Exercise 2: Taskboard

In this exercise, you will learn how to use the taskboard to view status of work for the current iteration and move tasks between states. Taskboards are a great tool for determining “at a glance” what work needs to be finished before the end of an iteration.

1. Now that we have finished breaking down the work and assigning it to team members, let’s take a look at the taskboard that will be used in the next stand-up team meeting to report and record progress. Select the board tab from the top of the Fabrikam Fiber Web Team default page.

   Figure 35

   Location of link to load the taskboard

2. By default, the taskboard shows all tasks for the current iteration, grouped by product backlog item and by the current state. Drag and drop the “Consume OData feed for weather alerts” task to the In Progress column.

   Figure 36

   Drag and drop tasks on the taskboard to move them between states

   Note:

   The taskboard is touch enabled as well. This won’t work within this virtual machine, but you might want to put in your request now for that nice wall-mounted touch-screen monitor you’ve been wanting for your team.

3. Double-click on the “Consume OData feed for weather alerts” task and change the Remaining Work field to 1 to simulate Cameron working on the task for 4 hours during the day, and select the Save and Close button when finished.

   Figure 37

   Editing a task

4. Drag and drop the “Create UI for alerts” task to the In Progress column and change its Remaining Work field to 1. Select the Save and Close button when finished. The two new high-priority tasks are now in progress with an estimated 2 hours of work left to go.

   Figure 38

   Drag and drop tasks on the taskboard to move them between states

5. Collapse the user stories for which the tasks are all done by clicking on the small triangles just to the left of the associated Titles.

   Figure 39

   Collapsing user story groups that have been completed

6. Drag and drop the task for Julia titled “Review new feature with technician early adopters” to the Done column to record that work as completed. Notice that the remaining work was automatically reduced to 0 when you did this.

   Figure 40

   Drag and drop tasks on the taskboard to move them between states

7. Notice that the burn down chart in the top-right corner has updated immediately after you made these changes. Click on the burn down chart and note that there is less than 20 hours of effort left to go in order to complete the work for the iteration.

   Figure 41

   Burn down chart

8. Close the burn down chart.

9. Note that each row representing a work item shows a rollup of hours remaining, which is a sum of remaining work for all child tasks. In addition to that, each column representing a status has a rollup of remaining work, giving you a good idea how much work the team is actively working on right now.

   Figure 42

   Taskboard showing rollup of hours

10. The taskboard also has a team member pivot. Select the Team Members link near the top of the taskboard view.

    Figure 43

    Team Members link location to group tasks by team member

11. This view makes it easy to see what team members are currently working on and how much effort remains for each for the remainder of the current iteration.

    Figure 44

    Grouping tasks by team member on the taskboard