Kanban boards are beautiful in their simplicity. To Do, In Progress, Done. Work flows from left to right. Progress is visible. Everyone knows what's happening.
It's perfect for manufacturing. It's great for support tickets. But what about creative work?
What happens when you try to put design, writing, strategy, or product thinking on a Kanban board?
The Problem With Creative Work
Creative work doesn't flow linearly.
You don't start with a clear task, execute it, and mark it done. You start with a vague idea, explore it, hit a wall, rethink the approach, sketch alternatives, get feedback, iterate, throw it away, start over.
The process is circular, not linear.
And the "task" isn't always clear upfront. "Design the onboarding flow" sounds concrete, but in practice it's dozens of micro decisions, rabbit holes, and dead ends.
How do you put that on a Kanban board?
The Awkward Fit
Teams try anyway. They create tickets like:
- "Explore design directions for feature X"
- "Draft copy for landing page"
- "Brainstorm ideas for Q2 campaign"
Then they move them to "In Progress." And they sit there. For days. Sometimes weeks.
Because creative work doesn't have a clear "done" state. When is brainstorming finished? When you have three ideas? Ten? When you've found the right one? How do you know it's the right one?
Meanwhile, the ticket languishes in progress, making the board look stagnant. The team looks unproductive, even though they're actively working.
The Workarounds
Some teams try to make it work:
Break it into phases: Instead of "Design feature X," create separate tickets for "Research," "Sketches," "High fidelity mocks," "Iteration 1," "Iteration 2."
Use sub tasks: Keep the main ticket vague, but add concrete sub tasks underneath that can move across the board.
Add a "Review" column: Acknowledge that creative work needs feedback loops. Work moves to Review, gets feedback, moves back to In Progress.
These help, but they also add overhead. Now you're managing ticket granularity and board complexity just to fit creative work into a linear system.
What Actually Works for Creative Work
Here's the truth: creative work might not belong on a Kanban board at all.
Or at least, not in the same way operational work does.
What creative teams actually need:
1. Space to explore
Creative work requires time to wander, experiment, and fail. You can't schedule "have a great idea" for Tuesday afternoon.
A board optimized for throughput creates pressure to keep things moving. That's antithetical to the creative process.
2. Visibility into themes, not tasks
Instead of tracking individual design tasks, track the broader initiative. "We're working on improving onboarding this month." The details don't need to be on a board.
3. Async feedback loops
Creative work thrives on feedback, but not necessarily in meetings. Tools like Figma, Google Docs, and Notion let people review and comment on their own time.
4. Milestones, not micro tasks
Instead of moving tickets across columns, work toward concrete milestones. "Prototype ready for user testing." "Final copy approved." These are meaningful progress markers.
The Hybrid Approach
Some teams use dual systems:
Kanban for execution work: Bug fixes, implementation, deployment. Things with clear start and end points.
Freeform docs for creative work: Design exploration lives in Figma. Strategy lives in Notion. Writing lives in Google Docs.
The board only surfaces the outputs. "Design ready for dev" or "Copy finalized" become tickets when the creative work is done and the execution work begins.
This respects the nature of each type of work instead of forcing everything into the same system.
The Deeper Question
The real issue isn't whether Kanban can handle creative work. It's whether trying to make creative work visible in the same way as operational work is even useful.
Executives want dashboards. Stakeholders want status updates. Kanban boards provide that visibility.
But creative work resists commodification. You can't optimize it for throughput. You can't predict when inspiration will strike. You can't schedule innovation.
Maybe the best thing for creative work is to let it be messy. Track the outcomes, not the process.
If your team is shipping great design, does it matter whether the tickets moved across the board on schedule?
Use Kanban where it helps. But don't force creative work into a system built for manufacturing just because it makes management comfortable.
Let the work breathe.