us clarity. Bottlenecks stood out. Priorities aligned and the team could easily focus, finish and deliver without drowning in planning sessions.

In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know about Kanban project management – its core practices, principles, and examples. I’ll also walk you through how to use it effectively to organize your tasks, boost accountability, and streamline progress, without overwhelming your team.

What is Kanban?

Kanban is an agile methodology framework that helps teams manage their work and maximize efficiency. At its core, Kanban revolves around visualizing cards representing tasks on a board, and moving them across columns representing different stages of progress – from “To Do” to “Done.”

Origin of Kanban

The story of Kanban begins in the 1940s at Toyota. Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer, was inspired by how supermarkets stocked shelves based on customer demand.

Instead of producing cars in bulk and storing them, Toyota started making just what was needed, when it was needed. They used physical cards (kanban means “signboard” or “visual card” in Japanese) to signal when to restock or move items through production.

As a result, Toyota was able to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and optimize work processes. This became the foundation of the Lean manufacturing approach and the original Kanban system.

Fast forward to today, and Kanban has evolved far beyond factory floors. It’s now a go-to strategy in knowledge work, helping software teams streamline deployments, marketing departments manage campaigns, IT teams track incidents, and HR teams coordinate hiring.

What is Kanban project management?

Kanban project management is an agile approach that relies on the Kanban method for managing projects and improving efficiency. It allows teams to streamline their workflow, collaborate in real-time, reduce overload, and deliver work on time through continuous progress tracking.

How is Kanban project management different from Scrum or Waterfall?

Not all project management methodologies are the same. While Scrum and Waterfall are more structured and often rigid, Kanban is flexible, continuous, and easy to adopt without major changes to how your team already works.

Here’s a quick comparison between Kanban, Scrum, and Waterfall:

Also read – Kanban vs Agile: Separating facts from fiction

Key elements of a Kanban system

A well-structured Kanban system brings order, clarity, and control to complex workflows. To get the most out of Kanban, it’s important to understand the key elements that form its foundation.

These elements enable teams to work more efficiently, stay aligned, and focus on delivering value.

• Cards: Each task or activity that needs to be completed is represented by a card. These cards serve as the fundamental units of work, providing essential information such as:
  • Task name or title
  • Description or requirements
  • Responsible team member(s)
  • Due dates
  • Subtasks, attachments, or comments

When structured well, cards provide immediate context to anyone viewing the board, reducing the need for follow-up meetings or lengthy status updates.

• Columns: Columns represent the steps in your team’s workflow, from the moment work is planned to when it is completed. While the most basic configuration includes “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done,” more advanced workflows may include stages like:
  • Backlog
  • Planning
  • Design
  • Review
  • Testing
  • Ready for release

Each column maps to a stage of progress, making sure that every team member can see where work stands at any time.

• Swimlanes: Swimlanes are horizontal divisions within a Kanban board that allow you to group related tasks. They can be used to separate:
  • Teams (e.g., Marketing, Development)
  • Task types (e.g., Features, Bugs, Admin)
  • Priority levels (e.g., High, Medium, Low)

This structure enhances clarity by organizing work visually, helping managers like you quickly assess workload distribution and overall status across departments or initiatives.

• WIP limits

WIP (work-in-progress) limits in Kanban allow you to set a maximum number of tasks that can be in a specific stage at one time.

This encourages team members to complete existing work before starting new tasks, which helps avoid overload, reduces context-switching, and improves delivery speed.

• Tags and labels: Tags and color-coded labels allow teams to filter, prioritize, and track tasks with ease. These simple markers can help you identify:
  • Task urgency
  • Task category (e.g., bug, feature, enhancement)
  • Task status (e.g., awaiting input, under review)

By using tags consistently, your team can gain valuable insights at a glance without digging into individual tasks.

Foundational principles of Kanban

Before you begin using Kanban boards, it’s important to understand the principles behind the Kanban method.

These six principles help you guide your team with confidence, clarity, and consistency.

