How to Set Up a Course Production Kanban Using GitHub Projects

If you don't already have a GitHub account, sign up at github.com -- it's free. Then navigate to your profile, click the "Projects" tab, and create a new project. Choose "Board" as your starting view. Name it something like "Course: [Your Course Name] Production." You don't need to create a repository -- projects can exist independently.

GitHub Projects boards use a "Status" field to create columns. Click the field settings and create these statuses:

• Backlog -- ideas and topics you haven't committed to yet
• Outlined -- lesson structure is defined, ready to draft
• Drafted -- script or talking points written
• Recording -- currently being recorded (for video/audio content)
• Editing -- recorded, now being edited and polished
• Review -- ready for a beta tester or collaborator to check
• Published -- live in your course platform

You can start with fewer columns and add stages as your process becomes clearer. The important thing is that each column represents a step in your workflow, not an aspirational one.

Click the "+" next to your existing fields to add custom ones. For course production, I'd recommend:

• Module (Single select) -- which module this lesson belongs to
• Content Type (Single select) -- Video, Text, Quiz, Worksheet, Discussion
• Estimated Duration (Number) -- minutes of student-facing content
• Due Date (Date) -- when you plan to finish this item
• Priority (Single select) -- High, Medium, Low

These fields make the table view useful. You can sort by due date to see what's urgent, filter by module to focus a work session, or group by content type to batch similar tasks.

Click "Add item" at the bottom of any column to create a new card. Each card represents one piece of content -- typically one lesson, one worksheet, or one quiz. Write a clear title like "Lesson 3.2: Setting Up Your Home Studio" rather than something vague like "Studio lesson." Fill in the custom fields you created. If you've already outlined your course, you can add all items at once in the table view by pasting titles row by row.

GitHub Projects has built-in workflow automations. Go to your project settings and enable the ones that save clicks. The most useful for course production: auto-set status to "Backlog" when a new item is added, and auto-move to "Published" when you close an item. You can also set up automations that add items to the project automatically when you create issues in a connected repository -- useful if you use GitHub for your course website too.

The board view is great for daily work, but you also need a spreadsheet-style overview. Click "+ New view" and select "Table." This shows every item as a row with all your custom fields as columns. Sort by Module then Lesson Order to see your full curriculum in sequence. This view is what you'll use to check: Is every module roughly the same length? Are there gaps in the lesson flow? Am I heavy on video and light on activities?

When a lesson is stuck -- waiting for a guest interview, a piece of equipment, or a decision you haven't made yet -- add a "Blocked" label so you can see bottlenecks at a glance. Without this, blocked items sit silently in a column and you don't realize they're not progressing until you're behind schedule.

Course production is a long haul. Create a saved view filtered to only show items with status "Published." As your course takes shape, watching this view fill up is surprisingly motivating. It's also useful for tracking how many minutes of finished content you have versus your target total.

Let me be direct: if you don't already use GitHub, the learning curve probably isn't worth it just for project management. The interface uses developer terminology (issues, repositories, milestones) that may feel foreign. Trello or Asana are more intuitive for non-technical course creators and will get you to the same result with less friction.

GitHub Projects doesn't have a built-in calendar view as of now. If you want to see your production schedule on a calendar, you'll need to use the table view sorted by date, which isn't as visual. Tools like Notion or Asana handle calendar views better.

There's no built-in time tracking either. If you want to know how many hours you're spending per lesson (useful data for planning future courses), you'll need a separate tool like Toggl alongside your GitHub board.