Visualize Workflows With Virtual Huddle Boards

When your team is juggling multiple complex projects, it can be tough to keep everyone’s responsibilities, progress reports, pain points, and action items straight. But you can take some of the challenge out of this process by creating and maintaining a huddle board for each project.

Whether your team meets virtually or in the office (or both), you can streamline progress updates, task assignments, note-taking, and problem-solving with a well-organized huddle board. Here’s how to integrate huddle boards into your team’s meeting routine, including setup tips, essential components, and best practices for hybrid workplaces.

What is a huddle board?

A huddle board is a whiteboard, digital display, or other visualization tool used to take notes and track tasks during a team huddle. A huddle board should outline critical details such as project status, action items, metrics, and goals to help team members review progress, identify issues, assign responsibilities, and plan next steps.

The typical huddle board is divided into columns, each representing a different project stage, with task cards moving through the columns as the project progresses. You can use a physical display, such as a whiteboard, for an in-person huddle board, or an online platform for a virtual huddle board. If you’re a Slack user, you can use a shared canvas to collaborate.

Why huddle boards are important for team collaboration

A huddle board acts as the command center for project management, providing a single source of truth so that all teammates can keep up with project objectives and priorities. Visualizing this information on a display helps team members understand complex information quickly.

Huddle boards promote transparency by making important information available to everyone. They also support accountability by displaying tasks and responsibilities. Plus, keeping everyone on the same page with an up-to-date, comprehensive huddle board reduces miscommunication and duplicate tasks.

Benefits of using huddle boards in the workplace

Huddle boards help streamline processes and increase productivity by providing a clear, concise overview of project updates, tasks, and deadlines so team members can organize and prioritize their work. Huddle boards also help track progress and performance metrics to identify areas of improvement.

Using a huddle board promotes employee engagement and ownership, giving team members a platform to note their concerns, suggest improvements, and celebrate each other’s successes.

How to structure an effective huddle board

Here’s what your huddle board should include, plus tips on how to display information visually.

Essential components of a huddle board

Displaying the right information helps your team focus on the right things. Consider including these components on your team’s virtual huddle board (or canvas, if you use Slack):

• A check-in section with daily standup questions, attendance tracking, and short team-building activities or icebreaker questions
• A focus section listing current projects, task assignments, and the deadlines or milestones for each task
• A section for team members to share their capacity and availability to complete tasks, including progress updates and whether they need help meeting deadlines
• A section displaying metrics such as key performance indicators (KPIs), visual progress indicators, and short-term goals
• A problem-solving section listing issues and roadblocks, proposed solutions, and relevant action items

Best practices for organizing and structuring a huddle board

Your team’s huddle board should be quick to scan and easy to understand. Keep these tips in mind:

• Keep your huddle board clutter-free and focused by including only essential information
• Divide the board into sections with clear headings
• Use visual elements such as color coding and symbols to make information easier to scan and to highlight critical details, including deadlines, issues, priority levels, and project statuses
• Place the huddle board where it’s visible to all team members, including remote teammates who may be dialing in via video conference
• Store your virtual huddle board in a centralized cloud location that all relevant team members and stakeholders can access
• Assign a team member to update the huddle board regularly to ensure it always reflects the latest information
• Consider using a set template for all huddle boards to ensure consistency across projects

How to visualize information effectively on a huddle board

A good huddle board <em>looks</em> good. Visual tools make complex data easier to digest, helping team members understand which elements of the project need the most attention.

Use charts and graphs to display metrics and highlight progress. Assign an icon for each common task status; for example, you might use checkmarks for completed tasks and exclamation points for roadblocks. Bold text helps draw attention to the most critical information.

Bulleted lists and short, active phrases can keep the content concise. Use a clean typeface and large font size to make sure the text is legible from a distance. Also, arrange the information logically by grouping related items and maintaining a flow that aligns with the structure of your huddles.

