Task Boards are commonly sued by agile teams to manage their workload. They’re an incredibly simple tool for keeping everyone informed of where tasks are at and who’s working on them.
What are Task Boards?
At the most basic level, a task boards contain three columns:
- To Do - Tasks to do, with the highest priority at the top.
- In Progress - Tasks that are currently in progress.
- Done - Tasks that are finished.
Tasks move from left to right along a task board until they end up in Done. Tasks that are in progress should always have an assignee to show who is working on it unless progress is blocked, in which case it should clearly be marked as blocked.
Some task boards might have more than one in progress column, each representing a distinct stage in the process work goes through to get to "done".
Here's an example of a simple task board built in Notion...
Mohamad Chamas
Rhys Black🔴 BLOCKED
Why do task boards work so well?
- They are an information radiator - if we keep them visible, they help people understand what's happening in the team at a glance.
- They passively communicate a lot of information, reducing the need for status updates.
- They make it clear who is working on what at that moment.
- They make it obvious when tasks are blocked.
- They visually show how much work has been done so far at a glance, and therefore give a rough indication of the team's progress.
- If you use a digital tool like Notion or Trello, you can attach relevant documents and links to the task so they're easy for people to find.
Using Task Boards
Here are some basic rules that will help you use task boards well...
- Tasks on the backlog should generally not have assignees - this means anyone can pick them up and work on them.
- All tasks that are in progress should have an assignee - otherwise, they are not really in progress.
- Avoid working on too many tasks at the same time. It's usually best to work on one at a time.
- If you are blocked on a task and can't progress it, mark it as blocked and pick up another one.
- Keep the task board up-to-date.
Breaking down tasks on the backlog
For task boards to work properly, it's really important that the tasks available to be picked up by team members are clear enough that anyone can pick them up and just get on with them. This means someone needs to make sure those at the top of the backlog are granular enough and contain enough information.
In a team using scrum, this will often be done in a sprint planning meeting, before tasks are moved from the product backlog to the sprint backlog.
In teams using a continuous approach (ie without sprints), this needs to be done on a continuous basis.
There are lots of strategies for breaking down large tasks (sometimes called Epics into smaller do-able tasks, but these will depend on the team and type of work you're doing.
The key thing to remember is that tasks that are ready to be picked up should be well planned and detailed enough that someone can work on them without needing to clarify the details.
How to Decompose User Stories into Tasks - Payton Consulting
This post is a part of a series: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About User Stories But Were Afraid To Ask Recently I was looking at the sprint backlog of a team, which just started their agile journey. When I looked at the task break down of the user stories, I noticed something like this.
www.payton-consulting.com
Definitions of Done
At it's most basic level, a Definition of Done is a checklist that must be completed before a task is moved into Done on the task board.
Here's an example from a team building a simple website. Each page needs to have the following check before it goes live...
DoD for New Feature ✅
The Definition of Done: What does "done" actually mean?
Scrum defines the Definition of Done in pretty simple terms: it's the acceptance criteria that are common to every single user story. For scrum teams, it's really important to have a solid definition of what "don" means. They work in sprints, and need some way of deciding whether a user story is actually finished.
medium.com
Definition of Done
The team agrees on, and displays prominently somewhere in the team room, a list of criteria which must be met before a product increment "often a user story" is considered "done". Failure to meet these criteria at the end of a sprint normally implies that the work should not be counted toward that sprint's velocity.
www.agilealliance.org
Kanban Work In progress limits (optional watching)
You'll sometimes see teams using Kanban apply work in Progress limits to columns in their task boards. The video below explains how and why these work.
Further Reading
What is a Task Board? | Planview
Are you tired of rewriting your 'to-do' list? A task board may be your solution. Task boards are a type of visual management tool that help busy people keep track of their work. Because task boards are so flexible, they are applied universally as one of the best project management tools today.
www.planview.com
What is a Task Board and How to Use It Best
"When you visualize, then you materialize." This quote of the American psychologist Denis Waitley perfectly summarizes one of the most effective tools used by modern leaders for managing their time, team process or even entire companies. Although there are different means to use for visualizing work, there's hardly any tool capable of outperforming a task board.
kanbanize.com
5 Types of Agile Task Boards - Choose Your Favorite - Eylean Blog
One of the most important tools for any Agile teams is the task board. This is where all the magic happens and thus it is important to have one that not only functions well, but that you like.
www.eylean.com
10 Powerful Strategies To Break Down Product Backlog Items in Scrum (with cheatsheet)
Teams that have mastered Scrum know that the key to success lies in a just-in-time, increasingly refined, breakdown of work on the Product Backlog. They prefer Sprint Backlogs with many small (functional) items instead of just a few large ones. Smaller items improve flow, and reduce the risk of failing the sprint.
medium.com
10 powerful strategies for breaking down Product Backlog Items in Scrum
Scrum is the most widely used Agile methodology. According to a recent study, over 72% of companies who use Agile have been using Scrum for their project management. All organizations that have mastered Scrum understand how well it works with completing projects on time.
www.invensislearning.com
