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What is Virtual SCRUM Board?

Virtual SCRUM Board (VSB) is a software tool that helps Scrum teams manage the uncommitted backlog, sprints, stories and tasks. VSB empowers Scrum teams to fully participate in sprint planning and execution.

Product Owners

The Planning tab of VSB allows Product Owners to add stories to the uncommitted backlog as well as schedule implementation of stories in sprints. Product Owners can prioritize stories by moving stories up or down in a sprint or in the uncommitted backlog. Product Owners can move stories between sprints and the uncommitted backlog at anytime.

Scrum Masters

The Current Sprint tab of VSB helps Scrum Masters facilitate sprint planning and review meetings. The Current Sprint tab shows the stories that the Product Owner has requested for implementation during the sprint. During the sprint planning meeting, the team members evaluate the effort required to complete these stories and record points to complete these stories. Points are a relative measure of effort required to complete a story. The Print Index Cards tab of VSB allows printing of story and task index cards that can be placed on a team Scrum Board, if desired.

Team Members

The Current Sprint tab of VSB allows team members to pick stories they want to implement. The team members can enter multiple tasks for a story and can enter an estimate for each task. The task estimate is usually expressed in terms of number of hours required to complete a task. A team member marks a task as done when a task is completed. The Sprint Burndown chart is automatically adjusted as task estimates are changed. When all tasks for a story are completed, a story may be marked as done.

All

The Scrum Board tab of VSB shows all stories in a sprint and their associated tasks. This view shows a generic Scrum Board with columns signifying the status of each task. The Sprint Burndown tab of VSB shows a team's progress during a sprint. The Sprint Burndown is normally a downward sloping line graph. The downward slope represents burndown (reduction) of task estimates over the course of a sprint. Ideally, the line meets the X-axis at the end of a sprint indicating that all stories and tasks are completed. The line may go up or down during the course of a sprint as task estimates are adjusted by team members to compensate for over or underestimation of effort.

See Also:
      Whitepaper: Scrum Sprint Planning and Execution with VSB