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Took me 2 years to realize I was overcomplicating my task board with 12 status columns

I used to have this massive kanban setup with like 12 columns: Backlog, Ready, Sprint Backlog, In Progress, Blocked, Review, QA, Staging, Deployed, Done, etc. Thought I was being thorough. Then my buddy glanced at my screen and said 'dude this looks like a subway map.' That comment hit different. I trimmed it down to 4 columns: To Do, Doing, Review, Done. Suddenly my team actually uses the board now. Has anyone else fallen into the trap of making your PM tool too fancy?
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rowan_ross
rowan_ross15d ago
Review blocks are for code, not sticky notes, man.
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dakota_miller93
Oh come on, @rowan_ross, you're really gonna take a stand on this? I've seen way weirder stuff in review blocks, like that one time someone left a whole grocery list in there. At least sticky notes are related to whatever they're working on, right? Your mileage may vary, but I'd rather see a sticky note reminder than some cryptic comment that makes zero sense. It's not ideal, sure, but in my experience, developers find creative ways to use every tool they got. So maybe cut them some slack, or just laugh it off and move on.
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rowanr88
rowanr8815d ago
Hey @rowan_ross, I read your thing about 4 columns and it stuck with me.
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