Using the Appropriate Task Management View in Clarity to Achieve Project Success

Project success is heavily dependent on how tasks are managed. That is why we focused on this topic in one of our Clarity Insider _live webinars and took a closer look at how different roles in your company can handle tasks in Clarity. 

We recap the most important findings for you here.

Waterfall, Agile, Hybrid – Quickly Changing Your Perspective

There are various approaches to managing tasks – from the classic waterfall model to hybrid and agile. But which one is right for your project? Oftentimes, the answer is: All three! It is usually not about picking one method that is right for the whole project. It is about choosing the right perspective and mindset for whatever the current and relevant context is! In other words, the answer varies depending on who is looking at the tasks and for what reasons.

• Seeing the project using the waterfall perspective emphasizes clear deadlines, dependencies, and predictability. This view emphasizes that our customer commitment is an important aspect of any customer relationship.
• When we consider a project from an agile perspective, we focus on flexibility and iterative adaptation. This view helps us to recognize that no plan can lose touch with reality and that often at the beginning of a project we are still unsure of where we are going and what obstacles we will encounter.
• The hybrid approach combines these two perspectives.

Clarity gives the different role holders in your company (e.g., project manager, portfolio manager, or team member) the ability to choose the perspective or mindset that best suits them at any given moment.

Project Management with the Task Management Module in Clarity

Let’s put ourselves in Paula’s shoes for a moment: She is a project manager at a software company. She manages several teams and projects. To do so, she is constantly switching between chairs: Customers want clear promises regarding the implementation and range of features of the developed solutions. Management wants not only satisfied customers but also commercially successful projects. Teams depend on realistic planning with plenty of wiggle room to deliver high-quality work and results.

In Clarity's Task Management module, Paula has the ability to view a project's tasks using three views:

1. Classic Waterfall View: In this view, Paula can plan project phases, timelines, resources, and milestones. This gives the project a clear direction. Of course, often projects do not work out exactly as intended in the original waterfall planning. However, in these cases Clarity provides all the necessary tools to quickly and easily adapt plans to new situations and unforeseen events.
2. Kanban Board: With the Kanban board, you can change your perspective using agile working methods. Paula can organize user stories into columns and sort them by a variety of criteria. For example, she can switch to the Status view to quickly get an overview of which user stories have not yet been started, have already been started, or are already completed. Or she can view the project in the Sprint view, focus on the team's progress, identify any roadblocks or delays, and realign priorities based on the team's progress and remaining capacity. Besides, Paula can always customize cards and even share them with other team members.
3. Hybrid: Clarity also allows Paula to plan the project in waterfall mode, creating subprojects that are handled using the agile method. This allows Paula and her teams to react flexibly and quickly to changes and unexpected events – all while keeping deadlines and other essential details of the project clearly in view. This approach is particularly beneficial in projects that have a mix of agile and traditional teams.

All of my team members and I can quickly switch between views. Which task management style we use depends on the needs of the project and our preferences. However, as a project manager, I find there are times when I have to check where the project is in terms of overall progress and whether we are on track. As a result, our team usually works in hybrid mode: We work in agile as much as possible, but switch to the waterfall model every now and then to evaluate our project progress from that perspective.

Paula

Projectmanager

Agile Project Planning Using the Kanban View and Widgets

Kanban View

In agile projects as well as in hybrid projects with agile subprojects, Clarity offers Paula and her teams the ability to display user stories, features, or even bugs as a card in Kanban boards in order to organize the work of the teams and to maintain an overview. For example, the cards can be simply dragged and dropped into different sprints. And then there are widgets!

Widgets

Widgets in Clarity are versatile, small applications that make it easy to see exactly where you are in the sprints and which and how many tasks are due next. Widgets also help with sprint planning, for example, since they can calculate the so-called “velocity”.

The velocity indicates how many story points the Scrum team has completed in the previous sprints. Using a diagram, the Scrum master can derive the velocity and use it for planning the next sprint. As part of this, the number of story points scheduled in the planned sprint is dynamically adjusted to ensure that the next sprint can be completed successfully. Another example is the use of a work-in-progress (WIP) limit to avoid too many user stories from being worked on at the same time. Otherwise, productivity would suffer.

