Efficient workflow is the third pillar of a high performing development team. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Agile teams have proven this with solutions like the KanBan board. You need a way to visualize the status of each work item* that will eventually make up a software system.
* Choose your terminology, these could be features, user stories, issues, tasks. There are many ways to successfully capture requirements. A team should decide the best approach for them.
The tracking solution should allow a team member to determine:
- When a work item is under development
- Who “owns” a specific work item
- What the next work item should be
- What has been completed
A team who practices daily standup meetings should be able to use the tracking solution to discuss what they did yesterday, what they are doing today, and any roadblocks.
Without a solid tracking solution, a team falls into the “90% done” trap. Developers join status meetings and provide a percentage of “done-ness.” This percentage reaches 90% and stays there for weeks / months on end.
Keys to success:
- Work items must be regularly progressing toward “done-ness” (e.g. once in-progress, should be ready for testing in no more than 2 weeks, shorter time-frames are preferred).
- Work items must be broken into small, consumable chunks. Larger work items with high estimates must be broken apart (hence, the 2 week rule).
- Work items must be “testable”, so we can verify they are actually done. There are many approaches to testing, but some form of validation is needed.
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