The agile teams have a practice of maintaining their work on a board using a relevant wall and cards. In these boards, they will document their work which is in action, according to the planning, processing, and execution. These boards are filled and refined depending on the priority of a time-boxed iteration.
When we are working with a large number of agile teams or in a distributed agile teams, it is often necessary to depend upon digital boards rather than manual one. Here agile tools like digital kanban board help the team to communicate their work for all team members.
It is important to have an up to date agile tools which help the team to synchronize and collaborate adequately. These tools support the teams to maintain the day-to-day work efficiently. They appear has a virtual task board which aids to guide the work need to be done. The list of features which can help to enhance the tools adaptability are
1. Skeuomorphism of cards - It helps to symbolically represent all tasks in relation to their mode of work. Thus, it allows for easy identification and distinguishing of the stories in accordance with the nature of work. This makes the wall and cards to appear more user-friendly.
2. Live updating of cards - More often all the team members rely on the tools for obtaining the information of what work has to be done. So that the tool should be empowered to work only in online mode. Thus, it allows avoiding further conflicts of not getting real time information.
3. Simple access control - The agile methodologies always encourage self-organizing teams and they deliberately provide fully grained access of the tools to their team members. This helps the teams to coordinate and organize efficiently.
4. Compatible with touch device - As technology is getting advanced every day, people are becoming more dependent on the portable devices like tablets, iPads, smartphones, and laptops. There is a need for all the agile tools to be designed to work consistent with simpler touch, it supports the team to establish more collaboration.
5. Zoom In/Out - Working with cards will be easier when you are able to zoom the card for maximum screen length. Thus, it helps to have a complete view of all details added on the card. The zooming feature should be user-friendly and provide comfortable options.
6. Cards should have a size limit - When the character size of the card is limited, it influences the user to minimize the information and allows to add only necessary details. This support the need for obtaining concise information through face-to-face communication.
7. Cards should allow overlapping of other cards - When you are working with a large or distributed agile teams, the work will be shared with the team members. So in order to get the complete information and visibility of the work, it is important to overlap or compile the cards. This helps the team members to be aware of all the tasks carried out with relation to a delivering product.
References:
http://www.scaledagileframework.com/
http://www.agileadvice.com/2016/03/03/agilemanagement/the-perfect-agile-tool-12-key-features/
