HiWhiteboardHow to use a Kanban whiteboard
Updated
A Kanban whiteboard shows work as cards that move through stages from left to right. Teams have done this for years with tape and sticky notes on a wall. This guide shows how to keep the same habits on HiWhiteboard’s online Kanban board, and where a browser board behaves differently from a wall.
1. Copy your columns
Start with the stages work really goes through. If your wall board says To do / Doing / Done, open the Kanban board template, which already has those three columns. If you track personal tasks, the personal Kanban template adds Backlog and This week.
Rename a column from its ⋯ menu. Add columns with + Add column (see the limits). Keep the list short; most boards work with three to five stages.
2. Write one card per piece of work
A good card title starts with a verb and is small enough to finish in a few days: “Review draft”, not “Blog”. Add a description for details, a label for the kind of work, a priority, and a due date if one exists. Cards hold plain text only.
3. Move cards as work changes
Drag a card by its handle (⋮⋮) to another column or a new position. On a touchscreen, press and hold the handle before dragging so that normal scrolling still works. Every move is also available without dragging: open the card’s ⋯ menu and choose Move up, Move down, or Move to …. Keyboard users can focus the handle, press Space, use the arrow keys, and press Space again to drop.
Made a mistake? Undo (Ctrl/Cmd+Z) reverses card and column changes during the current session.
4. Limit work in progress
A WIP limit is the maximum number of cards a column should hold. Set it from the column menu. When a column goes over its limit, the count turns red and a short warning appears. HiWhiteboard never blocks the move — the point is to notice the overload and finish something before starting more.
5. Review the board regularly
Once a week, look at three things: cards that have not moved, columns that are over their limit, and what reached Done. Use search and the label and priority filters to focus; filtering only hides cards and never deletes them.
6. Know what is different from a wall board
- Visibility: a wall board is visible to everyone in the room. A HiWhiteboard board lives in one browser. Share your screen in meetings, or export a PNG for a status update.
- Editing: only the person using that browser edits the board. There is no shared team workspace or live sync.
- Safety: a wall board can be wiped by accident; a browser board can be lost if site data is cleared. Download a Backup file from the Export menu regularly.
7. Export and print
- Backup file (.hiwhiteboard.json) keeps every column and card, and can be imported later as a new board.
- PNG image draws every column and card title from the board data. Large boards are split into several readable pages.
- Print or save as PDF opens a clean list view in your browser’s print dialog. Saving as PDF depends on your browser and system.
Templates for this guide
- Kanban board template — To do, Doing, and Done columns with a WIP limit of 3 on Doing.
- Personal Kanban template — Backlog, This week, Doing (WIP 2), and Done for personal tasks.