5.Task Management

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Backlog

A list of future work to do is called a "backlog." Project backlogs are managed inside the code repository using Github's Project dashboard. Here is an example.

During Sprint Planning, high priority tasks (called "User Stories") are selected from the groomed portion of the backlog and size-estimated. Based on estimates and team capacity, the team selects their User Stories for the upcoming Sprint, transitions each of them into a Github issue and assigns it to a Sprint for execution. Typically the Team Coach will guide this conversation which typically takes about 30 minutes.

Sprints

Day-to-day, task-focused work is organized into Sprints, that is, a four-week chunk of time.

We manage tasks during the course of a Sprint using the GitHub Issues tool . There we can see due dates, assign sub-tasks to people, keep notes on the items as they are being worked and tested, etc. Issue updates are easily broadcasted to the teams that are involved, based on GitHub user notification settings.

We can also see a snapshot of how far along we are (called a "Burndown Chart"). See below for an example.

Here is an example image of a Sprint Task burndown chart. This Sprint had three User Stories scoped in, and each bar represents the Task completion status for that User Story.