As we mentioned earlier, with Kanban, there is by default no sprint planning, so instead of having a view for backlog grooming, everything happens on the Kanban board directly. Working with the Kanban board is very simple; newly created issues are added to the first column of the board directly, named Backlog (by default), as it acts as your backlog of issues with Kanban. Members of the team will then grab issues from the Backlog column, assign the issue to them, and move them through the workflow. During various stages, issues may need to be reassigned to other users—for example, when an issue leaves the development stage and enters testing, it may be reassigned to a test engineer. As more and more issues are completed, you can configure the board to automatically take completed issues off the board after a period of time or perform a release, which will take all issues in the Done column from the board (still in the system). The first option is good for teams using Kanban for general task management, and the option to use releases fits better with software development where versions can be released.

Let's look at an example of the Kanban board, as shown in the following screenshot, in which we can clearly see that we have problems in both the In Development and In Testing phases of our process. In Development is highlighted in red, meaning that we have enough work there, which is a sign of a bottleneck. In Testing is highlighted in yellow, which means that we do not have enough work, which is a sign of efficiency:

With this, the board is able to visually tell us where we are having problems, which allows us to focus on these problem areas. The bottleneck in the In Development phase could mean that we do not have enough developers, which causes the efficiency in the In Testing phase, where our testers are simply sitting around waiting for work to come through.

This raises a common question—what should be the correct constraints for my columns? The quick answer is, try and experiment as you go.

The long answer is, there is no single correct, silver bullet answer. What you need to understand is that there are many factors that can influence the throughput of your team, such as the size of your team, a team member leaving or joining, and the tasks at hand. In our example, the easy solution would be to lower the limit for both columns, and then we are done. But often, it is just as important for you to find the root cause of the problem rather than trying to simply fix the board itself. Perhaps what you should try to do is get more developers on your team so that you can keep up the pace that is required for delivery. The take away here is that the Kanban board can help you pinpoint the areas of a problem, and it is up to you and your team to figure out the cause and find the appropriate solution.