A student of mine inspired me to try the Bullet Journal. She uses it to track her Monthly Method sprints. I’m always advocating for analog tools. The Bullet Journal is perhaps the most popular analog productivity tool out there these days, so I’m giving it a fare shot. Over the past week I’ve been using the Bullet Journal instead of my regular Scrum Board to see how well it works with my Agile-inspired productivity system.
It’s still too early to report my findings and the ultimate conclusion on whether it’s a good way to track sprint goals. I can say there are a lot similarities in personal productivity philosophy between the Bullet Journal and the Monthly Method. Both of them focus on doing fewer things, reflecting often and adjusting your plans based on these learning instead of following a previously created long-term plan you clearly outgrew. I’m curious to see if the Bullet Journal can be a good portable solution for times when analog Scrum Board is not an option.
Unique feature of a Scrum Board
By now I’m so used to the Scrum Board layout that I’ve started to take it for granted. But there is one thing that is truly unique to a Scrum Board. I’ve never seen in any other system. And I’m truly struggling not having it this sprint while I’m experimenting with the Bullet Journaling.
And that’s the Blocked column.
In case you need a refresher, this is the analog Scrum Board I have in my office:
You can see the Blocked section in column #3.
The Blocked column contains tasks that are on hold for some reason outside of my control:
- I’m waiting on someone to reply.
- I’m waiting for the something to be delivered.
- I’m waiting for a certain date to action an item.
- Something is out-of-stock.
- Someone is on vacation and I’m waiting for them to return.
These tasks always exist, no matter what you are working on. I’ve managed my personal sprints and software development sprints at work. I’m yet to have a sprint where this column remained empty throughout the sprint.
The Blocked Column: Benefits
Clears up the rest of the board
Those are the tasks that I can’t action on. Since I can’t do anything about them at the moment, I need to separate them from the items I can action. But I don’t want to move them too far out because I still want to remember that those tasks are pending. Plus, some of them get unblocked quickly, so things move in and out of this column throughout the sprint. Moving them out of the other columns helps to keep the entire Scrum Board less cluttered and, as a result, less overwhelming.
I always tell my students to try keep their boards as uncluttered as possible. That’s why I don’t advice breaking your sprint goals into subtasks during the sprint planning session. It will clutter up your board and make you overwhelmed for no additional benefit. I only add subtasks for the upcoming week. Fewer sticky notes = less overwhelm.
Serves as a follow up system
Once a week I go through this column and follow up on the tasks I can follow up on. This column serves as an analog follow up reminder system. No need to schedule any follow up in your calendar, email or a task management app.
I never took this column seriously. Sure, I thought it was helpful. But one week without it and I’m s-t-r-u-g-l-i-n-g! This is truly a quiet Scrum Board superhero making everything else run so smoothly.
If you haven’t used the Blocked column yet in your analog Scrum Board, I highly recommend you give it a try. There are always tasks that you can’t action on. And since you can’t do anything about them, they pollute your to-do list. It’s a good practice to move them somewhere else but not completely out of sight.
If you are new to Agile philosophy, you can find the core principles on the Start Here page.
