Imagine watching the worst movie you have ever seen, now imagine watching that everyday. That is what a boring Agile Sprint Board can turn into. Whether it be a Kanban or Scrum board there is always a way to make it more interesting by giving it a theme. Enjoy those daily stand-up meetings.
1-Find a common interest
Choosing a theme is fairly simple especially when there is a common interest. Get to know your team and find something that everyone enjoys. Some examples to get your team started:
- DC or Marvel Universe
- Star Wars – everyone’s favorite right.
- Superhero teams and groups
- The Lord of the Rings
2-Choose characters names
Here is the important part. This is a way to map a team member to a character for a theme that the team is interested in.
There are single names or full names that can be used. Depending on the one you choose will determine how the name should be constructed. They work inversely:
single name approach
<your first name> character_name <your last name>
- Insert a team member’s full name with the first name before the character name and the last name after the character name.
E.g. Jack (Aragorn) Smith
full name approach
character_firstname (your name) character_last_name>
- Insert a team member’s name or nickname into the middle of the full name.
Example: If your name is Ben then your alias will be Obi-Wan (Ben) Kenobi
3-Find an avatar
Select an avatar that matches that character and underneath the character will be the newly created name.
4-Final touches
Get the avatar printed and laminated.
Add a day counter from start to finish for the sprint – this is just a visual representation to track where all the tasks are relative to how many days left of the sprint. It can just be printed numbers in sequence.
Get a image that makes sense for the chosen theme to be used as the day selector, i.e. everyday this will move to the day of the sprint. Example: if going with a Star Wars theme then the Millennium Falcon might be the way to go.
