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A taskboard provides an easy way to communicate about work during the course of the Sprint.
Key Terms
Burn Rate: the rate of completion of tasks in a sprint
Taskboard: a tool for communicating the progress on tasks within a sprint
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The sprint backlog contains everything
that needs to be done in a sprint.
0:00
Many teams break backlog
items down into tasks so
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they can manage the work of the sprint.
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A task board contains each of
these tasks and their status.
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This provides an easy way
to communicate about work
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during the course of the sprint.
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Building a task board is easy.
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It starts with a sprint backlog.
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At the start of the sprint,
the team collaborates to try to break down
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each backlog item, and
describe tasks that need to be done.
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Generally a task is a unit of work
that can be accomplished by one or
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two team members.
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Usually, it's something that
will take less than half a day.
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If a task seems longer than that,
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it may help to break that task down into
smaller bits to keep each task manageable.
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If you're working with a physical
backlog and cards on the wall,
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the task board is literally a board.
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You start with the product backlog
where items are printed on index cards.
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Next, create columns to place stickies,
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with each representing a stage
in the process for the task.
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Commonly, teams will use To Do,
Doing and Done.
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Here is what the task board looks like.
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On this task board, the items in
the Sprint Backlog are on the left,
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and the task stickies are in
columns to the right.
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Representing their status,
To Do, Doing and Done.
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During the sprint, the task board
is an important communication tool.
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Team members move tasks from the To Do to
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the Doing column as they claim
each task and start their work.
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As they finish, team members move
the task to the Done column.
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The task board is an artifact
that anchors the daily stand-up.
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Team members answer three
important questions.
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What did I do yesterday?
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What do I plan to do today?
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And is there anything blocking me?
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Pointing to the position of
the task on the task board
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provides context for the team.
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It can also draw attention to tasks
that remain in order to finish an item.
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This helps the team coordinate
the work of a sprint.
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It's possible to use the task board as
a way to estimate the work done and
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the rate it's being done, or burn rate.
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The most important value this
has is to provide an early alert
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if the team is getting off track and
is at risk of not completing a sprint.
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This can come in the form of burn
down charts, where each day,
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the team graphs the number
of tasks remaining.
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This provides a visual for
their progress in completing the sprint.
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Burn down charts are not
a formal part of Scrum, so
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we won't get into a lot
of detail on them here.
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Whether or
not your team tracks their burn rate,
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a glance at the task board
at any point in the sprint
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should give you a pretty good
idea of the status of the work.
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