Why the Task board?

What is so cool about the Task Board?

The world has become so complex that it is quite natural to ask that question. The first instinct almost always is, why is this so simple? Why not make it more complex and more interesting? The irony is that while we think we are making it easy to solve a complex problem by using a complex tool, it actually makes the original problem more complex at times.

For folks who want more tangible answers, here are some specific benefits

of the Task board.
1. Simplicity: Visual indicators of work in progress, work to be done and already done work being right in front of team members (pigs) and chickens.
2. Better Collaboration: Encouragement of Individuals and Interactions via task board (which is right in front of the Team)
3. Usability: Ease of moving around of tasks

without software tool overhead (very less overhead)
4. Transparency and Accessibility: Any pig or chicken can walk in a Scrum Team Collaboration room, look at the task board and get a good grip on how the team is doing.
5. Time Efficient: Save at least 4 times as much time as compared to heavy Scrum tools because of team swarming around tasking.

Why do all the things I mentioned above happen?

The answer is simple. The damn thing is right in front of you all day or in at least very close proximity! It's staring you in the face all day. You can't help but look at it. Ignoring it is impossible.

The ease of access is also amazing. Typically, team members huddle in a collocated area often looking at the board and discussing the plan of action for a task or tasks in process and then implementing the tasks. Once they are done, the done tasks are moved over to the done lane and they huddle over the next tasks in the same way. This happens in an incremental way almost all day. It is so amazing how a giant visual indicator board can make such a big difference to the way a team collaborates. The key here is being on task and track constantly while collaborating, which a task board helps you out with. What is automatically facilitated in this whole process is an informal task burning ceremony which unknowingly boosts the team morale. IMHO, the act of physically moving over a bunch of done tasks as a team or pair, in a collocated area for some strange reason makes the team feel more accomplished than using a software tool. I think one of the key ingredients of a successful team is them being aware of their success, and them knowing their true potential. The task board makes this possible for the team because of it's amazing transparency and almost weightless nature. The team saves ridiculous amount of time, because they literally swarm on everything. They also physically swarm during the tasking in Sprint Planning which saves a lot of time as compared to one person tasking things out in a Software tool. It encourages face to face communication. The list goes on. I can write a complete paper on it's advantages but I'll stop here.

My final smart ass statement is that, you have to actually use it (correctly) to know what I am talking about. Until then, it may just seem like something someone is asking you to do which may sound skeptical.