Since 2007 we are used to slow down our development during the summer. Simply to stop sprinting and rather to fill-up our energy tank. That, however, doesn't mean that nothing is created! This summer we concentrated on usability improvements which you, our users, proposed. Release backlog items Until now, in PLAN, it was only possible to [...]
Tasks in burn down chart Experienced agile teams don't estimate tasks and therefore they need just to track how tasks are solved. If this is your situation, choose TASKS in burn down chart legend and there you are. Cumulative Flow Chart for tasks Cumulative flow chart displayed backlog items so far. Tasks are however important in [...]
Use what you need! Some of our clients are keen to use retrospectives, while they do not use Scrum because they prefer physical boards. Some other prefer simple backlog and not the story map. So now account administrator can activate selected modules which will make theirs functionality available to all organization team members. To activate, or [...]
How to deal with complex tasks In Agile there are multiple approaches how to dealing with the complexity of software development. Some companies prefer to break down user stories into subtasks. Such companies are more focused on creative work where Scrum is very helpful. The type of subtasks is even predefined in some Definition of [...]
Export backlog items Did you ever need to do a deep analysis of your sprint, or product backlog for management and stakeholders? Didn't ScrumDesk support such analysis? Showstopper? NOT ANYMORE! You can thank Rick. Just two steps.... Export currently displayed backlog items to CSV by click on Export menu item displayed at the top of views. take a [...]
This week's version of ScrumDesk brings to you only a few changes, but you will highly probably welcome. Bulk editing If you ever needed to change more attributes of the backlog item at once, now it is a good time to start. Start just with a selection of multiple cards either in STORY MAP or PLAN view and then [...]
Auto-assignment Are your team members lazy to update the board? Are you poor scrum master who updates cards of team members? ScrumDesk auto-assigns task cards on drag and drop intentionally. However, there is still some, however. However, some scrum masters who support not-so-agile teams needed to update the board without auto-assigning their name. Now [...]
ScrumDesk v3.14.2 brings major changes we think you will like. Our aim for this version was to speedup the tool, increase security and usability. Changes are not so visible for the first sight as most of them were internal. Context menu For easier planning we have added context menu for backlog items with possibility to move, or [...]
User Stories Mapping We are proud to say we finalized user story map, the new feature of ScrumDesk. At least up to the level, we think that usability and performance are perfect. But that doesn't mean we do not want to improve it. We have a couple of additional ideas as well, so be ready [...]
ScrumDesk and Tomasz de Jastrzebiec Wykowski organize Certified ScrumMaster workshop in Bratislava, Slovakia. When? Where? May 10-11, 2016, Hotel Barónka, Mudrochova 2, Bratislava – Rača. How much? Till the end of Feb - 999€, later 1200€. VAT is not included. Registration About trainer Tomasz is first Certified Scrum Trainer from Poland. In 2010 he started [...]
User stories mapping User story mapping is a technique which we believe helps readability of the product backlog. ScrumDesk has provided it from its first version in form of free canvas displayed in Desk view. Based on your feedback we have implemented improved mode STORY MAP supporting a matrix of epics broken into backlog items. The first row of the [...]
Task types Agile teams are multidisciplinary teams so you should have an analyst, developer, tester, or even operation role in your team. And everybody needs to find out an appropriate card on the kanban board quickly. ScrumDesk has supported colors for subtask from the first version. The intent of this feature was to highlight [...]
Custom fields You asked for them many times. ScrumDesk supports custom fields for backlog items and tasks now. Well, for a now it is MVP in which you can configure them and enter data. Filtering, searching, group by custom fields will come in upcoming versions soon. Custom fields can be configured on Project Settings page where you can [...]
Capacity Planner Your sprint backlog is planned and backlog items are broken into subtasks. They are even estimated and assigned. Now, the moment of truth. Will you be able to finish what you have just committed to? Scrum teams check the capacity of all team members by a simple form. Capacity = number of [...]
Sprint review report Do you want to be prepared for a sprint review session with all information necessary to review your commitments and the status of the outcome? Sprint report is the document that summarizes: Sprint title and goals Sprint start and end dates Information about the team who worked on sprint items Information [...]
