Noon van der Silk

Zen Kanban

We are all familiar with the standard kanban/agile board settings:

• Backlog: Things we’re ignoring for now
• Todo: Stuff we’ve got to do this “sprint”
• In progress: Stuff we’re working on now
• Done
• Blocked

There are many variants on these names, but they’ve remained pretty standard over all the organisations I’ve worked in.

I myself now prefer a buddhist-inspired variant; namely:

• Background (was: backlog): Items floating in the expanse of consciousness.
• Awareness (was: todo): Items present in the mind.
• Sparking joy (was: in progress): Items presently being enjoyed directly.
• Thank you (was done): Items that have passed their time with us, for now.
• Impermanence (was blocked): Items temporarily on hold.

It at least lets me feel more relaxed about almost every column :)