How to Design a Kanban Board: Workflow States, WIP Limits, and Blocked Work

Define the Work and Its Start and Finish Points

Define the work represented by one card. Asset production, enquiries, and site changes may have different acceptance conditions. If they share a board, identify how items can be understood and compared. Smaller cards are useful when they represent independently acceptable outcomes, not simply because they make the board look busy.

In this example, work starts when an item moves from Ready into Doing. It finishes when the designated reviewer accepts it into Done. Backlog and Ready are before that start boundary, even though the request has been received and prepared.

The Kanban Guide describes a definition of workflow, start and finish points, WIP control, and explicit movement policies. Process steps may form workflow states; their presence does not disqualify a Kanban board. What matters is that the team can explain its boundaries and policies.

Set Workflow States and Transition Rules

Five columns are used here as an example, not as a maximum. Each state has an explicit exit condition. If people need an owner-specific view, consider card ownership or filtering before creating more workflow states.

A draft being written is not the same as a deliverable being accepted. Ambiguous review criteria create disagreement about whether work is finished. Define where rejected work returns and which version is being reviewed.

Keep cancellations distinct from accepted completion. Also distinguish cancellation before starting from abandonment after starting, so that demand, workload, and throughput are not confused.

Set WIP Limits That Include Waiting Work

WIP is work between the defined start and finish points. Removing a started item merely because it is waiting hides congestion. Here, cards in Doing and Review remain in WIP while waiting for information or approval.

The teaching limits are two in Doing, one in Review, and three across both. They are provisional policies, not a headcount-times-1.5 formula. Capacity, item size, waiting, and reviewer availability should inform a real starting policy.

The usual direction is Backlog→Ready→Doing→Review→Done. Read Doing and Review as one WIP boundary, while retaining their individual limits. Show “waiting” in text on the card and include it in the count. Colour should not be the only way to understand the state.

At the limit, consider helping work finish or clearing a wait before starting more. An urgent exception should identify its authority and impact on existing work rather than silently increasing the limit.

Fill Cards and Decide What to Do at the Limit

Record the ID, deliverable, acceptance criteria, owner, start time, blocker, and next action. These cards correspond to the diagram at 09:00 JST on October 10, 2026.

K01, K02, and K03 already fill the total WIP limit of three. Excluding K01 because it is waiting and starting K04 would create four started items. First ask whether K03 can be reviewed or K01 needs help obtaining its input.

If K03 is accepted into Done, total WIP falls to two. Doing, however, still contains K01 and K02 and remains at its own limit. K04 cannot enter Doing yet. Capacity under both policies could become available when K02 moves into Review.

Read column limits and the combined limit together. If an exception is necessary, record its purpose, expiry, and effect. Routine unrecorded exceptions make the stated policy meaningless.

Review Work Item Age and Throughput

Review WIP alongside completed items per period, the elapsed age of unfinished work, and the elapsed time of finished work. Choose consistent timestamps and calendar-day or working-day conventions.

K03 is unfinished, so its three-day age is not a completed cycle time. Keep cancelled items separate from accepted throughput. Changes in item size or acceptance criteria also affect comparability.

If historical data supports a service level expectation, state the work type, period, and probability. An expectation is not a guarantee for every item. With little history, treat the initial estimate as a hypothesis and collect actual times and waiting reasons.

Adjust the Board with Evidence

Do not judge a limit by whether the team hits it once or twice a week. Look for aging work, persistent review waits, falling completion counts, and disruptive exceptions. Never hitting a limit is not itself evidence of failure.

Change one policy with a clear hypothesis: reserve reviewer capacity, split an oversized deliverable into independently acceptable parts, or clarify an exit condition. Compare like work under consistent measurement, and check that waiting has not merely moved elsewhere.

If the board and campaign cost records live separately, connect card and campaign IDs and assign update responsibility. Different screens do not automatically eliminate duplicate entry.

Xtrategy’s Project Management brings campaign costs, task progress, workflows, and monthly plans into a project context. Start with your required fields and update responsibilities, then assess whether that arrangement fits your team.

References (checked October 10, 2026)

• The Kanban Guide

Related reading

• Marketing Team Task Management: Ownership, Backup, Approval, and WIP Examples
• Weekly Campaign Progress Template: Filled Examples and Review Rules
• What Is Multitasking? Task-Switching Research and Practical Ways to Handle Interruptions