Kanban boards help teams visualize work and identify bottlenecks before they become problems. Setting up WIP (Work in Progress) limits and swimlanes from the start will keep your team focused and prevent work overload.
Creating Your Kanban Board
Navigate to Projects > Create project > Kanban. Choose your project template and give it a meaningful name like "Marketing Campaigns" or "Bug Fixes."
Your board starts with three default columns: To Do, In Progress, and Done. Most teams need more granular stages.
Step-by-Step Column Setup
- Go to
Board Settings > Columns - Click Add Column to create stages like "Code Review" or "Testing"
- Drag columns to reorder them logically
- Map each column to appropriate Jira statuses
Setting WIP Limits
WIP limits prevent team overload by restricting how many items can be in each column simultaneously.
- In
Board Settings > Columns, find the Max issues field - Set limits based on team capacity (start with 2-3 items per person)
- Leave "To Do" and "Done" unlimited
When a column hits its limit, Jira highlights it in red, signaling the team to finish current work before starting new tasks.
Adding Swimlanes for Organization
Swimlanes group related work horizontally across your board. Go to Board Settings > Swimlanes and choose:
- Stories - Groups by epic or story
- Assignee - Shows work by team member
- Queries - Custom JQL groupings like priority levels
Pro tip: Start with "Stories" swimlanes to group related tasks under their parent epic. This makes sprint planning much clearer.
Your Kanban board is now ready to help your team work more efficiently with clear workflow stages and built-in capacity management.