Setting up workspace for collaboration and clarity
Recently we finished a project which had challenging commitment written on it from day 1. During post project discussions I was surprised to hear what impact our physical story wall and sprint indicator had made on the team. At #ThoughtWorks along with open setup, physical storyboards form an integral part of our setup. Stand-ups, project tracking, mid iteration review usually refer these props. We strive to make our work-place as visual as possible to give necessary info at a glance.
Three practices which I have been using since few projects
Physical wall for a standup with column talking about today
I like to setup project wall where In Development column is split into two sections. There’s a dedicated column within it housing stories for which development is likely to be finished, and testing can begin. Having this split helps in multiple ways.
Usually, a person working on it takes a bit detailed look at card and updates team with what is remaining. It also helps QAs to plan their work. If there are a bunch of cards in “Moving Today” column along with some Ready for QA queue, then situation needs to be assessed. A quick look at this board can reveal energy needs channelising.
Depending on need columns and card colours could mean a different thing. Columns usually stay same, at times we do have Analysis column just before ToDo indicating some more analysis work is remaining.
Some teams prefer QA columns to be merged. In my experience especially with larger teams, separate columns have helped in bubbling up flow problem quickly.
Simple sprint chart updated by QAs as story moves to done
Often stories move in chunks towards the end of the sprint. This means rushed activities towards as iteration end nears. Such rush disrupts rhythm. Having Indicator like below displayed on the wall throughout the iteration helps in having a single understanding of where we stand regarding an iteration commitment.
Having QAs or BAs updating this indicator means the only production-ready details make to this wall and rest stays in play.
Couple this with board discussed above, and one can get a decent sense of an iteration without asking anyone for additional info.
Visible Backlog
Usually, projects are preceded by a workshop where various stakeholders come together. Project goals are discussed and decided. High-level feature breakdown, estimates and plan are worked out. Most of the times, the entire team is not privy to such workshops owing to logistics. At times due to unavoidable reasons team shuffles. Such situation results in the group which is not well versed in the feature set, stories and their dependencies. Having a dedicated place where the team could walk to and see how stories are set up comes handy especially during early days of the project.
We usually have a bunch of other charts, artefacts such as workflow diagram or tech debt matrix or discussion output hanging around to facilitate day to day proceedings.
While it does add some overhead in maintaining these physical walls, value they bring in through instant communication and transparency is irreplaceable.
Value of having such physical props around wasn’t natural to me especially when I joined #ThoughtWorks after spending significant time in large distributed team where it was more of waterfall and virtual. As I spent more time understanding team and delivery challenges, Primary XP practice of “Informative Workspace” started showing it’s importance.
