What is Kanban Card: Uses, Benefits, and Examples

Overview: A Kanban card is the most straightforward single component of Kanban. Think of it as a kind of sticky note that represents each individual task. Kanban cards are displayed on Kanban boards. They are used to track work and review progress.

Kanban is a work management approach that helps you visualize your work, limit work in progress (WIP), and maximize efficiency – or workflow. A Kanban board is perhaps the simplest way of visualizing the Kanban process; such cards are their key element.

In this post, we discuss the most common components of Kanban cards and provide examples and their uses within Teamhood.

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What is a Kanban card?

Picture a software development team using sticky notes on a whiteboard to represent each item or task they’re working on. As the team works on bugs and features, they move the notes along columns labeled Prioritized, Design, Development, Testing, Blocked, and Done. If you want to learn more about different structures, read our Kanban Card Templates post.

Kanban cards are essentially the same thing—they represent specific work tasks as they progress through a team’s workflow. The cards track the progression of a work item through its various stages so that the team always knows the history and status of any work item at any time.

A card, physical or digital, contains valuable information about the task and its status, such as a summary of the assignment, the responsible person, the deadline, etc.

Below is a digital Kanban card example from Teamhood to see how they look. You can also use this as a template for your own team:

History of Kanban Cards

Kanban is a Japanese term that means ‘visual sign’, ‘visual card’, or ‘signboard.’ Japanese industrial engineer Taiichi Ohno developed Kanban as a concept at the end of the 1940s. Ohno worked at Toyota, the car maker, and had been looking for ways to optimize manufacturing processes at the firm. 

Ohno had observed just-in-time delivery and stocking processes at US supermarkets. He noted that this approach reduced waste and overheads and increased efficiency. He realized this same concept could be applied to manufacturing processes.

Ohno developed an inventory Kanban card system. Each card indicated quantities and signaled workers if those quantities dropped below a minimum required value. This, in turn, triggered a replenishment—or restocking—process that notified the supplier to fill the items that were low in stock. 

Significantly, each card also contained specific requirements, making it easier for suppliers to meet the demand. Toyota used this system successfully for years before publicizing it in the 1990s. After this, it became a staple of Lean manufacturing methodologies worldwide. 

Learn more about Kanban project management practices.

Why Kanban cards are useful

Kanban cards are information hubs that increase work process transparency by providing complete details about work items. Team members can look at a card. At a glance, it provides them with:

• The task overview
• The person responsible for the task
• The task status
• It’s due date
• Significant points or other information about the task that the team needs to know

The benefits of this are that the cards:

• Facilitate smooth and efficient handoffs. The cards contain clear and consistent statements of expectations, making it easy for everyone on the team to read and understand them. When tasks are handed over, there is no loss of data. 
• Increase process efficiency. Kanban cards document the time for a task to go from start to completion – its lead time. This allows team members to spot and resolve bottlenecks quickly. 
• Remove the need for meetings—at least to some extent. Because the cards contain all the most relevant information about the task on the card, members don’t need to have physical meetings so often. This increases the time available for work itself, thereby increasing productivity. 

What Kanban cards look like

As you might expect, Kanban cards have two sides, like other kinds of cards. 

The card’s front side is what you’re looking at when you look at a Kanban board. That’s why this is the side that communicates the most important information related to the task that the card represents, including: 

• Title/Identifier. Each card has a specific name. Sometimes, they also have a number to help speed up identification.
• Task owner/manager. This is the person responsible for the task.
• Due date. This is the deadline/end date of the task.
• Task description. This is a brief explanation of what exactly needs to be done.
• Type of work. This shows whether the task is developing a feature, researching a question, dealing with a bug, etc. A color usually represents the work type to help save time.
• Estimate of time or complexity. Each task usually also includes an estimate of how long it will take to complete.

The back of a task card or the card details in Kanban tools usually contain more information about the task, albeit details that is not so important to take in at first glance. This kind of information includes:

• The project scope. 
• Links or attachments. When talking about digital cards are used to offer more relevant information to the task.
• Comments. Team members can use comments to share thoughts, feedback, or other notes relevant to the task, the process, or the overall project. 
• Subtasks.
• Start and end date.
• Additional data fields.

Looking for a tool to visualize your task cards? Check out the best Kanban board software review.

Different card types

Kanban cards can be digital or physical, although their function is the same regardless. It is more the industry or project context that leads to different types. 

For example, as we’ve seen above, it is common in manufacturing and retail to use cards for inventory. A Kanban card may signal progress on a task, the type of task or job it is, or who is responsible. 

In manufacturing, Kanban cards can take several different types, for example:

• Production cards. A production card is used to signal that production should start. They are also used to track components needed for production. And they can show quantities and the quality of work required.`
• Withdrawal cards. These cards signal that work is completed in an area and needs to move on to the next and that a team is ready to work on the next item.
• Supplier cards. These are used to keep track of suppliers, their contact details, and the type of communications they need to receive.

More specifically, Kanban cards can be used in customer service to capture customer feedback and create actions for customer service teams to progress. In the software industry, Kanban cards facilitate continuous delivery. Teams deliver small and frequent updates on a rapid release cycle rather than letting bug fixes and features accumulate into large launches. 

Creating Kanban Card Templates

A great advantage of digital Kanban software is that it can be used to create Kanban card templates. This is particularly helpful for dealing with recurring tasks in the workflow.

Kanban card templates help avoid duplicating effort and reduce the need for rework. They also provide all team members with a clear understanding of what needs to be done and a consistent format for task completion. 

Here’s an example of what such a template can look like in Teamhood:

Create a design proposal for the office hobby space by tomorrow. The proposal should include three options: one with more free space, another with a board game table, and a third featuring a fruit stand. This Kanban card organizes the task into clear steps with a deadline, ensuring focus, clarity, and progress tracking.

Visual Kanban card examples

It helps to visualize cards – particularly the many different types and uses. Here is how task cards look in Teamhood.

Getting started with Kanban cards

Now that you have a better understanding of Kanban cards and their many different uses, you hopefully have a good idea of how you can apply them in your organization or your projects. Used well, such cards form the foundation of flexible, transparent, and productive use of development or production resources, and they are useful for a whole host of tasks and projects. 

Find out more about Kanban by browsing our fast-growing selection of Kanban resources and research or read more on fostering an Agile environment.

Find out more about how Teamhood’s flexible Kanban system works, or book a demo to see how it could work for you: