Allow impediments to be viewable next to their respective tasks within the Board page.
Up until a few weeks ago, we had been using the Urban Turtle extension for TFS, which was much easier to work with than the base web interface. I love the new TFS web interface, however, there is no way to view impediments to a task (no easy way). If an associate is waiting on something in order to complete their task, we add an impediment to the task. Urban Turtle then shows that impediment (in yellow) next to the task, so that we can easily see that the developer is unable to proceed. This allows our project manager to push to remove that impediment, by communicating with the appropriate people.
Not having the ability to easily see impediments will hurt our teams efficiency in a big way, so I’m really hoping you’re able to add this task type before the final release.
Vito DeCarlo
shared this idea
Love the idea. On our backlog.
Gregg Boer – TFS Product Group
6 comments
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John Hughes
commented
I would like to see this as well. Otherwise there is no good way during a board review to know that a task or pbi is blocked.
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Bill Kuklinski
commented
Please note that this request and the request to see "free floating" items on the board is basically the same conceptual request, so hopefully the votes for each are totalled to reflect the actual vote count for this "one" feature change. Restated - a Task Board (or Planning Board) should display all items of any type - bug, issue, impediment, design, test, etc. - that can be assigned to a person /group to work on.
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Tanner Lindsay
commented
This would be incredibly useful. Right now I can only see blocked tasks or impeded work items with a variety of queries. A simple icon on the board lets us see what is blocked at a glance. Maybe then you can click the icon or indicator and get to the impediment
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Alastair Upton
commented
I agree with some form of indicator on the PBI and/or task to show that it is impeded (we tend to have it at story level as our stories are small and ultimately, it is the story that is impeded).
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Anonymous
commented
We use the impediments to track when waiting for responses from outside out team. If we can't see an impediment link to the task (or that it is waiting), then we think that team member is actually working on that task. Seeing the impediments will give us a better picture of what is actually being worked on at any given moment.
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Actually, what about adding an Impediment "icon" over the top of the PBI or Task that has the Impediment work item? This way, there's no space wasted by adding an additional work item "box" on the page.
