So you’re running Scrum on your project and you have your burn down chart, your sprint back log and everything is ticking along nicely, or is it? Do you have trouble getting developers to update the sprint backlog? Do they still loose focus of when the end of the sprint is? Maybe the management keep asking you how things are going, even though they have access to your sprint burn down on the network.

These could be symptoms of an electronic Scrum process. By electronic Scum process I mean you have your sprint data held electronically in say Excel or Visual Studio Team System, your developers and management are required to access these over the network as and when they need to (or more than likely when they feel like it), in reality this just doesn’t work. How many times have you heard a developer shut down his pc shortly followed be him grunting “damn I haven’t updated my estimates” by which point it’s too late, he’s going to miss his bus, taxi or a beer!

Then we come to management, ever heard your manager respond with “ah yes I know you sent me a link to it somewhere I just couldn’t find it, and as I was walking past anyway….”

The solution: The team whiteboard

By all means keep your data electronically, I do, but create a team whiteboard with the following basic items:

• The sprint burn down chart
• The task estimates sheet (used to drive the burn down chart)
• Stick a pen on the board, next to the estimate sheet.
• The number of days remaining in the sprint – I print this big number on one piece of A4.

This “kills two birds with one stone” by providing a highly visible progress gauge to all team members and management AND allowing the team to easily update the board, either during the day or as they are walking out the door, pc closed down.

All that needs to be done by the Scrum master then, is to come in the morning, grab the estimate sheet off the board, update the electronic version and reprint that and the burn down chart, and off course update the “days to go” number.

Yes this creates duplication and effort on the part of the Scrum Master but it provides high visibility, focus and a more user friendly interaction.

The team whiteboard continued: Task Estimates can be in the form of an electronic print out (normally grid format) or the task cards stuck to the team board in 3 or 4 columns: TODO, IN PROGRESS, TEST, COMPLETED.