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What are WIP limits in kanban?

A WIP (work-in-progress) limit caps how many cards may sit in a column at once — for example, at most three items In Progress. When the column is full the team must finish something before starting anything new. WIP limits shorten cycle time, expose bottlenecks and end the illusion that starting equals progress.

The problem WIP limits solve

Unlimited parallel work feels productive and ships nothing. Context-switching taxes every task, and ten items at ninety percent deliver exactly zero value. Capping WIP forces the uncomfortable, correct behaviour: swarm what is stuck, finish it, then pull the next card.

Choosing your first limits

A decent default is n+1 per column, where n is the number of people who work that column — three developers means a WIP limit of four on In Progress. Too tight and people idle; too loose and nothing changes. Adjust after two weeks of watching where cards actually pile up.

Bottlenecks become visible

When the Review column is perpetually full while In Progress starves, the board is telling you where capacity really runs out. The fix is helping Review — more reviewers, smaller changes, automated checks — not starting more development. WIP limits turn that from a monthly argument into a daily glance.

WIP discipline on a Flocci board

Flocci Projects does not enforce numeric WIP limits per column, but the five columns and their card counts are visible at a glance, so a team rule like 'maximum two In Progress each' is easy to police socially, and the open-workload-by-assignee chart catches the overloaded teammate the board alone might hide.

Try it on a free Flocci Projects board

Related questions

Do WIP limits apply to a solo developer?

Especially so. A personal WIP limit of one or two is the cheapest productivity system that exists, and the rule 'finish or consciously abandon before starting' single-handedly kills the half-done-projects graveyard.

What happens when a column hits its limit?

Nobody pulls new work into it. The team either helps finish what is in the full column or works upstream slack such as refinement and review. The pain is the point — it surfaces the constraint instead of hiding it.

Are WIP limits compatible with sprints?

Fully. The sprint bounds what the team does this cycle; WIP limits bound how much runs concurrently today. Scrum teams that adopt WIP limits usually see cycle time improve before velocity does.

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