Retrospective techniques Do you need to energize your retrospectives? There is one very easy receipt to try. Just changing retrospective format or technique helps a lot. ScrumDesk enables now to apply following retrospective techniques: classic Good vs. Better, Star Fish, Mad Sad Glad, 4L, Star Stop Continue, 6 Thinking Hats, and even possibility to place [...]
Agile works very well in a product-oriented environment. It’s understandable, as Agile Manifesto as a key document of whole Agile stresses the functional product as one of the most important values. When implementing agile practices, Product development is very often reduced to: Description of responsibilities for Product Owner role, Request recording, Maintenance of backlogs, [...]
Print the Product Backlog Printing has appeared in ScrumDesk. As we have great planning experience with physical cards, we decided on a card layout that we suggest to clients of our consultancy team. Printed card layout provides fundamental information necessary for proper release or sprint planning. Print is available in Backlog and Plan view. [...]
Performance improvements We continued with performance improvements targeting the second(s) goal instead of minutes for large backlogs. We are happy to share we were successful, but also that doesn't mean we have ended. As Backlog and Work views are the most used parts of the application, we have chosen them for performance improvements of [...]
Performance improvements, part I. As the first of performance improvements, we concentrated on the Kanban board that is the most used part of the application. We integrated caching into the Kanban board. The first load has been shortened by 25%. Following loads of kanban board is a matter of seconds instead of dozens of [...]
Instant synchronization of tasks The board is alive finally. Adding new tasks, changing them, moving, cloning, or deleting them will update the Kanban boards of all team members in seconds. Just change them and everybody sees the same. Cumulative Flow Chart The Cumulative Flow Chart enables Scrum Masters to identify gaps in the process. Teams [...]
Backlog item attachments ScrumDesk now supports keeping documents, UX designs and other assets related to backlog item (aka user story) in Amazon S3 cloud integrated with ScrumDesk Files can be uploaded in the side view when you click on a card. The usage is similar to many other applications on the web. Preview of [...]
A message from you A few days ago we received on our support page the following message from Dave: Don't add anything!!! The problem with many versions of agile software is they pack them with so many tools that the core functionality gets muddled. ScrumDesk desktop is so beautifully uncluttered that you don't have to [...]
CopenhagenContext 2015 is a unique conference for testers about context-driven testing. It is the largest international Nordic. This year the conference will be held for four days, in four parallel tracks with 18 speakers experienced in the testing area of agile development. ScrumDesk company, a producer of scrum project management tools that help teams to apply agile [...]
AGILE ToolboX is a set of simple tools that agile team can use to support agile planning, daily standups or retrospectives. Agile ToolboX runs in the web browser on any platform. Cards Different card sets for backlog grooming, planning, team estimation or retrospectives. AGILE ToolboX supports multiple scales to estimate business value, effort or risk level. Teams can use Planning [...]
Two days before Christmas we have published an update of ScrumDesk. We hope your teams will find it valuable once they will plan the first release of the year 2015. The Goal The main goal for release v.0.3 has been a supporter of all core Scrum practices used by agile teams. From the improvement of planning, through daily life tracking [...]
Traditional versus Agile management is fundamentally different in the core principles. This webinar (in Slovak language) summarizes fundamental agile principles: Pull principle, a team pulls requirements and tasks to implement them. As late as possible, details are added as late as possible to do not produce waste working on features that will be removed [...]
ScrumDesk has been updated again. Thanks to all our customers who asked for new features we have implemented in this release. What we changed: [NEW] Release and Sprint can be restarted once it has been closed. [NEW] Password reset functionality in the login screen. [NEW] Password can be changed in the Profile [...]
The last couple of weeks were incredibly intense for me. It´s been a long time since I was returning home doing mentoring exhausted to the level I barely could talk. In this case, even my natural ‘workaholics’ was of no help. It was my honor to work with a fresh team formed a just [...]
We are happy to announce an update of ScrumDesk which is available for more than two months now. For more than two months about 800 active companies and universities have been using this simple, web-based, solution to manage Scrum or Kanban projects. Also, we are very thankful for a lot of comments, request and kudos you sent [...]
