We have mentioned that Kanban is a visualization tool where you group your tasks by columns, vertically, and by swimlanes, horizontally. Such a structure allows you to see the steps of tasks work and divide it by your own criteria (projects, activities or even by urgency). You can create a board by templates to see the way you can group your tasks. 

Let’s consider swimlanes and columns more closely. 

A little tip for you -  double click on the empty space of a board to create column or swimlane. 

As you may notice there are three types of a column - To Do, In Progress and Done. These three statuses allow you to collect data for reports - how much time tasks were in the queue, how much time they were in progress and when they were completed. 

You can create as many columns as you want and name it as statuses or steps of developing, but they will be one of these three types. Each created column categorizes the stages of your work. The number of columns and its statuses can be different depending on your daily routine and work you are doing. 

Each column shows you the number of tasks, the sum of story points and hours estimated in this particular column. 

By clicking on the plus icon you create a new column or by double-clicking somewhere on the background. You’ll be opened the pop up to type the column name and choose its type and kind. 

There are two kinds of columns - Simple and Composite. A simple column is a single task list. Composite one is a column with two sub-columns - In Progress and Done. To make a Simple column as a Composite one click on the three dots menu of the column and choose “Edit Column”=> Type “In Progress”=> kind “Composite”. 

You can use a composite column in order to reflect the status of each task better. This kind of column helps your team to collaborate with each other. For example, you are a copywriter and you write the article that should be reviewed by your colleague - you move it to Review column, sub-column “In Progress”. Once your article is checked and moved to the sub-column “Done”, it means that you can correct the mistake or publish the article. At the same time, this column kind can be used to divide the completed and uncompleted tasks of Developers and Testers, Support and Sales teams and etc. 

To complete your tasks click on the pencil icon and then on Mark as Done, your task will be moved to the Done column. Or you can drag-and-drop to the Done column. 

are the horizontal columns that give more structure to your Kanban board. It is used to group tasks by a certain criterion, so your team can easily focus on the tasks. You can use swimlanes to separate tasks by urgency, projects, its assignee or departments.

You can create swimlanes as columns: by clicking on the empty space of a board and on the plus icon. There is one more way to create a new swimlane on the Board Menu. Please, open it and click on Create Swimlanes. 

Swimlanes can be collapsed and expanded, so you will see tasks you need at this particular moment. As on columns you can see the number of tasks in it, the sum of hours estimated and story points.

We advise you to start as simple as possible, so your board won’t be overwhelmed with columns and swimlanes. You can start with the three main statuses. There is always the possibility to add new columns and swimlanes. If you create plenty of it, there is a chance that you won’t be focused on work and you’ll have some unused columns or swimlanes.