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Kanban TeamRooms

This article provides an overview of the Kanban TeamRooms.

Overview​

You can configure a TeamRoom as a Kanban board if your team is all about continuous flow and does not use sprints or iterations.

Set Up a Kanban TeamRoom​

Kanban flow can help your team visualize, manage, and optimize their work. If your team is all about continuous flow and does not use sprints/iterations, it's simple to set up the top-level project your team will be working in.

An easier solution for a Kanban team that doesn't require a sprint/iteration schedule is to use a TeamRoom with Kanban flow.

To create a project, your project role must be set to Project Administrator or higher.

Project Setup Steps​

  1. Click the hamburger menu Hamburger icon > Admin > Projects & Fields Admin > Projects > Projects.
  2. Expand the System (All Projects) project. The "System (All Projects)" project sits at the top level of the project tree and was automatically created when Digital.ai Agility was set up. We recommend that you create all of your projects/child projects underneath it to retain the flexibility to scale the project tree in the future. To learn more, see Understanding System (All Projects).
  3. Click on the Add Child Project button next to the parent project under which you want to create the new project.
  4. Enter the project details as appropriate.

Because this is going to be a "Kanban Project", your dates may be a longer duration defined than an "Iteration Project" would have defined.

Your project will still need to have a Sprint/Iteration Schedule associated to it, in order for the "Planner" pages to be available in Digital.ai Agility.

Sprint/Iteration Schedule Setup and Association Steps​

  1. Click the hamburger menu Hamburger icon > Admin > Projects & Fields Admin > Projects > Sprint/Iteration Schedules.
  2. Click on the Add a Sprint Schedule button.
  3. Enter the details as appropriate:
  4. Give the schedule a name (e.g., Kanban).
  5. Set the sprint length to be the duration of the project or the release.
  6. Click Save.

Create a Kanban Sprint/Iteration​

From the Sprint/Iteration Scheduling UI, add a Sprint/Iteration and set the begin/end date to match project dates in effect creating a planning tool that doesn't use a sprint/iteration.

  1. Click on Team Planner > Sprint Scheduling
  2. Click on the Add Sprint/Iteration button.
  3. Enter the details, and set the Begin Date and the End Date to be the same as the project's Begin and End dates.

If separate status values are needed for the Kanban Storyboard, use Project Workspaces to create a status list specific to this project:

  • Navigate to the List Types tab under Admin, and then select Backlog. Add new status values to the Status List type as appropriate.
  • Navigate to the Display Fields Tab to enable the new list values for display in your project workspace. Select your project and find the Status field under Backlog Item. Enable the desired status values for your Project Workspace.

Track Metrics​

The upper right corner of the TeamRoom page displays metrics to provide insight into the work being delivered. The values seen here are based on the TeamRoom configuration, and do not consider any other work.

Teamroom_kanban_metrics

Available Metrics​

The heads up metrics available in a Kanban TeamRoom are:

  • Cycle Time - Shows how long it takes a work item to flow through the work cycle defined for the board. This number is averaged over the previous 28 days, including "today".

  • Work In Progress - The current number of work items, or the total estimate for work items, on the board in a status value assigned to the "In Progress" Rollup Category (formerly called Reporting Category).

  • Throughput value - The average number of work items, or the average total estimate for work items, that were completed per week for the previous four complete calendar weeks. Work item completion is defined by Rollup Category. The current calendar week is not considered. The average is rounded to 1 decimal place.

  • Throughput Chart - Shown below the Throughput value, provides a graphical representation of the throughput for the last four complete calendar weeks.

  • Cumulative Flow Chart - Shows the number of work items, or the total estimate of work items, by status, over the last four weeks.

Workitem count or total estimate is determined by your user preference.

You do not get credit for a work item that was previously completed if the Rollup Category of that work item changes.

Calendar week is defined as Monday through Sunday.

The number of previous calendar weeks considered is not currently configurable.

Cycle Time Calculation​

The Cycle Time is based on a time range of 28 days, including today. There are 2 different ways it is calculated:

  1. If a cycle is defined on the storyboard in that TeamRoom (the core app storyboard has no effect on this), it will use that cycle to calculate the average time it takes for a story to complete that cycle.
  2. If no cycle is defined, it will start the cycle when an item enters a status with an In Progress reporting category and end the cycle when it moves to a status with a Done reporting category or is closed.

One caveat on this is if your cycle actually corresponds with the first "In Progress" status and the first "Done" status, then you are basically setting it to the default setting, so you would not see a change in the cycle time number.

Workitems that enter and complete the cycle in less than a day will get a partial day calculation. Moving an item through the cycle very quickly likely won't update it.

Other TeamRoom Metrics​

In addition to these metrics, you can enable the Scorecard panel for additional metrics about the work items in this TeamRoom.