1. Start with what you do now

Kanban respects your current processes. Instead of replacing everything, it builds on what is already in place, allowing for measured and sustainable improvement.

This approach makes sure that there is a manageable change, minimizing disruption while maximizing efficiency.

2. Agree to pursue incremental change

Radical change often results in resistance and instability. Kanban encourages small, steady improvements over time.

This gradual adjustment makes sure that your teams adapt without unnecessary strain and learn from each step along the way.

3. Respect current roles and processes

One of the reasons Kanban is widely used across industries is that it does not require a complete restructuring of teams. Your team members keep their roles and responsibilities. Kanban works alongside them, improving coordination rather than disrupting it.

This principle maintains operational continuity, ensuring stability while allowing your team to grow and improve.

4. Encourage leadership at all levels

Kanban builds a culture where leadership is not limited to management roles. It encourages all team members to take initiative, raise concerns, and suggest improvements.

This shared sense of ownership results in higher engagement, accountability, innovation, and better results.

5. Manage the work, not the workers

Rather than monitoring individuals, Kanban allows you to focus on how work flows through your system. By tracking tasks and identifying where bottlenecks occur, you can gain clear insights into team performance without micromanaging.

This builds trust within the team and helps you make more informed decisions as a leader.

6. Evolve collaboratively through feedback

Continuous improvement is an integral part of Kanban. Regular reviews, discussions, and feedback loops help your team adapt and refine processes over time.

By involving your team in these conversations, you can create a culture of learning, transparency, and shared responsibility for outcomes.

Core practices of effective Kanban project management

Kanban’s framework is built around a few practices that help teams work more efficiently. Whether you’re managing a marketing campaign, a development sprint, or cross-functional operations, these core principles can help you bring clarity, focus, and momentum to your team.

Here are the foundational practices that make Kanban an effective approach to project management.

• Visualize your workflow

The first practice is to visualize what you are doing. Setting up a visual board that shows the key stages of the workflow, like “To Do,” “In Progress,” and “Done”, helps everyone quickly understand what tasks are being worked on, what’s pending, and where potential bottlenecks may exist.

When everyone on your team can see the status of tasks, they collaborate effectively, stay on the same page, and it becomes easier to track and manage progress.

• Limit work-in-progress

The second practice is about limiting work in progress, also called WIP. By setting limits, you are not allowed to bring more work in than you are able to handle. 

This may seem counterintuitive, but focusing on fewer tasks actually helps teams get more work done, and do it faster. It reduces multitasking, minimizes context switching, and prevents work from piling up and stalling.

By setting clear limits, you can help your team stay focused, finish what they start, and deliver higher-quality results more consistently.

Let’s understand with an example – Assume a design team is working on marketing assets such as social media graphics, website banners, and email templates. There are two designers in the team, and at any given time, they tend to pick up multiple tasks at once, jumping between drafts, feedback rounds, and revisions.

Without WIP limits, both are working on a minimum of 3 or 4 tasks at a time. The result? There are bottlenecks, missed deadlines, and incomplete work sitting idle.

Now, let’s apply a WIP limit. Set a rule: no more than 2 tasks can be in the “In Progress” column at any time. This forces the team to finish what they’ve started before grabbing the next task.

This makes sure that work progresses effectively through the board. Designers stay focused and hand off their tasks on time with fewer mistakes and last-minute rushes.

• Manage the flow

The third practice is about improving the flow of a process. Once your work is visible and your team is focused, it’s important to actively manage how tasks move through the process.

By regularly checking work progress, identifying bottlenecks, and making adjustments, you can maintain a steady momentum and predictable workflow without overwhelming your team.

Consistently monitoring the work processes allows you to find issues early, address inefficiencies, and keep your team moving in the right direction.

• Make process policies explicit

The fourth practice is being clear about the process and the policies, and the principles behind it. Clarity helps ensure that every team member involved knows and follows the process and can suggest improvements when needed.

Whether it’s how tasks are prioritized, how handoffs happen, or when a task is considered “done,” having clear and agreed-upon rules helps your team work more consistently.

