Sprint Goals: Why the Plan Matters Less Than You Might Think
This information will help you take a BIG step toward having product dev, service, and support teams be self-managing. (Yes, really!)
Sprint Goals: The Key to a Well-Executed Sprint
What is Scrum?
The most popular Agile Development framework, Scrum, can be explained in many ways. If you're just trying to understand what Scrum is, this post is for you.
The Importance of Value to the Product Owner
Understanding outcome value isn’t just beneficial, it’s critically important. After all, delivering value is our priority!
Jim's 10 Tips for Scrum Development Teams
With COVID-19 forcing us all to learn about working from home, we're re-publishing our list of "Jim's 10 Tips for Scrum Development Teams," UPDATED for 2020!
Creating the Skills You Need for Agility
When beginning the transformation to Agile Development, it's hard to know exactly what skills the organization needs to adapt to the new way of working.
Speeding up Your Scrum Teams
Effective Scrum use is more than Sprint Planning, Daily Scrums, and so on. To see a big difference in your team's Sprints, make these workflow changes.
Don't Waste Time in Sprint "Capacity" Planning
Trying to plan detailed capacity for a Sprint? Thankfully, there are two things we can do to make capacity planning easier (and faster) in Sprint Planning.
The Specialist Bottleneck: A Real Challenge in Agile Teams
Scarce specialists like technical writers, DBAs, and UX analysts often become overloaded in Agile environments. Assigning them to multiple Scrum teams seems like a fix—but leads to delays, frustration, and poor outcomes. This article offers 5 proven strategies to solve the specialist bottleneck while improving flow, reducing risk, and enhancing learning across teams.
Sprint in Trouble? Here’s What Great Scrum Teams Do Next
In Scrum, it’s not enough to deliver high-quality work. Teams must also take ownership of how the work is done and how they respond when things don’t go as planned. This post outlines five actions Scrum teams can take when they realize the Sprint Goal is at risk—and how to develop the habit of self-correction before it’s too late.
The Hidden Cost of Big Backlog Items
In creative work like software development, bigger always means riskier. Large backlog items increase complexity, delay feedback, and compromise quality. This post breaks down why “smaller is smarter” in Scrum and how decomposing large Product Backlog Items (PBIs) can dramatically improve your team’s flow, confidence, and results.
More Than Just Code
Plan your transition to Agile Development for the long haul. It's more than just code. Treat it that way!
Backlog Refinement Part 6: Slicing Backlog Items con't
This blog post seeks to provide some tips you can use to help your teams successfully do large item estimation. Part 6 of my series on Backlog Refinement!
Backlog Refinement Part 5: Slicing Backlog Items
This blog post seeks to provide some tips you can use to help your teams successfully do large item estimation. Part 5 of my series on Backlog Refinement!
Backlog Refinement Part 4: Estimating Backlog Items
Keeping the Product Backlog estimated is hard because of constant changes. What's the best estimation technique? Part 4 of my series on Backlog Refinement!
Backlog Refinement Part 3: When Have We Refined Enough?
How do you make sure the Scrum team refines enough backlog items for the next Sprint? Part 3 of my series on Backlog Refinement!
Backlog Refinement Part 1: What It Is and How It Works
While coaching Scrum teams I've noticed how difficult effective backlog refinement is, so I wrote a blog post series on how backlog refinement works.
Estimate Like a Pro
Estimation isn't about knowing how long something will take to build but about determining how complicated something is, then using practical experience.