Azure DevOps Kanban for Agile Project Management

Azure DevOps Kanban is a powerful tool for Agile project management that helps teams visualize their workflow and deliver value to customers faster.

With Azure DevOps Kanban, you can create a board that represents your workflow, breaking it down into stages that your team can move work items through.

This visual representation of your workflow helps teams understand the flow of work and identify bottlenecks, allowing them to optimize their processes and improve delivery.

By using Azure DevOps Kanban, teams can easily track work in progress, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions to enhance their workflow.

Starting simple is always better, so try working your way up from the default templates offered by Azure DevOps Kanban boards. You can start without swimlanes as well.

A good rule of thumb is to have a priority column for what to do next and a QA/testing column for quality management. You can build quite extensive boards, but they will become inconvenient due to design decisions in Azure DevOps.

To customize Kanban cards, you can enable additional fields to be shown right on the card. You can also turn on Queue or “Done” column splits for every Board column on the board which is of type ‘In progress’.

Each “in progress” type column can have a custom limit set to reduce multitasking and increase workflow throughput. For a more detailed guide on how and what you can configure, read the Azure DevOps Kanban guide.

Here are the core principles to keep in mind when setting up your board:

To match team capacities to work stages, you'll want to evenly distribute your team across stages, give them resources to enhance their productivity, or bring on additional members so that no one person takes on too much of a load.

You can customize your Kanban board to match your team's workflow by mapping workflow state categories to columns. This ensures each state of a work item is represented on the board, providing a clear and organized view of the workflow.

Each team can have a different board structure, and you can start simple by working your way up from default templates offered by Azure DevOps Kanban boards. You can also introduce new board columns and swimlanes to provide better structure and documentation for your team workflow.

A good rule of thumb is to have a priority column for what to do next and a QA/testing column for quality management. You can customize Kanban cards by enabling additional fields to be shown right on the card, but you need to expand each card to view those additional fields.

You can also turn on Queue or "Done" column splits for every Board column on the board, which is of type 'In progress'. This allows you to park work items once the actual work happened, making it useful for measuring queue times and workflow efficiency.

To customize your board, you can configure card displays, manage columns, set WIP limits, set Definition of Done, add swimlanes, reorder cards, enable backlog and board levels, and work with bugs.

Here are some key configurations to consider:

You can also customize your project and board inheritance, add or modify fields defined for a work item type, add a custom work item type, or modify the workflow. Additionally, you can split columns to divide each column into "Doing" and "Done" stages, and remove or move columns to streamline your board and better reflect your team's workflow.

Removing or moving a column can help streamline your board and better reflect your team's workflow and priorities.

Pay attention to difficulties with sticking to WIP limits. A couple of work items here and there won’t matter, but if your team has a pattern of exceeding WIP limits, that’s something you’ll want to look into.

To maintain focus on the things that matter most, set work in progress limits for each work stage. If the number of items in any column goes beyond the WIP limit, the column count turns red.

Match team capacities to work stages by evenly distributing your team across stages, giving them resources to enhance their productivity, or bringing on additional members so that no one person takes on too much of a load.

To do more tasks with your board, consider the following:

Extending Azure Kanban experience with Teamhood can also help tackle issues and inconveniences. Teamhood is a specialized Kanban System that brings a modern approach to lightweight team collaboration.

The Definition of Done is a crucial aspect of Azure DevOps Kanban. It's a clear understanding of what needs to be completed before an item can be considered finished in a particular stage of the workflow.

This definition should be defined in each column, and it's essential to revisit and refine it as the team works together and gains more experience. In fact, the more effectively the team can define higher standards of excellence for each stage, the greater the satisfaction they'll get in their work, and the better the end product will be for the user.

To configure the Definition of Done for each column, simply choose the column tab and follow the prompts. You can also quickly double-check the criteria by choosing the Information tooltip info icon.

Here are the core principles of the Definition of Done:

By following these principles, you can ensure that your team has a clear understanding of what needs to be done to complete an item in each stage of the workflow. This will help you avoid misunderstandings and ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Board Management is a crucial aspect of Azure DevOps Kanban. You can customize your board to match your team's workflow by adding or removing columns and swimlanes. This will help streamline your board and better reflect your team's priorities.

A good starting point is to work from the default templates offered by Azure DevOps Kanban boards. You can start without swimlanes as well. Once you get going, you might want to introduce new board columns and swimlanes to provide better structure and documentation for your team workflow.

To customize your board, you can configure card displays, manage columns, set WIP limits, and add swimlanes. You can also reorder cards, enable backlog and board levels, and work with bugs. Additionally, you can customize your project by adding or modifying work item types, the workflow, and add customized portfolio backlogs and boards.

To configure card displays, you can add or remove fields from cards, define card styles, apply tag colors, and enable/disable annotations. You can also define inline test behavior on cards, add details and estimates to your backlog items, and define tasks or child items for backlog items.

Here are some key board management features to consider:

By configuring your board to match your team's workflow and using these board management features, you can improve workflow transparency, reduce lead or cycle time, and enhance consistent delivery of high-quality software.

Tracking Progress is crucial in Azure DevOps Kanban to ensure everyone is on the same page. To do this, specify work in progress (WIP) limits, split columns, and definition of done.

You can map workflow states to columns, which is essential for visualizing the progress of work items. This helps teams quickly identify the current status of work items and track their progress.

The default state for each work item is automatically mapped to the first board column, labeled as "Proposed". Other workflow states, such as "In Progress" and "Completed", must be specified for each work item type and column.

Here are the workflow states and their descriptions:

Tracking progress on your Kanban board is crucial to ensure everyone's on the same page. You can specify work in progress (WIP) limits, split columns, and definition of done to keep track of your work.

To track work in progress, you need to update your Kanban board immediately if things change. This means reordering your work items based on priority and moving them to the next stage when they're completed.

Mapping workflow states to columns is essential for visualizing the progress of your work items. By aligning workflow states with board columns, teams can maintain a shared understanding of the workflow and improve their ability to manage and complete tasks efficiently.

Here are some common workflow states and their descriptions:

You can split columns to provide visibility into idle items and improve workflow transparency. This will help your team implement a pull mechanism and make it easier to track progress.

Displaying leaf node work items is a great way to track progress in your project. You can create a hierarchy of backlog items, tasks, and bugs, but it's not recommended to create same-category hierarchies.

Creating parent-child links among work items of the same type, such as story-story, bug-bug, or task-task, can lead to issues. This type of hierarchy might only appear on boards, sprint backlogs, and Taskboards.

If you link items within a same-category hierarchy that is four levels deep, only the items at the fourth level will appear on the board, sprint backlog, and taskboard. This can be confusing and make it harder to track progress.

We recommend maintaining a flat list instead of nesting requirements, bugs, and tasks. This will make it easier to track progress and avoid reordering and nesting issues.

Working with Kanban in Azure DevOps can take some getting used to, especially if you’re used to other agile methodologies, like Scrum.

To make the transition easier, start by understanding the basics of Kanban in Azure DevOps. This involves setting up boards to visualize your workflow and tracking work items as they move through different stages.

Break down your work into smaller, manageable tasks to make it easier to track progress and identify areas for improvement. This is especially useful when working with complex projects.

Regularly review and adjust your Kanban board to ensure it remains relevant and effective. This might involve changing the columns or adding new ones to reflect changes in your workflow.

Make sure to use the right tools and features in Azure DevOps to support your Kanban workflow, such as boards, backlogs, and charts.