Use the storyboard

Use the storyboard to manage the development life cycle of user stories and defects.

Note: Make sure the storyboard is customized for your team's needs. For details, see Customize the storyboard.

Your first visit

Open the Release Management > Storyboard page.

When you first enter the storyboard, the storyboard lanes may already contain several backlog items. This is because the storyboard statuses and lanes correspond to backlog item statuses. For example, if a backlog item was in the In Progress status, it will be positioned in the storyboard In Progress column. For details on the status mappings, see Customize the storyboard.

What do you want to do?

  • Set the swim lanes for the board.

    Click Board Settings > Swim Lanes, and select whether to divide the board into swim lanes (rows) that represent the items' features or assigned users.

  • Set the colors on the cards.

    Click Board Settings > Card Color, and select whether to color the cards according to theme, feature, assigned user, or not at all.

    On the board, hover over a card's color bar to see the value represented by the color.

  • Specify a threshold for collapsing cards in a cell.

    Click Board Settings > Collapsed No. and select a number of cards. If the number of cards in a cell exceeds this number, the cards are hidden and replaced by an expand button. Click the button in a cell to expand its content and view all its cards.

Use the following methods to pull items onto the storyboard:

  • Drag items from the Sprint Backlog column into the first storyboard lane.

  • Click Add from Release Backlog. The release backlog items are added to the storyboard and positioned in lanes based on their backlog item statuses. Backlog items you add to the storyboard from the release are added to the sprint backlog.

From the moment an item enters a lane or Kanban status, Agile Manager tracks its lane time, and compares it to the time limit.

You have the following options to filter the storyboard:

  • On the toolbar, select whether to display user stories, defects, or both.

  • Use the filter box, located on the top left of the page.

    When you type in the filter box, the Storyboard displays only items whose Name, ID, or Assigned To fields contain any of the words you typed.

    In the example below, we typed micha as 1. The Storyboard displayed all of the user stories assigned to Michael, with the word as in the user story name and 1 in the ID.

    Tip: When entering values to find in the Assigned To field:

    • You can type part of the user's name or email address.
    • You can type unassigned, to find items that are not yet assigned to anyone.

A backlog item's cycle time starts when the item enters the Planning or In Progress Kanban status, depending on the team storyboard's configuration. The cycle time ends when the item enters the Done Kanban status.

  • To track an item's progress, update its status by dragging its card from column to column. Consider your WIP and time limits when doing this.

  • To update the Feature or Assigned to fields, drag items from swim lane to swim lane.

    For example, if you are using the Assigned to field for swim lanes, assign a backlog item to a user by dragging it to the relevant swim lane.

  • Alternatively, reassign an item by clicking the user name, if displayed on the card, and selecting a different name from the list.

  • To change the rank of items within a lane, drag the items up or down the lane. Other items are automatically shifted up or down the lane and re-ranked accordingly.

Click the Print button. All of the cards included in the current filter are printed. For environmental reasons, we print the cards in black on a clear background.

Tip: You may want to use different color notes for user stories and defects. Filter your Storyboard to display either user stories or defects. Print the cards for each type separately using paper in different colors.

When you print:

  • Set your print orientation/layout to Landscape.

  • If you use Internet Explorer, select the Page Setup Print Background Colors and Images option.

The Storyboard displays alerts in the following cases:

  • When a backlog item exceeds the time limit for a lane or Kanban status.

    To view the up-to-date lane time, hover over the backlog item on the storyboard. The lane time is displayed in the tooltip.

  • When a lane or Kanban status contains more backlog items than allowed by the WIP limit.
  • When a user story contains failed Acceptance Tests.

Select backlog items you want to watch. You will receive mail notifications upon status changes to the items, or when they exceed a storyboard time limit.

Right-click a backlog item, and select Add to My Watch List.