If you are on an Agile team, chances are pretty high that you have an Agile board. You can either have a virtual board or a physical board or both. I have an Agile Distributed team so we currently use JIRA and I have a physical Agile Board. It really helps with communication to have both and it allows other teams to see what your team is working on. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Keep it simple. IT is complicated enough, keep things a simple as you can with your Agile Board.
- Columns I use Story, To Do, In Progress, Done. Other teams might add another column for validation or something else, but I believe it should follow the Agile practice in order to keep it simple.
- Post IT I just use Post It notes which allow flexibility to add and remove tasks as needed
- Color Color creates contrast. I use different color post it notes to identify activities that are being performed. For each function such as Dev, BA, QA I have a different color post it note.
- In Sync It is important to keep the Agile boards in sync when you have a physical and virtual board. The best way is to huddle around the physical board and make the updates and have one of your team members make the update on the virtual board.
The physical board helps the team see that progress is being made and it provides motivation and encouragement. It also provides a sense of collaboration that everyone is working towards the same goal and in the same direction. I see teams that struggle and I believe it is often the result of lack of communication and the agile board can help to bridge the gap.