Overview and Flexibility for the Entire Team

Paula as project manager is not the only one who needs an overview of the tasks and to-dos in the project. The members of her team also need this overview. It is good that in Clarity all team members can see their tasks and to-dos in a dashboard and can choose from a variety of display options that help them to work more productively.

Calendar View

For example, team members can view their tasks as a list and sort them by due date, or they can switch to the Calendar view to visualize the temporal relationships and make them intuitively accessible.

Task Overview on Team Level

This can be supported by a powerful dashboard for team member tasks that is broken down by tasks that have not yet been started, tasks that have been started, or even overdue tasks, for example.

Filter Options and Widgets

And that’s not all! Team members also have access to widgets and filter options that let them see more additional important information about their tasks at a glance, without having to switch views, such as:

• Number of to-dos left to complete
• Sorting tasks by the assigned owner
• Sorting by priority or status
• Key tasks and dependencies
• … and many other options!

The To-Do Module in Clarity: Zoom In Without Losing Track of the Big Picture

In Clarity, to-dos are the smallest units of tasks. In other words, when we look at to-dos, we zoom in to the most granular level of a project. But how do we still keep an eye on the big picture? With the To-Do module. This allows to-dos to be organized at the “task,” “risk”, or “investment” levels while still affording a general overview.

This makes the To-Do module a powerful tool for managing subtasks. The ability to organize to-dos at different levels of granularity and in different contexts gives users a lot of freedom and flexibility to structure their tasks in a way that suits their particular needs, work styles, and preferences.

For me, it's important to see my tasks at a glance and know how they relate to the rest of the team's tasks. For example, is someone waiting for me to complete a task? Do I need to wait for someone to finish their step for me? Are these people on-track, or should I expect problems? With Clarity, I and everyone else involved in the project always have this information at our fingertips. We work faster and with more focus on the task without having to spend a lot of time on self-organization.

Tom

Projectmanager

In short, by using customizable dashboards, filters, and widgets, all team members can put together the perfect dashboard in order to increase their productivity. Everyone can quickly access all the important information about their own tasks and display it according to their current needs.

Keeping an Eye on the Project Landscape: Scrum-of-Scrum and More

Very few companies have only one project underway at a time. That’s why Clarity allows you to look not only at one project, but also at your entire project or product landscape thanks to the cross-project dashboard. At Paula’s company, for example, Mark and Sarah use this dashboard. Mark is a product manager and needs an overview of the entire portfolio, while Sarah is a Scrum master and helps several teams coordinate and execute their projects.

The dashboard shows the status of each team and provides a quick overview of the current tasks. The view also shows how many story points are planned per project and the tasks associated with each of them. This allows Sarah to decide on a daily basis which team should take on which unassigned user story.

Clarity makes it really easy for me to help teams coordinate their tasks. No matter what it is, I can always see what I need to see. Need to filter all the unfinished tasks by their due date? No problem. Need to view tasks by parent investment? No problem either. Need to customize swim lanes by status or sprint planning? We got you!

Sarah

Scrum Master

This allows Sarah to react to changes and unforeseen events in real time and help teams make the necessary adjustments. Here, too, there are different, individually configurable views to prepare information according to current needs – for example, the Sprint view or the Daily Scrum view.

Mark as a product manager uses Clarity to see which products have progressed and to what extent their development is in line with the goals that were envisioned for them. He knows which features have been completed, which are expected to go live and when, and where unexpected obstacles may have arisen that delay the roll-out.

Clarity gives me a comprehensive overview of our entire product portfolio. I always know where we are and how we are performing compared to our goals and expectations. The clear presentation of the product roadmap and backlog shows me which features we are currently working on and which are planned next.

Mark

Product Manager

Conclusion: All Tasks Under Control at All Levels with Clarity

Regardless of whether it’s about a team member, a project, or the entire project landscape in the company – Clarity allows all project team members to have access to detailed information on all tasks and to quickly and easily prepare and display them in accordance with their current needs.

Dashboards, Kanban cards, widgets – users can customize any element in Clarity to meet their productivity levels and working methods, rather than having to subject themselves and their workflow to bulky top-down systems. Whether you view projects in the waterfall, agile, or hybrid mindset, Clarity is the perfect task management tool – on all levels.