Look at your team's board right now. How many tickets are in "In Review" that haven't been looked at in three days? How many are in "In QA" even though nobody's tested them? How many jumped straight from "In Progress" to "Done" without ever appearing in the intermediate columns? If you're like most teams, the answer is "a lot." Your board is not reflecting reality. It's a fiction your team politely maintains. Here's the uncomfortable truth: your Git repository knows the real state of every ticket. Your board just hasn't caught up. This article is about bridging that gap. The problem: columns designed by process people, not by engineers Most boards are designed by someone who thinks about process, not about what actually happens in Git. That's why you end up with: "Ready for Development" — a holding pen for tickets nobody wants to admit aren't ready. If it's prioritized and has detail, it's "To Do." If it doesn't, it's still "Backlog." "Ready for QA" — this implies a manual handoff.…