When expectations are clear, people know what’s expected of them and they can do it with confidence.

• Implement feedback loops

The fifth practice involves receiving regular feedback to ensure you deliver the expected functionality with the right quality. Kanban supports this by encouraging frequent check-ins for reflection and discussion, such as daily stand-ups or end-of-week reviews.

These feedback loops help your teams spot issues early, make quick course corrections, and improve collaboration.

Even short, structured conversations can help you keep everyone on your team on the same page.

• Improve continuously

The sixth and last practice is the one that makes Kanban more interesting as well as more complicated. This mindset, known as Kaizen in lean methodology, encourages teams to experiment, reflect, and evolve over time.

You don’t need major overhauls. Often, small, consistent improvements can result in exponential progress.

A culture of continuous improvement makes sure that your team keeps getting better, even when things are already going well.

Why do you need Kanban for project management?

“You can’t manage what you don’t measure” – Peter Drucker, Austrian American management consultant

Without clarity in work, managing projects can quickly become chaotic –  resulting in delays, confusion, and frustration. Kanban provides a structured yet flexible solution. It allows project managers and teams to visually track work, prioritize tasks, and adapt to changes with ease – all while keeping project stakeholders aligned and informed.

Kanban helps teams stay aligned, responsive, and efficient. By making progress visible, it promotes accountability and prevents overload, ensuring smoother execution and better decisions.

Benefits of using Kanban boards

• Visual clarity for all stakeholders: Kanban boards provide a clear and intuitive overview of every task’s status – no need for lengthy updates or status meetings.
• Task prioritization: With Kanban, you can arrange tasks based on priority, helping teams stay focused and aligned on what matters most.
• Bottleneck detection: When tasks accumulate in a particular stage of the workflow, Kanban boards make it immediately visible. This allows managers to spot and resolve bottlenecks early, before they disrupt timelines.
• Real-time status updates: As work progresses, tasks are moved across the board in real time, ensuring everyone stays informed without constant reporting or check-ins.
• Agile-ready for changing priorities: Projects evolve, and priorities shift. Kanban allows managers to quickly reassign, reorder, or reframe tasks without disrupting the overall workflow.
• Enhanced collaboration: Team members can comment, share files and tag each other directly within tasks, keeping all communication in one place.
• Reduced micromanagement: Transparency reduces the need for constant follow-ups. Teams become more autonomous, and managers can focus on strategic planning instead of daily task-checking.
• Better resource allocation: Visibility into team workload allows managers to identify overburdened team members and redistribute tasks to maintain a balanced and productive workflow.

Examples of Kanban boards

Learning about Kanban in theory is essential, but seeing how various teams use it can help you apply it more effectively. Whether you’re leading a marketing department, overseeing product development, managing HR processes, or running a customer support team, Kanban can bring structure and visibility to your daily work.

Here are practical examples of how various teams use Kanban boards to streamline their workflows. Each one is designed to help managers make better decisions, improve accountability, and deliver consistent results without overcomplicating the process.

• Marketing team: Campaign lifecycle

Marketing teams often manage multiple campaigns at once—blog posts, product launches, social media, emails, and more. A Kanban board can help these teams organize every step of the campaign lifecycle, from ideation to launch.

Sample workflow:

1. Backlog (campaign ideas or pending requests)
2. To Do (tasks ready to start)
3. In Progress (content creation, design, coordination)
4. Review (waiting for edits or approvals)
5. Scheduled (approved and scheduled for release)
6. Launched (live and distributed)

This visual layout helps marketing managers spot delays in real time, identify over-allocated team members, and ensure that no campaign gets overlooked.

• Product dev team: Feature lifecycle

For product development teams, speed, clarity, and coordination are everything. A Kanban board enables you to move features from planning to deployment with full visibility into each stage.

