🍱Backlogs and Kanban Boards

Agile teams need to be able to manage their upcoming and current work. Learn more about how teams build backlogs and kanban boards to manage their work.

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What are Backlogs?

Backlogs are places where future work tickets are kept for a team.

What are Kanban Boards?

Kanban Boards (don't confuse this with the Kanban Method of Agile!) are boards that allow teams to manage their own Agile process in different statuses.

Why are They Valuable?

Backlogs and kanban boards (NOT Kanban Method!) offer efficient ways to align in work as a team. Teams need to see what's happening cross-functionally and they need to plan what's coming up in future weeks.

How are They Made?

A lot of people think you need an expensive project management tool, like JIRA, or Asana, to build backlogs and Kanban Boards. The tool doesn't matter: your statuses of work and how you track that work matters. Focus on building an Agile team process that works for your team, build Agile philosophies on your team, and learn how to represent the process in a Kanban Board first. You can use any project management tool out there that life throws you.

How Backlogs are Made

Backlogs are made by compiling future work together in one place. This can be made in lots of different tools, as they are only a holding place for future work.

Here are some of the common ways they get made:

1. In Figjam

2. In JIRA

3. In Trello

4. In Notion

5. On a team's wall!

How Kanban Boards are Made

Kanban Boards are made by designing a team's Agile process and then representing their different statuses of work in a Kanban board. This can be made in lots of different tools, as they are only a holding place for work to show what status it's in.

Here are some of the common ways they get made:

1. In Figjam

2. In JIRA

3. In Trello

4. In Notion

5. On a team's wall!

Kanban Board Example

This is a picture that shows an example Kanban Board based on a Team process, and work items managed on the Kanban board. Credit: Tech Fleet.

Who Maintains Backlogs and Kanban Boards?

The Product Owner role in Scrum manages the backlog and Kanban Boards. Their duty is to keep them maintained and accurate with product requirements.

Agile Team Process Workshops

Here's a workshop template for an Agile team to get together and map their working process. Based on the working process, and the statuses of work they want to track, they can create a Kanban Board to track work in progress and Backlog to track future work.

[ Figma Workshop Template for Agile Team Process design coming soon ]

[ Figma Workshop Template for Kanban Board design coming soon ]

When Should Teams Build their Backlog and Kanban Boards?

Teams should build their backlogs and Kanban Boards before projects start so that they have what they need to plan sprints.

They must do these things in order:

Key Components of Building a Backlog and Kanban Boards

A good backlog and Kanban board have the following traits:

1. They are accurate: they show what work is actually being planned or in progress.

2. They are flexible: as a team process changes with self-organized teams, the kanban board must reflect the new process that changes.
3. They are self-evident: the whole team needs to be able to manage and maintain their process together. Because of this, backlogs and kanban boards must show statuses of work that everyone can understand.

How to Build a Backlog and Kanban Boards

The whole team should get together under the direction of whomever is playing the Product Owner role and design their process to build their backlog and kanban boards.

Here are the steps:

1. Develop a project roadmap
2. Develop sprint goals for sprint 1
3. Develop a team process
4. Build the kanban boards
5. Create product requirements

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