Story Wall: Physical Vs. Virtual

Recently there was an interesting discussion in our team about a physical card wall vis-à-vis Mingle or another software tool. Unquestionably, we all have a soft spot for our BIG Story wall, love the physicality of it as an excellent information radiator and cannot understate its role in catalyzing collaboration (Ohhh! Those passionate debates with cards a-waving )

However, virtual card walls have some advantages over physical card walls. For instance, information is not lost if an index card gets knocked off the wall, distributed teams can see a central virtual card wall and interact with it, different team members can use filters to create relevant views, project tracking is easier. Given the increasing distributed nature of software development and the importance of metrics, tracking, reporting, end-of-project insights, continuous feedback, et al (without spreadsheets thank-you!), we are seeing an increasing trend in leaning towards an electronic wall to do all that and more.


Physical Story Wall

Mingle’s Take

Mingle’s “almost-there-you-can-touch-it” virtual Story Wall has focused on bridging the gap between the two walls. Just like a physical card wall, you can create columns and cards, and drag and drop your cards as your team completes their work. Additionally you can filter to create role-based views and group, sort and color-code cards based on their attributes

Mingle 3.4 further improved the visual effectiveness of the Story Wall with the introduction of multi-dimensional card walls for improved visibility and planning. Mingle 3.5 now extends the intuitive drag-and-drop feel to adding new cards to your project’s card wall. With Quick Add, you can almost feel the paper as you add a new card with just a grab, drag, and drop. 


Simply grab a blank card and drop it where you need it.

Mingle will prompt you to write just enough detail to make the new card visible to you and your team members.

Mingle saves you some tedious data entry as the card default values are preset to values that match the current view filters, further simplifying card addition.

Don’t limit Quick Add to release planning. Think of it as a sticky or note pad and the possibilities grow:

Capture a valuable insight during a customer visit

Report a bug without having to get pulled into long a workflow

Jot down a task during a team stand-up





Mingle's take: Virtual Story Wall with a similar look and feel

 

Stay posted for more on the Story Wall including customer insights and best practices...

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