Sample workflow:

1. Ideas (incoming feature requests, feedback, and suggestions)
2. To Do (features prioritized for upcoming sprints)
3. In Development (actively being built)
4. Testing (QA, bug testing, or user testing)
5. Ready for Release (approved and ready for deployment)
6. Deployed (live in the product)

This setup gives product managers a clear overview of what’s moving forward, what’s stalled, and what’s ready to ship – without needing multiple status update meetings.

• HR team: Recruitment and onboarding

Recruiting and onboarding are time-sensitive and detail-heavy processes. Kanban helps HR teams maintain control over every step of a candidate’s journey – ensuring nothing gets missed and communication stays smooth.

Sample workflow:

1. New Applications
2. Screening
3. Interviewing
4. Offer Extended
5. Offer Accepted
6. Onboarding

Each candidate can be represented by a card on the board, complete with resumes, notes, interview feedback, and onboarding checklists – all in one place.

• Customer service: Ticket resolution workflow

Customer support teams thrive on quick responses and accurate resolutions. A Kanban board offers a clear, trackable workflow that ensures every ticket is handled with care.

Sample workflow:

1. New Tickets
2. In Progress
3. Waiting on Customer
4. Escalated
5. Resolved
6. Closed

Kanban boards help customer service managers see which tickets are taking longer than expected, who needs support, and how efficiently the team is responding – all at a glance.

Discover more Kanban board examples to start using one

How to use Kanban for project management in ProofHub

A project management tool with Kanban capabilities provides managers visibility, accountability, and control. You can visualize the entire workflow at a glance, identify bottlenecks early, and ensure that no task falls through the cracks.

One such comprehensive tool is ProofHub – an all-in-one project management and team collaboration tool. It brings your tasks, workflows, files, discussions, teams everything together – in a single platform. Its Kanban-style board view allows managers to streamline task management, enhance team collaboration, and track project progress efficiently.

Here is how you can effectively use Kanban in ProofHub for managing your projects:

Step 1: Create a project in ProofHub

The first step to managing your workflow in ProofHub’s board view is to set up a project workspace. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Open the Quick add menu

• Click the “+” icon at the top-left of your screen
• From the dropdown, select “Project”

2. Fill in your project details

You’ll now see a form to set up your project. Here’s what each field means:

• Use a Template (Optional): Check the “Use template” box if you want to start with a pre-built project structure — great for recurring projects.
• Color: Pick a color to visually categorize and filter projects easily.
• Title & Description: Give your project a name and a short description so your team knows what it’s about.
• Assignees: Choose the team members who should be part of this project.
• Project Manager: Select the person who will manage the project. They’ll oversee tasks, timelines, and team collaboration.
• Start & End Dates: Set the project timeline to keep everyone aligned on deadlines.
• Category: Use categories to group similar projects (e.g., Marketing, Design, HR). Helpful for filtering and reporting later.
• Status: Choose a status like Active, On Hold, Completed, or create a custom one to reflect the current state of your project.

Once you’ve filled out everything, click “Next”

3. Choose project tabs

Tabs are the sections that appear inside your project — like Tasks, Files, Discussions, and more.

• Enable or Disable Tabs:
  Only show the ones you’ll actually use.
• Set a Default Tab (Optional):
  Want your project to always open in a specific tab? Select it here.
  If you skip this, the Tasks tab will be the default.

4. Save your project

Click the “Add” button to finish the setup.

Your new project is now ready!

Step 2: Set up task lists to organize work

Once your project is created, the next step is to organize your work by creating a task list. In ProofHub, task lists are used to store a collection of tasks with a default or custom workflow.

Here’s how you can create one:

1. Inside your project window, click on “Add List.”

2. Add the following details in the next window:

• Enter the Title of the list.
• Associate the workflow with the list.
• Add Subscribers.
• Mark the list private if you want it to be visible only to the subscribers.
• Check off the option Display in Gantt to see all the tasks of this list in the Gantt.
• Associate a milestone with the list.
• To track time on the task, Enable time tracking.
• Then, click Add.

3. Switch to Board view

Once the task list is created, you’ll see it in Table View by default. To switch to a visual workflow, click on “Board View” at the top of the screen.

