Main category for blog posts…
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 [...]
Daily life The Kanban board is a primarily visual tool for the self-organized team. Kanban board is split into multiple columns and rows (swimlanes). The main goal is to visualize work and its status. ScrumDesk board provides access to user stories and tasks selected for a particular sprint. Tasks and status Stories are typically [...]
Planning in Agile Our aim is to create a tool very similar to the physical board on which team members are working with cards in different corners of the planning board. The board that can be split into more panes and swim lines representing either backlog, different releases or sprints. The board on which you can see customer's stories. Product owners [...]
An index card for user story Fundamental XP practice is to keep requirements written on an index card. The index card should be: small, therefore requirement has to be written clearly, movable, so the product backlog is visually clean, resizable, so the size of cards can help to organize backlog, colored, so teams can categorize [...]
Epics and Themes Products are typically described by hundreds of requirements which are organized in the product backlog and represented by index cards. Large requirements, epics, cannot be completed in one sprint so they are broken into more user stories. Epics are then delivered in releases. But even small user stories from different epics can have something in common. Such a [...]
A lot of agile teams work for different clients. Projects are typically owned and managed by client and teams are contracted as developers who need an access to requirements and work tracking. ScrumDesk, therefore, supports a concept of projects listed by organizations for which you have been invited to work. Project details A new project is in [...]
In ScrumDesk you can track a work for one or more organizations. Organization account An organization account is created automatically based on information entered in Sign Up form. For this organization your user, the account will be assigned as an administrator which gives you privilege to manage user accounts plus other details (not available in beta). Send invitations Once you [...]
ScrumDesk, web edition for small Agile teams, is available now. With this edition we focused on small teams that do not need huge tool with lot of features, but need to accomplish the results quickly. Such teams typically apply fundamental Scrum practices focusing on: visual product backlog management, fast planning of multiple releases and sprints, [...]
Even summer has just started, do not forget to think about your future career. The demand of the market for great ScrumMasters is increasing in the last years. Even certification doesn't mean you will be great ScrumMaster, it can help you to find your new job you will love to go faster. Together with Zuzana Sochova, a [...]
Few customers informed us this week about crashes of ScrumDesk for Windows once it has been started. As prevention, we added additional validations at places where we assumed the code might crash. All users will be informed about the availability of a newer version upon ScrumDesk for Windows start. Do you have any problem [...]
Changes: [Fix] Effort of user story incorrectly increased by 1 when task is added Few visual and user interfaces improvements Send us your additional request to support@scrumdesk.com.
Back to the Agile roots ScrumDesk is for Windows. Yes, with the Desktop edition until now. But not anymore. Because ScrumDesk Start edition will be born officially soon. When we were discussing ScrumDesk history, the development of product backlog since 2007, the world of Agile, and changes in technologies in the last six years, it was much [...]
Top features of version 6.0 Product Backlog Visual Markers Boards Due dates for stories and tasks New design of story side view Themes for story templates Kanban boards improvements Kanban statistics and cumulative flow chart Project related retrospective ideas Product Backlog Visual Markers What is the biggest advantage of Agile? Based on feedback gathered [...]
