My first thought was how intuitive and elegant an interface:
Low tech technology like index cards, colored sticker dots and a whiteboard is a fast way to visualize and change a plan. The Digital Planning Board is not meant as a replacement of this but as a tool for distributed teams, enhanced client communication and quicker storage and search functionality.
Using User Stories To Define Tasks
The work planned for an iteration is divided into tasks with a clearly defined deliverable and these tasks are represented as User Stories. User stories are represented by story cards and will not hold all information about a given task but enough information to remind involved parties what the requirements are. Ron Jeffries describes it as “The card is a token representing the requirement”.
The Basic Rules of a Planning Board
A planning board is managed using these basic rules:
- A lane represent a person or a team.
- Blocks represent a task
- The size of a block displays the estimated time to complete the task.
But Arb’s designers took this many steps further – ending up with an interface which looks like this:
. Larger explanation and further resources here.