Simon has a new post describing how they’ve revamped their planning board. I found it to be an interesting read because for once someone else’s board looks similar to ours.
Our board has undergone a few makeovers as well over the past couple of years. In the beginning we tried to do what everyone else was doing. We had a big board with several columns. But our shop was small (at it’s peak, three developers and a PM) and the extra columns seemed wasteful. We didn’t really have a QA team, for instance, because we were the QA team. A “Testing” column seemed like a waste because we practice TDD as much as possible, so testing is part of the process of development. Same goes for acceptance tests, hands-on testing and customer approval. It’s all part of the process of developing software. Personally, I don’t look at the different elements – like architecture, design, testing or customer feedback – as separate phases. I see them as the one thing: developing software. They are all necessary elements to reach the final goal of a completed, working, and trusted software feature.
In the end, we finally settled on was the simplest thing that could possibly work: Backlog, In Development & Done.
Our Backlog is every story card in our possession. We don’t categorize; we just let the customer prioritize. In Development is everything we’re working on during this iteration. Since we – the developers – do it all, then In Development carries a comprehensive meaning. And when all the bases are covered, regardless of what order they were performed (although I hope unit tests were written before the code was) then, and only then, does it move to Done.
What I enjoy most about our board is that it is so simple to read. It’s easy to determine what’s left to do (Backlog), what’s being worked on (In Development) and what’s ready for the next publish at the end of the iteration (Done). And I don’t need to worry about testing or customer approval because those elements of the development process are implied.
