Tip 39 - Work Item Management
Work items are an essential part of any project. Here are some pointers to help you manage your work items more effectively.
Adding Work Items
Work items can be added not only from the
Backlog
, but also from the
Board
module. Select
Add New Item
from the
Items
drop-down menu in the top right corner. By selecting the
Move Existing Item
option, you can also move existing items from any sprint to the current sprint on the board.
Work Item Details
Various other tasks may be required to complete a work item.. You can include them as
subitems
in it. Instead of creating two similar work items, you can clone the details using the
clone
option. Instead of assigning the task to yourself, you can simply
follow
a work item to be notified of its updates. If one work item is related to another work item, you can simply
link
them for easy reference.
Customizing Work Items
Your work items can also be
customized
based on your business requirements. And not just your work items, even their
status
,
item type
, and
priorities
can be customized to meet your business needs. You can set
estimation points
to determine how much work is required to complete a work item.
Sticky Posts
Tip #28 - Plan less and deliver more using WIP limit in Zoho Sprints
Hello, It's been a while since we met with a quick, interesting tip. As the saying goes, "Too much of anything is good for nothing", today the focus is on delivering your outcomes with the right amount of planning. Your plan should be practical, calculative, and achievable for driving a qualitative success. Laura's plan Laura has a habit of planning her project deliverables before assigning work to her team-mates. Once the plan is finalized, she schedules a general meeting with her team and
Tip # 3- Working on the Scrum board
Continuing from our Tip #2 on leading to a sprint, let's see how to manage the work items on the Scrum board. Once you start the sprint your work items are automatically displayed on the Scrum board where you will actually manage the work items. It is a snapshot of the backlog items identified for the current sprint. The layout of the Scrum board Simply put, the scrum board is just like a physical board with sticky notes on which the work items of the active sprint are displayed. The scrum board
Tip#2- Leading you to a Sprint
Product Backlog After the user stories are written and finalized, they are sorted to create the Product Backlog for the project during the Backlog Grooming meeting. This is a master list of all the work items that have been identified for the project and sorted by priority. Requirements are not constant during this period.The Product Backlog is dynamic and is an ongoing process. Every user story in the Product Backlog is customer centric. The Product Backlog includes: User centric stories based on
Tip #1- Why swimlanes?
Lanes define a clear path to reach your destination. In Agile, swimlane is one such concept that sets a simple and clear process of the work that you do. The concept of swimlane can be related to the pool, where the swimmers gather in their respective lanes to start off. Similar to the pool, work items are grouped in different categories. Each category is referred as a lane and is displayed in horizontal format. Swimlanes are effective in categorizing the work items with respective to specific