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Think of a board as a loose, visual roadmap for your team. Each story shows what needs to be done, who's working on it, and its current stage (to-do, in progress, finished, etc.). It keeps everyone on your team on the same page, helps prioritize tasks, and lets you see progress at a glance, making you a more organized and efficient team.
Combined with your Backlog Management skills (learn more in Essentials: Waterfall, Agile, & Scrum), a board can help your team build a better product in a more iterative way!
To see what an example board looks like, click here!
GitHub not only stores code, it can also store your Projects board right alongside— keeping your whole team on the same platform, and thus the same page.
Before getting started, make sure you’ve been added to the Oasis Organization and to your team’s repository by your team’s Mentor.
To create a board using our recommended template, open this link to the template. Then click **Use this Template**. Give your project a name and click **Use Template**.
Once your project is successfully initialized, navigate back to your team’s repository. Once there, navigate to the **Projects** tab.
Next, click the arrow 🔽 next to **Link a Project** and click on your newly created Project so that the checkbox is shown next to its name. Then click **Link a Project** to complete the linking.
If you go back to your repository’s homepage, you should see a 1 next to the Projects title in the tab bar.
Now, make sure your team can access the board. Navigate to the board itself, and then navigate to the board’s settings: Projects > [Board Title] > ... (Top right corner) > ⚙️ Settings > Manage Access (Sidebar). Type the usernames of any peers on your team and click **Invite** to add them to the board— they will need to already be added as collaborators to your repository for this to work.
The board is only useful if you keep it up to date and refer to it often. It’s recommended you check the board at least twice per Hack Session, once at the start to discuss what work to do that day, and once at the end to update your progress and agree on next steps. This is similar to a Daily Standup which is a meeting you’ll likely experience on co-op— ask your mentor about them!
Every two weeks we’ll start a “Sprint”. Stories your team wants to complete within that two-week period will be moved from the Project Backlog (every Story you want to build this semester) to the Sprint Backlog.
As you start working on a Story in the Sprint Backlog, move it to In Progress so that your team knows you’re actively developing code to fulfill it. If you get stuck, it’s helpful to move it to Blocked. This can signal to your team and mentor that you need help with some aspect of the Story in order to keep building for it. In addition to placing the story in blocked, let your mentor know you’re stuck!