GitLab Project Management - Hands-On Lab: Create And Manage A Kanban Board

Estimated time to complete: 30 minutes

Objectives

Kanban boards show you the progress of all tickets in your project, as they move from the Backlog, to being worked on, to being checked by QA, to being closed. A real-world Kanban board might involve many more statuses than these 4, but these are adequate for a bare-bones Kanban demonstration. To learn more about Kanban boards, click here.

Task A. Create a new subgroup to work in

1. In the GitLab environment, navigate to the Awesome Inc group.

2. Click on the New subgroup button in the top right.

3. Type PM Workflows into the Subgroup name field.

4. Click Create subgroup to create the subgroup.

Task B. Create epics

1. From your new subgroup, in the left pane, click Epics. We will be creating three epics.

2. Click the New Epic button in the top right.

3. Type Frontend into the the Title (required) field. We will be leaving all the other fields of the epic blank.

4. Click Create epic.

5. Click the New Epic button in the top right.

6. Type Backend into the the Title (required) field. We will be leaving all the other fields of the epic blank.

7. Click Create epic.

8. Click the New Epic button in the top right.

9. Type QA into the the Title (required) field. We will be leaving all the other fields of the epic blank.

10. Click Create epic.

Task C. Use a project template with issues

GitLab has a variety of project templates you can use to help jump start your projects. The one we will be using is called Sample GitLab Project, which will come with predefined issues. You can see all of GitLab’s project template here.

1. Click the PM Workflows title tile in the left pane to return to the subgroup landing page.

2. At the top of the page, click New project.

3. Click the Create from template option in the top right section.

4. Scroll to the bottom of the built-in templates. Next to Sample GitLab Project, click on Preview to see see the project in a new tab. It is always important to preview a project before using it as a template.

5. After you have explored the template, return to your previous tab, and click Use template.

6. Type in Awesome Software the Title section. Leave all other options as their default values.

7. Click the Create project button. GitLab will now import a project containing many pre-generated issues and merge requests. When the import process has finished, you will be taken to the new project’s landing page.

Task D. Assign some issues to epics

1. In the left pane, click Plan > Issues.

2. Click an issue of your choice.

3. Assign the issue to the Backend epic using the right metadata pane on the issue’s details page.

4. Assign another issue of your choice to the Frontend epic using the right metadata pane on the issue’s details page.

5. Assign another issue of your choice to the QA epic using the right metadata pane on the issues’s details page.

Task E. Create labels representing Kanban stages

1. Using the breadcrumbs at the top of the page, return to your PM Workflows subgroup.

2. In the left pane, click Manage > Labels.

3. Click the New Label button in the top right.

4. Type in Status::Backlog into the title field.

5. Feel free to pick a color for the label and type in a description. When you are satisfied, click Create label.

6. Click the New Label button in the top right.

7. Type in Status::WIP into the title field.

8. Feel free to pick a color for the label and type in a description. When you are satisfied, click Create label.

9. Click the New Label button in the top right.

10. Type in Status::QA into the title field.

11. Feel free to pick a color for the label and type in a description. When you are satisfied, click Create label.

    You are not making a label to mark an issue as “done.” Instead, you will close each issue when it is done. This lets GitLab register the issue as complete in burndown/burnup charts and on roadmaps.

12. Click the New Label button in the top right.

13. Type in Health::On Track into the title field.

14. Feel free to pick a color for the label and type in a description. When you are satisfied, click Create label.

15. Click the New Label button in the top right.

16. Type in Health::Needs Attention into the title field.

17. Feel free to pick a color for the label and type in a description. When you are satisfied, click Create label.

18. Click the New Label button in the top right.

19. Type in Health::At Risk into the title field.

20. Feel free to pick a color for the label and type in a description. When you are satisfied, click Create label.

Task F. Put all issues in the Kanban backlog

None of the issues have been worked on yet, so you need apply the Status::Backlog label to all of them. Fortunately you can perform bulk edits on issues.

1. In the left pane, click Issues.

2. Click Bulk Edit.

3. Select all the issues by clicking the faint checkbox to the left of the search bar above the list of issues.

4. In the right pane, select Status::Backlog from the Labels dropdown.

5. At the top of the right pane, click Update all to apply the label to all selected issues.

Task G. Create the Kanban board

1. In the left pane, click Plan > Issue Boards.

2. At the top of the page, click the Development dropdown.

3. Select Create new board from the Switch board menu.

4. Type Kanban in the Title section.

5. Deselect the Show the Open list checkbox, as we will not need it for this board.

6. Keep the Show the Closed list checkbox selected.

7. Kanban boards generally show all your issues, so don’t set a scope for the board.

8. Click Create board.

Task H. Add a list for each stage

1. At the top right of the page, click Create list.

2. In the New list options, select Label as the list scope and Status::Backlog as the value.

3. Click Add to board.

4. At the top right of the page, click Create list.

5. In the New list options, select Label as the list scope and Status::WIP as the value.

6. Click Add to board.

7. At the top right of the page, click Create list.

8. In the New list options, select Label as the list scope and Status::QA as the value.

9. Click Add to board.

10. Refresh the browser page to force the 3 new lists to appear in the same order that you created them.

Task I. Limit the allowed amount of work in progress

1. Click the gear icon at the top of the Status::WIP list to open list settings.

2. Next to Work in progress limit, click Edit button and set the value to 3

3. Click the X in the top right corner to exit out of the list settings.

Task J. Simulate work on issues

1. Practice dragging issues between different lists. For example, place more than 3 issues in the WIP list, and notice the results.

2. At the top of the page, click Group by > Epic.

3. At the bottom of the page, expand Issues with no epic assigned to see the full list of issues in the Backlog list.

4. Practice dragging more issues, both to different lists and to different epics.

Suggestions?

If you’d like to suggest changes, please submit them via merge request.

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