Different types of huddle boards

The best type of huddle board for you depends on how you structure your team and your meetings. Let’s explore the most common types of huddle boards.

• Tier boards are hierarchical boards, typically categorized into Tier 1 (daily operational tasks at the team level), Tier 2 (performance indicators at the department level) and Tier 3 (strategic goals at the executive level). They track operational performance, facilitate communication and ensure alignment across organizational levels. The tier structure makes it easy to escalate issues and share progress up the chain of command.
• Team boards help specific groups within a team manage their tasks, projects and group-specific performance metrics. If you hold frequent team meetings or huddles, a team board might be your best bet. Components include current project status, tasks, responsible team members, deadlines, milestones, team-specific KPIs, progress indicators, and a problem-solving section.
• General huddle boards support overall coordination and collaboration at daily or weekly team huddles. They provide a dedicated, centralized space to display essential project information, progress updates, and pain points. Components include check-in questions, tasks and projects, team goals and metrics, issues and action items.

How to choose the right huddle board type

The right huddle board for your team depends on your unique needs and goals. Start by considering the size of your team and the complexity of its tasks and projects. For example, tier boards are more structured and tend to suit larger teams tackling more complex projects. Team boards are easier to manage and more effective in facilitating direct communication in smaller groups.

Think about your team’s objectives as well. Team boards with detailed KPIs are best for performance tracking, while general huddle boards with prominent issue and action item sections support rapid problem-solving.

Implementing huddle boards in your team’s workflows

If your team isn’t already using huddle boards, here’s how to work them into your routines to boost collaboration and maximize productivity.

A step-by-step guide to setting up your huddle board

1. Determine the primary purpose of your huddle board. Will you use it to track progress, resolve issues, or measure performance?
2. Identify your reasons and goals for implementing huddle boards. Are you hoping to improve communication, increase productivity, or promote transparency?
3. Use the above information to pick the best type of huddle board for your team.
4. Decide whether you’ll use a physical huddle board, such as a whiteboard, or a virtual one using an online collaboration tool such as a Slack canvas or a digital whiteboard.
5. Design your board’s layout, or use a pre-made huddle board template. Make sure to include essential components such as a check-in section, focus area, and metrics and problem-solving sections. Arrange these sections logically to support your huddle’s flow.
6. If you’ve chosen a physical huddle board, gather necessary materials, such as markers, sticky notes, magnets, and erasers. If you’re using a virtual huddle board, set security access permissions to ensure all stakeholders can view it, and create process documentation so all team members know how to use the tool.
7. Use sticky notes or digital cards to represent each task on your huddle board. Include a summary of the task, plus its deadline and the responsible parties. As the project progresses, you can move each task across the columns, such as from “To Do” to “In Progress” and, eventually, “Completed.”
8. Incorporate the board into your daily and weekly huddles. Solicit feedback about the huddle board’s effectiveness, and adjust its components or layout to meet your team’s evolving needs.

Tips for adopting and using huddle boards

To successfully integrate any new tool or process into your team’s day-to-day, you must start at the top. Managers and team leaders should actively participate in huddles, using the huddle board to guide their conversations and decisions. They should also encourage active participation from other team members to foster a sense of ownership and get teammates in the habit of using the huddle board.

Consider dedicating a section of your huddle board to team achievements and celebrations. Highlighting successes can help motivate team members and bring some engaging fun into your huddles.

Integrating your huddle boards with your work platform

If you’re using a virtual huddle board for your remote or hybrid team, your chosen tool should integrate with the rest of your company’s tech stack to minimize context switching and keep all conversations and decisions organized.

Slack offers a simple, seamless experience with huddles. Hop into a spontaneous call with one or multiple team members, and use the built-in canvas as your digital huddle board. Easily refer back to any links or documents shared during your huddles; Slack automatically saves them. Slack also integrates with popular video-conferencing and digital whiteboard tools so you don’t need to leave the platform you already love. Contact our sales team to learn how Slack can make your huddles even better.