How to set up a kanban board for a small team

Start with three or four columns that mirror how work already moves through your team — typically Backlog, In progress and Done — put every current task on a card with one owner, and only then think about limits and refinements. A board that describes reality is useful on day one; a board that describes an ideal process is abandoned by week two.

For a team of three to ten people that is the whole setup. The value comes from everyone seeing the same picture, not from the sophistication of the columns.

The steps

1. Write down the stages a task actually passes through today, in the words your team already uses.
2. Turn those stages into columns. Three or four is right to start; a column nobody moves cards into is a column you do not need.
3. Create a card for every task currently in flight, including the ones living in someone’s head or inbox.
4. Give each card a single owner. Shared ownership is how work stalls without anyone noticing.
5. Add whatever detail the team genuinely needs — due dates, labels, checklists — and nothing more.
6. Invite the team and agree one rule: the board is updated when work moves, not at the end of the week.
7. After a week or two, look at where cards pile up and add a WIP limit to that column.

Choosing your columns

The most common starting layout is Backlog → In progress → Done. Teams that review each other’s work usually need a fourth column before Done. Resist adding more than that at the start: every extra column is another place for a card to sit while everyone assumes someone else is looking at it.

• Backlog — everything agreed but not started. Keep it ordered, so “what is next” is answered by looking, not by discussing.
• In progress — work someone is doing right now, with their name on it.
• Review — only if review is a real step in your team, not a formality.
• Done — finished work. Archive it periodically or the column becomes unreadable.

WIP limits, and when to add them

A work-in-progress limit caps how many cards a column can hold. It is the mechanism that turns a board into a system: when the limit is reached, the team finishes something before starting anything new.

Add limits after you have watched the board for a week or two, not on the first day. You cannot guess where work piles up — but you can see it, and the answer is usually different from what the team expected.

Keeping it alive

• One card, one deliverable. “Redesign the website” is a project, not a card — split it until each card is a few days of work at most.
• No card without an owner, including in the backlog once work is scheduled.
• Move cards as work moves. A board updated on Fridays is a report, not a board.
• Review the backlog on a regular cadence and delete what nobody will ever do. An honest short list beats an aspirational long one.

Doing it in Ettex

Ettex Board gives you columns, drag-and-drop cards, assignees, priorities, labels, subtasks and comments — and it sits next to your documents, chat and calendar, so a card can reference the actual document rather than a copy of it.