How to make a kanban board or a retro

A kanban board shows work as cards in columns, one column per stage, so you can see at a glance what’s waiting, what’s under way and what’s done. The same board makes a retrospective: one column per question, one card per thought.

Three columns: To do with “Write the release notes”, “Fix the login bug” and “Plan the next sprint”; Doing with “New pricing page” and “Customer interviews”; Done with “Set up the domain”. — To do, doing and done: each card moves right as the work gets done.

Step by step

Pick Kanban from the Diagram menu and click New kanban. Type the first column’s name, press Tab for the next one, and Escape when you’re done. Tab on the last column adds another.
Click a column’s name to select it, then click Card and type. Press Enter for the next card below it (Shift+Enter for a new line in the card).
As work moves on, drag its card to the next column. Drop it between two cards to put it there; the column tidies itself and grows to fit.

A retrospective

For a team retro, start from Board menu → New from template… → Retrospective: columns for what went well, what to improve and actions, each with its own card colour. Everyone adds their cards, you group similar ones by dragging them together, and the Actions column is what you take away.

Tips

Keep cards short: one task or one thought, a few words each.
Limit how many cards can be in Doing at once; a full Doing column means it’s time to finish, not start.
Give a column another colour of card for a different kind of work, like bugs.
To reorder columns, drag one sideways past another. Deleting a column deletes its cards; Ctrl+Z (or ⌘+Z) brings them back.

Mermaid

Export Mermaid… writes each column as a subgraph holding its cards. Pasting that text back gives zones rather than columns. More on Mermaid import and export.