LeanScale Task Stages
Note: The video covers material not in the guide below — please watch in full.
Action Step
Complete this before moving on.
Open a client project in Teamwork and find the board view. Identify each of the task stages covered in this training — Backlog, Grooming, On Deck, In Progress, Waiting on Customer, On Hold, LeanScale Review, and Delivered. Look at what is currently in each column and connect it to what Cam walked through in the video.
Every task at LeanScale moves through a defined set of stages from identification to completion. The goal is always the same: move tasks from left to right across the board until they are delivered to the client. Tasks make up projects, and projects are the primary vehicle for delivering value within a customer's go-to-market operation.
Backlog
Backlog is where tasks start. These are items that have been identified or requested but have not made it into a weekly sprint yet. There is no clear schedule for when they will be executed.
Think of it as the top of the funnel. A task can land here because the customer requested it or because you are being proactive about something you want to do for the engagement. The goal for every architect is to fill the backlog as large as possible — the more work LeanScale has with a customer, the more embedded the team becomes, and the more opportunities there are to execute and drive revenue.
Grooming
Grooming is a step forward from backlog. Tasks here are being scoped or already have scope defined, and they are candidates for next week's sprint.
The exit criteria to move out of grooming: the task has a clear scope documented so that either you as the architect or your engineer can execute on it. Grooming is essentially a staging area for the upcoming sprint.
On Deck
On Deck means the task is in this week's sprint. It has been aligned on with the customer, it is a priority, and it is fully scoped and ready to go.
Everything in On Deck should have a start and end date within the current week. It is in a pending state — when a team member sees it and has capacity, they pick it up.
In Progress
In Progress is self-explanatory. The engineer or architect has started actively working on the task. When work begins on something that was On Deck, it moves here.
Waiting on Customer
This is a step-out stage. Waiting on Customer is where tasks go when you need something from the client to continue — alignment, input, access to a tool, a document, or any other dependency.
Keep this column as thin as possible. The purpose is to make it visible where you are blocked. In a sprint call, you can point to this bucket and say: here is what we need from you to move these forward. If you need more alignment, communicate with the customer — jump on a call or talk async. This stage is for true blockers, not uncertainty about whether to proceed.
On Hold
On Hold is for internal blockers. Use it sparingly. If an engineer is working on a task and something comes up internally that prevents progress, the task can move here temporarily.
You should see even fewer tasks in On Hold than in Waiting on Customer. Internal blockers need to be identified, isolated, and removed as quickly as possible.
LeanScale Review
LeanScale Review is the QA stage. When an engineer completes their portion of a task, they move it here for the architect to review. If you are the architect executing the task yourself, this is where it sits while you do a final check before delivering.
Think of it like a restaurant kitchen — the meal is cooked and plated, sitting in the window waiting for the server to run it to the table. You want to move things through LeanScale Review quickly, but the review itself matters. Confirm the work matches what was scoped, check quality, and make sure it is ready for the client.
Delivered
Delivered is the final active stage. The task has been completed, reviewed, and handed off to the customer. The format of delivery depends on the task — a quick message, a written document, or a recorded Loom. The architect decides what level of detail and format fits the deliverable.
When a task moves to Delivered, automations in Teamwork can notify the customer's shared Slack channel. Tasks stay in Delivered until the next sprint meeting. This gives you a clean bucket of everything completed since the last sprint call — when Monday's meeting rolls around, you can review exactly what was shipped the prior week.
After the sprint meeting, you mark those delivered tasks as Completed to clear the deck for the new week.
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