Planning on the whiteboard: cards that are real work

Watch

You will be able to

• Turn a card into a work item with its parent, points and an acceptance criterion
• Plan it by dropping it into a sprint, and fix what DelPulse refuses
• Show dependencies with connectors, and see the plan roll up

Step by step

1. Open the team’s planning board Work › Whiteboards › Cycle planning
   One column for each sprint, and a row for each team. Each team’s board is a breakout of its product’s board, which rolls up to the organisation’s.
2. Make a card into a work item Card › Make a work item
   Choose where it lives and its type. Add the parent feature, the points, the sprint to plan it into, and an acceptance criterion as Given, When, Then.
3. The card and the item are one Card › key and status
   The card shows the item’s key and status. Rename either one and the other changes too; change the status from the card.
4. Plan by moving the card Sprint column
   Drop a card in a sprint and the item goes into that sprint. Move it back to the backlog and it leaves the sprint.
5. When DelPulse says no Card › Not in sprint
   If the item cannot go in, for example a story with no points, the card stays where you put it with a warning and the reason. Fix it, then choose Try again.
6. Dependencies are connectors Connector from one card to another
   A connector records that one item blocks another. It turns red when the blocker sits in a later sprint than the work that waits on it.
7. See it roll up Product and organisation planning boards
   What each team plans shows on its product’s board and on the organisation’s board, marked with where it came from.

Try it yourself

Practise as Daniel Kim in the demo.
View as Daniel Kim. Open Cycle planning: EPR team Alpha. Which card is not in its sprint, and why? Fix it and try again.

Open the demo as Daniel Kim Password pulse-demo-2026. The demo resets every night.

The examples use a made-up healthcare organisation. DelPulse is not only for healthcare: it can be set up for any industry, with your own names for every portfolio, programme, product and team.

Part of

Delivery team members · Product Managers and Product Owners · PMO and assurance