Out of the box, Azure DevOps provides black-and-white capabilities in terms of how it can be utilized to support a project and its code repository. Over time, teams establish and settle into work processes, often continuing to use those basic settings, which can lead to a mundane operation and, perhaps, risk losing sight of the end goal.
Even if a project is customized in terms of workflow, custom state options, or custom fields, sometimes it is still difficult to know where things stand and what is important to focus on.
There are a few ways in which Azure DevOps can aid in making those items visible and obvious, to better help guide a team.
Leverage color to draw attention
When viewing a Board in Azure DevOps, it can often be overwhelming to look at or find specific work items. Consider: what is most important for the team to complete or prioritize, and, what could be a unique identifier to locate those items? These are the items we want the team to notice and work on first.
There are a couple of ways in which Azure DevOps allows us to style work items on a board:
- Card Styles
- Tag Colors
Let’s take an example of Card Styles: We want the client to quickly and easily see if items on the Board are blocked. In our board settings, we can use the Board Settings > Cards > Styles options to apply some rules to make any work items which contain the tag ‘Blocked’ to appear Red in color.
Example Settings:
Example Card Preview:
Another use case for applying Card Styles could be that we want our team members to prioritize and focus on any Bug work items which have a Priority of 1. In the same settings dialog, we can add another styling rule so that any Bug work item which has a Priority of ‘1’ should appear Yellow in color. This will make it extremely easy to find those Priority 1 Bugs when viewing the board, so that it is obvious to any team member who is assigned to one.
Example Card Preview:
Let’s look at one more use case – we want our team to easily recognize work items containing the tag ‘content.’ In this example, this tag means that the work item will require manual content steps, along with the code changes. In the Board Settings > Cards > Tag Colors options, we can configure a rule so that this specific tag will appear in Pink while viewing the board.
Example Card Preview:
TIP: While it is great to provide color styling rules to work items, it is best to reserve those rules only items needing specific, frequent attention. Consider this before applying any styling setting on a project’s Board.
Find key details in a dash on your Dashboard
Lastly, Dashboards are a fantastic way to provide fast, summary information regarding the progress of a team or project. Consider creating dashboards to display results of queries that you often find yourself referencing for reporting or oversight. Like the Backlog and Boards views, keep the dashboards focused on the most valuable information. Make it easily visible by organizing the most important widgets to the top of the dashboard.
In this example below, the team wanted to automate a way of finding work items which were mis-placed in the backlog or were without tags. A series of queries were created and used to provide data of matching results. In the first screenshot, there are no results, and all the tiles are equal to 0 – this is the ideal state. In the second screenshot, there are results in one of the tables and three of the tiles have a matching result of 1, in which case the tile is configured to turn Red in color. This makes it very easy for a team member to notice and take action to make sure specific work items are addressed quickly.
Screenshot 1:
Screenshot 2:
TIPS:
- Create multiple dashboards, each with their own purpose, to prevent having just 1 or 2 dashboards being overwhelmed by too much information.
- The ‘Chart for Work Items’ widget on the dashboards also allows for the color options to be customized. Consider this in cases where you want to draw attention to a specific attribute, such as work item State.
Paint the picture for your team
To help keep the team focused and from settling into a mundane work pattern, keep the most important data in Azure DevOps accessible and visible on project Boards, Backlogs, and Dashboards. Use visual indicators like color to help enable the team to quickly find what is most important to use their time most efficiently towards the project’s goal.
By using these simply tips and tricks, it will help to paint a masterpiece of a project that both the team and client will be better engaged in.
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