Guides
How to design your board's columns to match how work really flows
Generic To-do / Doing / Done columns hide where work actually waits. The right columns mirror your real stages, one per handoff or wait, so the board shows you the truth.
Key takeaways
Map the real stages
List every step work passes through, waits included.
One column per handoff
Add a column wherever work changes hands or waits.
Split ready vs in-progress where it piles up
Only at the one or two busy handoffs.
Cap at ~7 + write a done-definition
Keep it scannable; define each column's exit.
1. Generic columns hide your real problem
To-do / Doing / Done is where every board starts, and it's almost always too coarse. "Doing" lumps together work that's actively moving and work that's stuck waiting for a review, a part, or an approval, so the one thing you most need to see, where work piles up, is invisible. The fix is to make your columns mirror the actual stages your work passes through, including the waits. The board's job is to show you reality; generic columns blur it.
Model the flow you have, not the one you wish for
It's tempting to design columns around an idealised process. Don't, design them around how work actually moves today, including the messy waits. A board that matches reality surfaces problems; a board that matches the org chart's fantasy just hides them behind tidy-looking columns.
2. One column per handoff or wait
The practical rule: add a column wherever work changes hands or has to wait for something. If a job goes design, then build, then a quality check by a different person, then packing, those are four real stages, not one "Doing". The handoffs are exactly where delays hide, so giving each its own column makes the queue at each step visible. You're not adding bureaucracy; you're making the waiting you already have show up on the board instead of in people's heads.
3. Split 'waiting' from 'working' where it matters
A powerful refinement at busy handoffs is to split a stage into a "ready" (done with the previous step, waiting to be picked up) and an "in progress" lane. Suddenly you can see the difference between work that's actively moving and work sitting in a queue, which is the single most useful signal a board can give you. You don't need this everywhere, just at the one or two handoffs where things pile up. It turns "we're swamped" into "twelve jobs are waiting to be picked up at the quality step". Pair the split with WIP limits on the in-progress half to prevent the queue from rebuilding.
4. Keep it under seven, with a done-definition each
There's a ceiling. Past roughly seven columns the board stops being scannable at a glance, which defeats its whole purpose, so resist modelling every micro-step. And for each column you keep, write down what "done with this stage" means, the exit criterion, so a card only moves right when it genuinely qualifies. Columns that mirror reality plus a clear definition of done per column is what makes a board in Production Board read the same way for everyone instead of drifting into private interpretations.
FAQ
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Written by
Julia Yukovich
Co-Founder + CEO
Julia is one of the Co-Founders. She handles design, development, product direction, and most of the support replies that arrive in the morning.
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