What is an agile board?
An agile board is a visual framework of tasks that move between the production steps of a sprint. Agile development is a lot like learning to become a master chef. Some recipes turn into wonderful dishes while others will never be used again, but you test and learn as you complete your creative ideas. As project managers, it’s your job to:
Review your tasks (your ingredients)
Assign tasks to your available resources, i.e. your teammates
Manage the process to create the best possible outcome
In turn, your teammates will learn how to operate in terms of agile management and seek opportunities to:
Improve their workflows
Delegate lower priorities
Achieve their desired results
Agile boards create a synchronized workflow that makes it easy to visualize progress and balance competing priorities. These visualized working templates make it easier for teams to scale up productivity and complete the project objectives.
When to use the agile board template?
The agile board template is perfect for organizations that are:
Developing multiple new product features at once
Operating with some form of Kanban or Scrum project management
Attempting to make the most efficient use of resources
Aligning the entire organization around product roadmap timelines
The agile board template can be adapted across a wide range of industries. For example, suppose your organization is a bank or financial institution responsible for producing a large volume of documents. These documents may contain details about:
Client organizational charts
Capitalization tables
Merger & acquisition data
Legal matters
And so forth
There are many people who must collaborate, edit, finalize, and sign-off on the documents before they can be delivered to clients. With an agile board template, the project manager leading the documentation efforts can assign tasks to each teammate and ensure all inputs and reviews are completed in an efficient and organized manner. This workflow keeps teammates accountable and deliverables up to code, which cements your institution’s reputation with your clients.
How to use the agile board template
The agile board template allows you to tag and organize your tasks into many designated sections: backlog, current sprint, PR review, testing, deploy, release notes, and so forth.
Use the template to tag specific tasks with color-coded priority notes. Organize your most important tasks in order of priority, and move less important tasks into your backlog. Ensure you include any descriptive notes that will clarify the expectations of a particular task. Furthermore, the release notes section should describe the results of the deployment and any lessons learned throughout the development process.
Step 1: Customize the workflow
Adapt the vertical sections in the template to reflect your workflow. You can assign whatever naming convention you prefer, but try to follow the structure of backlog, current sprint, PR review, testing, deploy, release notes, and so forth.
This structure monitors task progression throughout the development process in an easy-to-use visual template. You can view how many tasks are in a current sprint and add or remove tasks from the backlog based on the current bandwidth of the team.
Step 2: Fill in your agile board
Start the sprint by adding Tasks to your project board. Simply click the + icon in any section to add a new Task. Each card represents a task that is part of the master project. You can assign color-coded priority tags to each card so that teammates can prioritize their workflows around the requirements of the project. Next, invite your team members via email link so they can add their own tasks to the board. To do this, go to Project Settings at the top of your project board and click Sharing.
Step 4: Monitor and update the board with progress updates
Track project progress and make updates to your agile board as tasks move throughout the production cycle. As the initial tasks are complete, drag the tasks from the current sprint section into the PR review or testing sections.
Keep track of each teammate’s performance and continue to update the tasks accordingly. This approach ensures your sprint remains up-to-date and tasks in the backlog section can be introduced to the sprint when bandwidth is available.
Step 5: Invite teammates to discuss and collaborate
Part of what makes the agile board template so effective is that it allows all teammates to view the project progress and comment on the overall productivity. This open discussion allows future sprints to incorporate the feedback and adapt new approaches to completing tasks that best suit the interests of the entire team.
Agile and iterative workflows ultimately lead to more effective sprints and better project outcomes!
