Enhancing Team Workflow with Azure DevOps
Did you know that Azure DevOps isn’t just a workflow tool for software development teams? While Azure DevOps has functionality that is geared toward development teams there are features that can apply to most business teams. First let’s identify what Azure DevOps can do and then how business/non-technical teams can use the tool for their daily workflows.
Azure DevOps does provide features that are primarily focused on development teams. For instance, Azure DevOps provides Pipelines for deployment of code, Repos used for collaboration and code revisions, Test Plans for testing code, and Artifacts for storing and collaborating on tech packages such as Python. However, for most business operations teams, these functions are not needed. Fortunately, Azure DevOps has an Azure Boards tool that can be used exclusively, which is more than enough for most teams that are not writing code. When it comes to managing the team’s workflow, team members can create work items that capture the task that needs to be completed. Now Azure Boards does require that you set up a hierarchy with the work items such as:
· Epics
· Features
· User Stories
· Tasks
· Issues
If you are familiar with Scrum or Agile methodology this hierarchy should look familiar. Azure DevOps audience is generally intended for teams that have a basic understanding of applying Agile to their daily work. It is not a requirement that you have to be familiar with Agile or Scrum to make it work though, but it would be helpful to have basic level understanding. Assuming your team has this basic knowledge, and your organization has already committed to using Azure DevOps, I would recommend not switching to a different workflow collaboration tool (i.e., Planner, Monday, or Smartsheet). You may inadvertently increase inefficiency by having to switch between tools or if they are not integrated within your organization.
The benefit of using Azure Boards, is that it does allow for more enterprise level collaboration and transparency when it comes to what the teams are working on. Teams can work together on managing their tasks and ensure they are staying aligned when it comes to the overall business objectives. They can also assign responsibility directly to whoever needs to complete the work which helps drive accountability. Plus, it just makes it easier to track. Another feature is that it allows you to create columns with your own titles, but most should start with the standard approach of using To Do, Doing, Done. That way anyone can easily see what work still needs to be done, what work is started and what work is completed. However, most importantly, it allows the team to align on whether they are working on the right items. The work items are also time bound by the sprint they are placed within. Although you can change the dates, the point is that you are working toward something in a brief period of time.
There is a potential downside to Azure Boards as it can come off as more complex to use especially for teams that have not used a workflow tool before. I have coached teams successfully on how to use Azure DevOps, but it does take time to bring people around to feeling comfortable with its functionality. It is a great tool for larger organizations that have teams across different functional areas. It also has reporting capabilities which can be limiting based on what type of data you need to see. However, Azure Boards can be integrated with dashboarding tools such as Power BI to supply more nuanced and relevant information.
Overall, Azure Boards is a great tool for business teams especially if the organization is already licensed for it and is large and complex enough where collaboration, coordination and transparency is vital. It also helps that much of Azure Boards is standardized, which can help with training large sets of users and make it easier to know where to find critical information. For smaller companies though, the opposite can be true, and they should consider simpler workflow tools so as not to be overwhelmed by its complexity or worse pay for a product where only a small amount of the features ends up being used.
