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Planview Customer Success Center

Visual Lane Policies

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What are Visual Lane Policies?

Visual Lane Policies are interactive, visual rules that govern how work moves through your AgilePlace board. They allow you to set enforceable standards at both the lane and board levels, ensuring work items meet specific criteria before advancing. Unlike traditional text-based descriptions, these policies actively monitor cards and provide immediate, visual feedback when standards aren't met.

With Visual Lane Policies, you can:

  • Transform informal team agreements into visible, enforceable standards
  • Maintain consistent quality across your workflow
  • Provide clear guidance on requirements without additional documentation
  • Catch quality issues early before they progress through your workflow

Why Users Should Care

  • Maintain Quality Without Manual Oversight: Stop relying on memory or manual checks to enforce standards.
  • Accelerate Onboarding: New team members immediately understand what's required at each stage.
  • Improve Data Quality: Ensure critical information is captured consistently for better reporting and decision-making.
  • Reduce Rework: Prevent incomplete work from moving forward, eliminating downstream surprises and delays.
  • Scale Process Governance: As teams grow, maintain consistent standards without increasing overhead or meetings.

Visual Lane Policies help you balance agility with necessary governance, embedding guardrails directly into your workflow rather than imposing external controls that slow teams down.

Getting Started

Setting Up Your First Policy

  1. Navigate to your board and select Board Settings.
  2. Click the Lane Policies tab.
  3. Click New Policy Rule.
  4. Provide a description for your rule.
  5. Choose where to apply your policy:
    • Lane-level: Select a specific lane.
    • Board-level: Select "Apply to entire board".
  6. Define which card types this policy applies to (all types or specific ones).
  7. Select which fields to include in your rule.
  8. Choose your warning option:
    • Warn when policy rule is violated: Popup notification alerting users when a lane violation is triggered.
    • Enforce exit criteria: Prevents cards from moving until requirements are met.
  9. Save your policy.

Policy Configuration Options

Policy Scope:

  • Apply to specific lanes or the entire board
  • Target all card types or only specific types (features, bugs, user stories, etc.)

Warning Options:

  • Warn when policy rule is violated: Popup notification with violation details
  • Enforce exit criteria: Blocks movement until criteria are met

Current Condition Support:

  • Field required: Ensures specified fields are completed

Common Use Cases

1. Story Readiness Check

Apply to your "Ready for Dev" lane for user story cards:

  • Ensure acceptance criteria field is completed
  • Use "Enforce exit criteria" to maintain quality standards

2. Bug Tracking Completeness

Apply board-wide for bug cards:

  • Require reproduction steps field
  • Use "Warn when policy rule is violated" initially to help teams adjust

3. Feature Documentation

Apply to your "In Progress" lane for feature cards:

  • Ensure design documents field is completed
  • Choose warning level based on your team's process maturity

4. Release Readiness

Apply to your "Ready for Release" lane across all card types:

  • Require QA approval field completion
  • Use "Enforce exit criteria" for critical release quality gates

Best Practices

  1. Start with warnings. Use "Warn when policy rule is violated" before implementing strict enforcement.
  2. Apply enforcement strategically. Reserve "Enforce exit criteria" for your most critical quality gates.
  3. Be selective with card types. Apply different field requirements to different work types. 
  4. Communicate clearly. Ensure your team understands the policies and why they matter.
  5. Review regularly. Adjust policies as your process matures.