Templates · Ideas & planning

Kanban

A shared picture of where the work stands (agreed, in progress, finished) and a decision about what is stuck.

What it is

Three columns that show where a set of work stands: agreed but not started, in progress, finished. Used as a session, the board is a snapshot: everyone puts what they know on it, and the team reads the result together.

Goal

An honest, shared picture of the work: what is really finished, what is in progress and who holds it, what was agreed and never touched. Then a decision about what is stuck.

When to use it

• To review the actions agreed in earlier retrospectives before adding new ones.
• In the middle of a release or a migration, to check where it stands.
• When the team feels busy and cannot say what it has finished.

When to pick another format

This board looks at the work and has no column for how the team works together: for that, take a retrospective such as Start, Stop, Continue. If the list of things to do is not agreed yet, sort it first with Idea Prioritization. If the work waits on people outside the team, RAID Log has columns for risks and dependencies. The board is filled during a session and does not replace the place where the team follows its work day by day.

How to run it

Name the scope first: the actions of the last retrospective, this release. Ask everyone to write one card per piece of work, in the column that matches its state today. Correct the placement during grouping, while a card can still be dragged from one column to another.

1. To do: agreed, not started. For each card, ask whether it is still agreed, and drop on purpose the old items nobody defends.
2. Doing: every card needs a name, the person working on it right now. A card without one goes back to To do. If the column holds more than the team can work on at once, ask what to finish before anything new begins.
3. Done: finished and verified. Ask how the team knows; what is almost done belongs in Doing. Read this column aloud: it is the proof that the team moves.

For each card stuck in Doing, agree on the next step, an owner and a date.

Columns

To start a retrospective from this template, see Create a retro.