Why Kanban Works for Small Teams
When you're part of a small team, every minute counts. You don't have time for complex project management methodologies or endless meetings about process. That's where kanban shines—it's visual, intuitive, and gets out of your way.
Kanban originated in Toyota's manufacturing plants in the 1940s, but its principles translate perfectly to modern knowledge work. At its core, kanban is about three things: visualizing your work, limiting work in progress, and continuously improving your flow.
The Three-Column Setup
The simplest kanban setup uses three columns:
To Do – Work that's queued up and ready to start. This is your backlog, prioritized so the most important items are at the top.
In Progress – Work that someone is actively doing right now. This is where the magic happens, but also where bottlenecks can form.
Completed – Work that's done and delivered. This column is satisfying to fill and useful for retrospectives.
This three-stage workflow is intentionally simple. Many teams get tempted to add columns like "Review," "Testing," or "Blocked," but resist that urge initially. Start simple and add complexity only when you have evidence it's needed.
Setting Work-in-Progress Limits
The most powerful—and most ignored—aspect of kanban is WIP limits. A WIP limit caps how many items can be in a column at once.
Why does this matter? Without limits, teams tend to start everything and finish nothing. Context switching kills productivity. When you limit WIP, you force the team to focus and finish work before starting something new.
A good starting point for a team of 4-5 people:
- To Do: No limit (this is your backlog)
- In Progress: 5-7 items (roughly 1.5 per person)
- Completed: No limit
If your In Progress column is always full and work isn't flowing to Completed, you have a bottleneck. That's valuable information—now you can investigate and fix it.
Daily Standups That Actually Work
With a kanban board, standups become simple. Walk the board from right to left:
1. What moved to Completed since yesterday? 2. What's stuck in In Progress? 3. What's coming up from To Do?
This takes 5-10 minutes and keeps everyone aligned. No need for lengthy status reports when the board tells the story.
Making It Work in Practice
Here's what we've learned from teams using kanban effectively:
Keep cards small. If a task takes more than 2-3 days, break it down. Small cards flow faster and give you better visibility into progress.
Update the board in real-time. A kanban board that's out of date is useless. Make updating it part of your workflow, not a separate chore.
Review and improve. Every few weeks, look at your board. Are cards piling up somewhere? Are WIP limits too high or too low? Adjust and iterate.
Don't over-engineer. The best kanban systems are simple ones. Resist the urge to add swimlanes, custom fields, and automation until you've proven you need them.
The Bottom Line
Kanban isn't about following a rigid framework—it's about making work visible and flowing. For small teams, that visibility alone can be transformative. You'll spot blockers earlier, finish work faster, and spend less time wondering what everyone is doing.
Start with three columns. Set some WIP limits. See what happens. That's the kanban way.