4. Your new task list is now ready!

Now you’ll see the stages of your workflow as columns within the board. This is where your tasks will move from one stage to the next as progress is made.

Note: You can create multiple task lists within a single project to organize work across different functions, deliverables, or teams—making it easier to stay organized and focused.

Step 3: Add tasks as cards

Once your task list is in place, you can create tasks – these are the individual pieces of work your team members will complete. In ProofHub’s Board view, each task appears as a card under the relevant stage of your workflow.

To add a new task to your task list, follow instructions below:

1. Click on the Add button at the top-left and select Task from the dropdown menu.

2. In the task window that appears, fill in the details:

• Add the following details in the new window:
• Enter the Title and Description of the task. 
• Select a Start date and Due date.
• Add Assignees to the task.
• Add Labels.
• Enter the Estimated time.
• Attach files

Once everything is filled out, click “Add.”

3. Your task will now appear as a card under the initial stage.

4. To view or update a task, simply click on the task card to open the Task Detail Window.

From here, you can collaborate on tasks by:

• Leaving comments for communication with team members
• Viewing the task history to view any changes
• Attaching additional files
• Adding subtasks, updating progress, tracking time, or adding other fields as needed

Pro tip: Use labels to show task priority (e.g., High, Medium, Low) or categorize tasks (e.g., Social Media Post, Website, Blog).

Note: You can also customize tasks by adding more fields such as budget or vendor name.

Step 4: Drag and drop to manage progress

As your team works on tasks, they can drag and drop task cards from one list to another to reflect progress.

For example, they can move from “To-Do” to “In-Progress” when work begins or drop into “Done” once done.

This simple action makes it easy to track task progress without needing constant updates or meetings.

Step 5: Monitor progress and adjust

ProofHub’s Board view offers a bird’s eye view of task progress, making it easy to take quick action when needed.

Use filters to narrow down your view, for example, to see tasks assigned to a specific team member, those marked as high priority, or tasks due this week. So you can focus on what’s most important.

You can also:

• Identify overdue tasks to make sure that nothing is missed.
• Track upcoming deadlines to stay ahead of schedule.
• Quickly reassign or reschedule tasks if priorities change or team members are overloaded.

The final word

One of the great things about implementing Kanban project management is that there’s minimal disruption to the status quo. By using existing as-is workflows it helps managers to stay organized, reduce delays, and keep teams aligned. It gives them a clear view of tasks, progress, and workloads – so they don’t miss anything important.

However, using a dedicated project management tool like ProofHub for Kanban project management takes this experience to the next level.

With ProofHub, you get Kanban-style board view along with everything else you need to manage your projects in one place – task management, time tracking, team collaboration, file sharing, reports, and more. You can streamline workflows, boost productivity, and make sure that your team stays on the same page.

Frequently asked questions about Kanban

Is Kanban suitable for all types of projects?

Kanban is a flexible approach that works well for various project types, especially those with continuous workflows, like support, maintenance, marketing, or DevOps. It’s ideal when workloads are unpredictable or priorities change often.

However, for projects that are highly structured, have fixed deadlines, or require strict planning and defined roles, Scrum is usually more suitable, especially when work is done in time-boxed sprints.

Can Kanban work along with Scrum or Agile?

Yes, Kanban can be used alongside Scrum (known as Scrumban) or within other Agile frameworks.

In Scrum, teams often use a Kanban board to visualize their Sprint Backlog while still following Scrum roles and ceremonies.

In Agile, Kanban supports the core Agile principles by encouraging continuous delivery, flexibility, and ongoing improvement.

What are the metrics used to track performance?

The key metrics used to track performance in Kanban are:

• Cycle time: Time taken to complete a task from start to finish.
• Lead time: Total time from when a task is requested to when it’s delivered (including wait time).
• Throughput: Number of tasks completed in a specific time period.
• Work in progress (WIP): Tracks active tasks in a stage to prevent overload or spot bottlenecks.
• Cumulative Flow Diagram (CFD): A visual chart that shows how tasks move through different stages.