Just wanted to post some pictures (sorry, they didn’t make the move – 01/31/2009 CEN) of the Team’s task board as yet another example for people who are curious about how this looks and feels. It is a very, low tech Team tool for talking about the work they are doing. We have three states for work: Not Started, In Process and Done.

Each task is on a purple post-it note, has the person’s initials so we know who the owner is and has a size: S (0.5 days), M (1 day), L (2 days). The sizing idea came from the Team because there was resistance to estimating tasks in hours. So, now we estimate in task points and that information feeds the Burndown chart which  you see in that section. We also have a section for Obstacles, which go on their own post-it notes and a section for items that get Deferred, or dropped, from the Sprint.  It is all very elegant and easy to use.

I am really pleased with this experiment I am running for this Sprint. One of the Team members said (without prompting), “I really like the task board. It makes everything visible and real.” You simply cannot pay people to say that!