Main category for blog posts…
Agile Estimation: Reference user stories
In the first part about agile estimation, we explained the fundamental principles of the estimation. Now it is time to think about how to implement them in real life. Reference stories For estimation, we will need to have 'the catalog of references' so we can compare all new requirements fast & accurately enough. In our [...]
Agile Estimation: Principles
Estimation has been questioned in software development for many years. How can an estimate be made accurately and quickly? And is estimation even necessary? Well, that is the question for thousands of bucks. Because estimation might be expensive. Especially in the age of changes. Time as an estimation unit is wrong! In our agile [...]
ScrumDesk 5.25.1: Archive old Releases
ScrumDesk is available for more than three years already and many customers finished dozens of releases and sprints. Now is the best time to forget them! With this version, you can archive release, its sprints, and backlog items so they are not loaded anymore in BACKLOG, PLAN or WORK views. This will significantly increase performance. [...]
How to build product: Let’s start with the business
Agile development works very well in the product development area. But to build a successful product is much more work than just gather requirements and implement them. One of the trickiest things in agile development is how to prepare requirements that are ready for incremental development while still delivering some value for the customers. [...]
Prioritization by Business value in Agile
The first blog post about prioritization was focused on MoSCoW - prioritization of the backlog from the perspective of customers. This is not enough for the products development of the commercial company. You need to survive, to pay bills, to pay the next sprints. You have to think about features from the perspective of the [...]
How to prioritize in Agile I.: Customer’s perspective with MoSCoW
Prioritization is probably the most discussed part of development processes. Product backlogs are often quite complex with hundreds of requirements. How to find user stories in your story map which you should start developing first? Traditional approach The approach of traditional processes is simple. You have high, medium, low priorities. Ok, for some organizations [...]
How to work with Kanban board
Agile teams track their tasks on a Kanban board that visualize the status of work with help of multiple columns. Every column means some status. The team member should move task cards between these statuses to indicate on which task he works. Which tasks have been done and which still need to be developed. [...]
ScrumDesk 5.23.2: Roadmap is coming!
What you see on the picture below is a new functionality of ProductDesk module with designer of roadmaps. We are preparing it for the next major release and it is going to be huge, very huge, very, very very huge. Popular sentence these days :) It is going to be available as a free upgrade [...]
More than 4 users? Check your ScrumDesk account before March 5th!
The change of our pricing plan has been communicated in October the last year. ScrumDesk's pricing plan is now a combination of the monthly subscription fees for user licenses and one-time payment for selected modules. On March 5th we will start to issue monthly invoices for accounts with more than 4 free user licenses [...]
ScrumDesk 5.21.3: Move subtasks. Integrated payment
The latest version of ScrumDesk suite allows you to pay for user licenses and to buy additional packages directly from the application. VISA/MasterCard/Diners Club cards are accepted. Move subtask to other backlog items Until this version, it was possible to move subtask to other backlog item displayed on Kanban board in WORK view. Now you [...]
ScrumDesk 5.21.1: Root Cause Analysis
RCADesk - new module for root cause analysis Are your development teams blocked by impediments? Are you sure you solve the right problems? Agile teams often hit a wall with problems they are not able to solve easily. More often they even try to solve just the first level of problems and not root causes. Process [...]
ScrumDesk and Slack Integration
Create web hook in Slack Click Integration page in Slack.com team page. Add Incoming webhooks integration Choose channel where your messages from ScrumDesk should be kept. Configure this integration webhook icon, description and keep URL that is needed in ScrumDesk Configure Slack integration in ScrumDesk Click Project Setup gear icon in the left panel. Scroll down [...]
ScrumDesk 4.20.3: Multilevel Requirements Hierarchy Backlogs
Multilevel of requirements was very often repeated request of our clients in the year 2016: to manage a portfolio of multiple small products in the same backlog, to manage non-development aspects of the product as well, to manage complex product with multiple modules, to manage activities and tasks for multiple clients. We have added multiple [...]
Buy ScrumDesk with user stories map, retrospectives or root cause analysis
Did Story Map and Retro menu items disappear from the left menu on ScrumDesk Start? Your 30 days trial period is over. ScrumDesk consists of multiple modules: ScrumDesk - the module for Scrum project management available for all customers for free. ProductDesk - commercial module ($99 one time payment per company) that helps product [...]
Change of ScrumDesk pricing
Looking back into history of ScrumDesk It is October 2013 7:00 PM. There it is. The first commit into our git with the newest web application we started to develop. From scratch. But it is not the first one. We even had two other working web applications which were unfortunately not designed as we envisioned [...]
ScrumDesk for Windows is retired
What happen?ScrumDesk Professional for Windows has been available since 2007. It was the fifth tool on the market at that time delivered globally.More than 98% of computers had Windows installed at that time. The Internet has been growing up. ASP.NET applications were modern and JavaScript started to be trendy for simple animations. Internet Explorer was the [...]
ScrumDesk 4.19.2: Link Google Drive & DropBox files
Attach files stored in Google Drive Are your files shared in Google Drive? No need to download them and upload to ScrumDesk again. Just paste the link into Attachments section in the side view. As the first get a shareable link from Google Drive. Do you prefer DropBox? In the case of DropBox, [...]
Start v.4.19.1: Timesheet improvements
Hey Start users! Thank you for your feedback you sent us this summer. We could only say that is the real motivation for us! As summer has ended already, we are back in the game. This time we published few minor changes. We work on new more complex staffs as well, but you know, it [...]
ScrumDesk 4.18.10: Usability improvements
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 [...]
ScrumDesk 4.17.2: Business Value and Complexity Charts
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 [...]
ScrumDesk 4.16.3: User Story Readiness
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 [...]
ScrumDesk 4.16.2: The Workflow Customization
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 [...]
ScrumDesk 4.16.1: Export Backlog Items
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 [...]
ScrumDesk 4.15.2: Bulk Edit of User Stories
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 [...]
ScrumDesk 3.15.1: User Stories Map, Company Account Management
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 3.14.2: Performance, Security, Usability
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 [...]
ScrumDesk 3.14.1: User Stories Mapping Improvements
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 [...]
Certified Scrum Master, May 10-11, 2016, Bratislava
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 [...]
ScrumDesk 3.13.2: User Stories Mapping, Import from JIRA
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 [...]