The Magic of 1-Day Sprints
How long should your sprints be? Generally, 1-2 weeks, with a preference towards a shorter sprint. But that’s not what I’m writing about today. I…
Tag: Scrum
Top 3 Things I’ve Learned About Virtual Agile Training
It’s been a whirlwind for many of us as we’ve adapted to the current work conditions – that’s equally true for us as Scrum Trainers…
What Is Agile Methodology and How Does It Work?
What is Agile methodology? Well, Agile is not exactly a methodology. Technically, Agile is a set of values and principles. Agile can also be thought…
Story Splitting Poster Now Available in Portuguese
Working in small increments of value—good user stories—is the key habit that makes the rest of Agile Software Development work. But people everywhere struggle to…
Scrum Basics: When Should We Schedule Sprint Transitions?
We’re often asked which day or days are best for scheduling the Sprint Planning, Review, and Retrospective meetings.
Change Happens—So Make it Cheaper
Change on software projects is expensive; it leads to wasteful rework. Change is risk. We can deal with risk one of two ways. We can…
Functional Managers in Agile
As an organization transforms to an agile way of working, functional managers (e.g. a dev manager or a test manager) can feel lost. Many of…
Building a Useful Task Board
The task board is a simple, yet powerful, tool for Scrum teams. As a coach, I can tell a lot about a team just by…
Why Longer Sprints Probably Won’t Help
As a coach, I’m frequently told, “Our sprint length is too short. We want to change it from X to Y weeks.” The time box—the…
Another Story Splitting Pattern (Maybe)
User stories are typically written using a template like, “As a <role>, I want to <action> so that <value>.” My other story splitting patterns focus…
Want Productivity? Focus on Predictability Instead
Focus your team on predictability, and productivity will come. Focus on productivity, and you’ll get neither productivity nor predictability.
Growing DONE—How to Make the Definition of Done Work for Your Team
Effective agile teams get things done. They build software day after day that’s not just “code complete” but really shippable. And when their product owner…
How to Give a Great Sprint Demo
Exciting. Entertaining. Do these words describe your sprint demo meetings? Or are boring and unfocused more accurate? I can’t believe how many times I’ve come…
Continuous Deployment
I’ve written before about the amazing financial impact of releasing more often. And I know from personal experience the positive impact that frequent releases have…
7 Tips for a More Effective Daily Scrum
The main purpose of the Daily Scrum is for team members to make and follow-up on commitments to one another that work towards the team’s…
Agile Product Management Boot Camp
Bob Hartman and I are offering an Agile Product Management Boot Camp course March 9-10 in Denver. If you’re a product manager, product owner, business…
Short Answers #2: What to Focus on in 2009
It’s officially a series now. In this Short Answers video, I answer the question, “If my Scrum team could work on one thing in 2009,…
New Benjamin Zander Video – “How Fascinating!”
There’s a new Benjamin Zander video over at the Pop!Tech conference website. There’s some overlap with the video from TED I posted back in June—most…
Short Answers #1: When Stories Are Larger Than Planned
I’m experimenting with video for what is likely become a new series here. In these “Short Answers” posts, I’ll answer an agile question in about…
Are the Product Owner and ScrumMaster’s Interests Opposed?
The Chief Engineer role in the Toyota Product Development System combines parts of the Product Owner, ScrumMaster, and senior technical team member roles from Scrum.…