Tracking progress with a Scrum Board

A Scrum Board is a tool that helps Scrum Teams visualize Sprint Backlog items and track their progress. The board can have different styles and content, depending on the team and organization where it's being used, but its purpose remains the same. The board is updated by the team and shows all items that need to be completed for the current Sprint. Items on a Scrum Board are usually represented as cards. Each card has a title, description, and other metadata, and can be colored and labeled in different ways.

Scrum Boards are not strictly defined. Some have fewer columns than others. Some have differently named columns. What they all have in common, however, is that they allow us to visualize our workflow, to know how our team is doing, and to get a feel for the direction our development is heading. A minimalist Scrum Board is depicted in the following diagram:

Figure 7.1 – A Scrum Board

Let's examine...