Ry Org Scrum

Emacs package to manage personal scrum planning in org mode.

Install

This is still just a small single-file package, and isn’t in any repo, but is easy enough to install. Just clone the git repo:

git clone https://github.com/himmAllRight/ry-org-scrum.git

and then install the package file in emacs:

M-x package-install-file
repo-loc/ry-org-scrum/ry-org-scrum.el

Afterwards, because to load the package. It is reccomended to either require it in .emacs, or load it with use-package:

(require 'ry-org-scrum)
(use-package 'ry-org-scrum
  :ensure t)

That should be it.

Setup

The scrum boards are created by parsing the current buffer for org task items that are tagged with certain TODO keywords. By default, these keywords are Queue, Working On, On Hold, and Finished.

It is recommended that these keywords be added to the user’s org-todo-keywords variable. For example, it can be added as a second TODO sequence by appending the following code to one’s .emacs file:

(setq org-todo-keywords '((sequence "TODO" "In Progress" "|" "Waiting" "DONE" "Completed")
                          (sequence "Queue" "Working On" "On Hold" "|" "Finished" "Removed")))

Afterwards, to switch a TODO item to use the second sequence, hit C-u C-u C-c C-t. From there, the SCRUM stages can be toggled through using whatever keybinding org-todo is normally bound to (usually C-c C-t).

Changing the SCRUM Keywords

The scrum todo keywords and their respective locations in the scrum table are defined with the *colums-alist* variable. The *columnns-alist* variable can be edited to change the ry-org-scrum todo keywords, or order of the columns in the scrum chart. For example, the default value is set to following:

;; An alist to manage the status names and their respective columns in
(setf *columns-alist* '(("Queue"      "\n| %s | | | | |")
			("Working On" "\n| | %s | | | |")
			("On Hold"    "\n| | | %s | | |")
			("Finished"   "\n| | | | %s | |")
			("Removed"    "\n| | | | | %s |")))

Use

To use ry-org-scrum, start by creating an org file and then switching to org-mode with M-x org-mode.

Creating A Task List

Once in the org file, create a normal org todo list, using the keywords described above. It doesn’t matter what level heading they are, as the scrum table will just look for the tags when generating the table. If item’s aren’t tagged, they won’t be included. For example, in the org list below, “Serve Dinner” will be in the queue, “Cook Dinner” is marked as in progress, “Pay Bills” is waiting, and “Buy Food” is completed. However, “Feed Dog” isn’t tagged and thus will not be used by ry-org-scrum.

** Monday
*** Finished Buy Food
*** Working On Cook Dinner
*** Queue Serve Dinner
*** On Hold Pay Bills
*** Removed Meetup
*** Feed Dog

Generating SCRUM Tables

After creating an org list like the one described in the previous section, a SCRUM table can be generated at the marker by calling ry/create-scrum-board anywhere in the buffer (M-x ry/create-scrum-board).

#+BEGIN: scrum-board
|------------------+-----------------+---------------+--------------+------------|
| Queue            | Working On      | On Hold       | Finished     | Removed    |
|------------------+-----------------+---------------+--------------+------------|
|                  |                 |               | [[Buy Food]] |            |
|                  | [[Cook Dinner]] |               |              |            |
| [[Serve Dinner]] |                 |               |              |            |
|                  |                 | [[Pay Bills]] |              |            |
|                  |                 |               |              | [[Meetup]] |
#+END:

If the list is changed at all, the board can be updated by moving the marker to either ”#+BEGIN: scrum-board” or ”#+END:” of the board, and hitting C-c C-c.

Future Development

I haven’t decided what to add next, but when I have a plan of which features to add, I’ll make a checklist here. Feel free to request features using the Github issues tracker.