"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning" -Albert Einstein."
This famous quote is a good inspiration for agile teams. The agile methodology is on the rise; companies and teams approach the world's challenges with new practices about working together and managing projects.
This article focuses on technology and how it can help agile teams create an agile virtual workspace to foster collaboration and interaction.
What is an agile virtual workspace?
An agile virtual workspace is a digital representation of the agile analog workspace, providing agile teams the artifacts and tools used to apply an agile methodology for their projects. It supports the foundational agile principles of collaboration, communication, interaction, and transparency.
For most elements from real agile workspaces like whiteboards, sticky notes, cards, and wall-filling sprint- or Kanban boards exist digital pendants.
Online whiteboards like Collaboard are perfect tools to create an agile virtual workspace and bring remote teams together in one single place.
Why use an agile virtual workspace?
- When you have a distributed team that cannot meet physically often
- When you want to offer hybrid working
- When you have a large team
- When you do not have enough physical space
- When you tried analog agile workspaces, and they didn't work for your projects
How to work agile in a hybrid environment?
When your strategy for the modern workplace is to foster an agile culture and hybrid working, you need to consider creating meeting rooms or office spaces that suit your strategy's needs.
When working hybrid, an analog sprint or Kanban board is not constructive. People need to be able to access the information on these boards from everywhere and at any time. Nevertheless, you want to provide a space in your office where people can make a stand-up meeting; the best case in front of their digital scrum or Kanban board where they can interact with elements like sticky notes, cards, etc.
One approach to creating a fully flexible agile workspace onsite in your office is equipping it with one or several large interactive displays. People connect their laptops to these displays open their agile board, and since the display allows for touch interactions, they can interact with the content and move cards, etc. The display becomes a dynamic, agile wall that displays the team's content to see and work.
Agile use cases that an online whiteboard supports
What can you do with an online whiteboard like Collaboard to support agile processes, workflows and run remote agile ceremonies?
- Sprint Board
- Kanban Board
- Scrum Board
- Retro meetings
- Product Backlog
- Product Roadmap
- Architectural diagrams
- Impact Mapping
- User Story Mapping
- And many other activities
Advantages of using an online whiteboard for your agile activities
Using an online whiteboard provides you with several advantages. The list here highlights the five most important ones.
Think big: An online whiteboard has no limits. Working on a virtual wall that can expand based on your needs in all directions provides you with all the flexibility you need. Visualize the big picture.
Transparency: Find all the information and all changes in real-time on your board. Everything is always transparent.
Always available: Independent where you are, and when you work, you can access the board.
Flexibility: Use one tool for your different use cases. Enjoy the flexibility of an online whiteboard to create a sprint board, design a workflow or visualize an architecture.
Save costs: Although physical cards, pens, and paper walls are not strong cost drivers, you don't need them anymore when working with an online whiteboard. The main driver to save costs is the reduction of physical spaces you don't need anymore.
