How to Use Scrum Board for Agile Development?

A Scrum Board (also called Scrum Task Board) is a tool that helps Teams make Sprint Backlog items visible. The board can take many physical (i.e. whiteboard and stickers) and virtual forms (i.e. software tools) but it performs the same function regardless of how it looks. A Scrum Board is the focal point of any agile project and serves as a good place at which to hold the stand-up meeting. The board is updated and referred by the Team and shows all items during the Daily Scrum keeps the team focused on the tasks that remain and their priorities.

Why Scrum Board

• Promotes team interaction and discussion– Throughout the day you will see teammates, stakeholders and members of other teams stop by the board for discussion. This increases greatly if the board is located near the team and highly visible
• Visibility– Anyone walking buy can make a quick second assessment on where the team is in the iteration. No cards left for a row? That story is complete. No white cards left, just green cards? Only testing remains. Lots of pink cards? Lots of defects.
• Good for new teams to visualize Scrum– By having this tangible thing in front of them that they can touch, makes it easier for new Scrum teams to understand the process
• Support full team commitment– Now the whole team sees all of the tasks daily and keeps them from just focusing on “their” tasks. When using task tracking tools it is too easy to just create a view of “my tasks” and then tune out the rest.

Where to Put Your Scrum Board?

It is important that the Task Board be somewhere visible to as many team members as possible and always accessible to all; usually a large wall or window (be creative). Manager’s offices and conference rooms are not good locations as they are not always accessible. It is important that the every team member feel they share ownership of the Task Board; it is representative of the teamwork necessary to succeed and shows that each individual is responsible for that success (or even failure.)

Format of a Scrum Board

Scrum does not prescribe the format of a Scrum Board. It is for the team to decide the most useful way of presenting the information it needs. It should be possible for all developers to view and manipulate the board together as a team. Typically, the board is divided into several progressive slots, such as To-do, In Progress, Done. Sticky notes represent Sprint Backlog Items can be moved across the board to represent their progress to done (see Definition of Done).

As shown in the Figure above, when Development Team members start a task they move the sticky note that represents it to the ‘In Progress’ column. When they complete a Sprint Backlog Item they move its sticky note to the ‘Completed’ column. Tasks verified are moved to ‘Closed’, and the developers who worked on it can now pick up a new one. Each Scrum Board lasts for the length of the Sprint. New Sprints require that the team create a new Scrum Board or that an existing Scrum Board be reset.

Scrum Task Boards software tool

There are many digital alternatives to an analogue board, e.g. those created by tools like Visual Paradigm’s Scrum Process Canvas, which allow the collaborative management of the Scrum board with tracked changes, attached notes and document artifacts as an integral feature component. In fact, it allows you to manage your entire scrum process in one page.

Such One-Page Scrum Process Canvas can be incredibly useful, especially for the Scrum Master and Product Owner during sprint planning, backlog refinement, tracking velocity over time. Sometimes, in the case of teams which are located on multiple remote development sites, even essential for the following reasons:

• Seamlessly navigate the entire scrum process in a single, beautifully designed scrum process canvas especially for remote teams
• Perform scrum activities and event quickly, easily and seamlessly.
  • Backlog management and grooming and refinement by using User Story Mapping
  • Prioritize user stories and tasks and handle spikes with affinity tables
  • Sprint Planning by using product backlog and sprint backlog
  • Keep the whole team fully engaged regardless of where the member located
  • Browse a work roles, events, artifacts anytime and anywhere online
  • Generate artifacts with embedded instructions and samples
  • Store artifacts (diagrams, forms, tables, images) and related resources in one centralized repository using Document Cabinet
  • Auto transfer user stories and tasks to task manager
  • And many more….

User story mapping

Managing user story tasks

Recording daily scrum

About Visual Paradigm

Visual Paradigm help organizations stay competitive and responsive to change faster and better in today’s fast changing environment. Our award-winning products are trusted by over 320,000 users in companies ranging from small business, consultants, to blue chip organizations, universities and government units across the globe. It enables organizations to improve business and IT agility and foster innovation through popular open standards and process frameworks.Visual Paradigm, a killer Agile feature in 2018, introduced Scrum Process Canvas for automating the way a Scrum team to create, manage and deploy software application that empowers the team to continuously improve their performance at unprecedented speed and scale. Manage the Entire Scrum Process in One Page Automate the Scrum Framework in a fun and enjoyable dashboard with eye-catching updated status. Manage Backlog, Multiple Sprints of different Scrum Roles with a single-page visually executable canvas Allow instantly access, review and generate scrum artifacts and related documents to be archived in the Shared Cabinet Automate the Scrum events and related activities with self-explanatory instructions, samples and required document templates.