Task Boards

Task board

When developing in Agile it is important that all the various tasks are available for anyone involved in the project to see their status, whether they are completed, in progress, or finished, as well as to know what tasks must still be done. The developers also need a way for them to select new tasks when they complete one. For this a task board is very important.

A tasks board is, in its most basic form, a way for the developers to see what is done and what must be done. A common way to do this is on a whiteboard or a section of wall or even a window and divide it into three sections, “To Do”, “In Progress” and “Done”. The tasks are then written on sticky notes or index cards, and placed in whatever column represents their current status.

The above is simply the most basic characteristics that most all task boards share. There are several variation that can be added depending on the project. The number and headings of the column can vary as well, such as ones that represent an activity such an “In Test”. (Agile Alliance)

One important factor is that the board is updated frequently and regularly. A common time to update the board is after every daily meeting once everyone has stated what they have done and what they plan to do. At the beginning of each iteration the board is usually reset so as to better reflect the current iteration plan.

The task board is designed to convey certain benefits the chief of which is to ensure that information about the current state of the project is easily accessible to all. It should also be the focal point of the daily meetings and allow the team to represent any relevant information through simple physical objects such as color, sticky notes or stick dots, and blocked text for important information. (Agile Alliance)

However just as the task board comes with its benefits, it also has several pitfalls that the users should keep in mind. One of them is that virtual task boards are becoming more common as they can be easier to edit and available for potently geographically separated teams. But it is important that the team get experience with physical boards so they can understand the benefits. Even if a team is geographically separated they should still have a physical board available locally with information copied from the virtual board.

Source:

“What is a Task Board?” Agile Alliance, 27 Oct. 2017, www.agilealliance.org/glossary/taskboard/#q=~(filters~(postType~(~'page~'post~'aa_book~'aa_event_session~'aa_experience_report~'aa_glossary~'aa_research_paper~'aa_video)~tags~(~'task*20board))~searchTerm~'~sort~false~sortDirection~'asc~page~1).