Blog on Agile principles, practices, and project management tools
Meaningful Agile
ScrumDesk 5.27.2: Archive Epic. Bring transparency into the product backlog
Archive epic From this version, you can archive not just release, but epics as well. ScrumDesk is used by customers in multiple ways. Some customers prefer epics as long-term containers of user stories. This is especially useful for product development where epics represent bigger functionality. Some other customers prefer however epics as project phases that need to be closed. Archive command is available in the clicked epic's detail [...]
ScrumDesk 5.27.1: Free Guest Accounts for Stakeholders
Guest accounts for free Do you want to play fair & transparently in front of your clients, stakeholders, or managers? Invite them to your organization account and then assign them to projects as guests. Guests are able: to read everything, to actively comment tasks, be mentioned and notified via ScrumDesk. To invite guest just add them in My Organizations view and then, once they confirm the invitation, project [...]
How to balance business requirements and technical debt?
How to balance business and technology requirements in a product backlog to build a successful product in long term. Product ownership is hard stuff. Very often you feel schizophrenia. Often you play for a customer, but later, suddenly, you have to protect your team. Sometimes you are pushed by the business, later by architects and the development team. There is a knowledge transfer necessary, research requirements, operational, supportive [...]
When to accept User Story
When is the best to accept the user story which is finished and who should accept them? In our Agile and Scrum Fundamentals training, people are (surprisingly) surprised when we present our approach of the acceptance of finished work. At the begging we often observe disagreements, but after a few minutes of an explanation why we found our way valuable, the mindset of participants is slowly changing. Well, for [...]
The checklist for your daily standup, part IV.: People & Company
This article is the continuation of The Daily Stand-up Checklist for ScrumMasters, part III. The aim of this series of articles is to help ScrumMasters to prepare better for daily stand-up so it is efficient, productive and engaging. These tips are based on our observation of 100+ agile teams in their agile transformations. Daily standup and People Sickness? Vacation? ScrumMaster is a hub of information in an agile team. Without big politics, team members [...]
Prepare for Sprint Planning properly
Sprint planning is one of the most important ceremonies in the Scrum project management method. Why run it and how? Even the Sprint planning ceremony doesn't seem to be complex, many Agile teams consider it a waste of time. "Let's develop something instead of loosing so much time in the sprint planning." This is one of the biggest fails of the scrum team. Well, even in case you [...]
Storypoints, hours or #noestimate?
How to choose the best estimation unit in an appropriate time. Should it be storypoints or hours? Or even #noestimates at all? In Agile meetups, we often hear very strong opinions about estimation units. From some perspective, it even sounds like a religion. I. Religion: Story points Most people express an opinion that hours are dead. "We have story points in agile so let use them." But once [...]
Kanban or Scrumban?
The Agile company can be recognized by the presence of Kanban boards with index cards of user stories which are put into multiple columns based on their status. Such a board looks simple and easy to handle. For agile teams, this is very welcome due to a low level of bureaucracy, high transparency, and easiness of usage. Win-win-win scenario for the team, business, and project management as well. [...]
ScrumDesk 5.26: Roadmap Editor improvements
Roadmaps Editor Real start and end These fields are calculated based on the progress of nested backlog items once their subtask were started. New Delta fields They indicate how much late or earlier the feature has been developed comparing to plans specified in a roadmap. Other changes of the roadmap editor Even ScrumMaster can see roadmaps now. No need to wait for the product owner. Milestones have a tooltip displayed [...]
Daily stand-up checklist, part III.: Agreements, Definitions of Done & Ready
This article is the continuation of The Daily Stand-up Checklist for ScrumMasters, part II. The aim of this series of articles is to help Scrum Masters to prepare better for daily stand-up so it is efficient, productive and engaging. These tips are based on our observation of 100+ agile teams in their agile transformations. Agreements To get things working fast, regularly, and often in a self-organized team, Agile is based on the agreements [...]
The Daily Standup Checklist, part II.
This article is the continuation of The Daily Stand-up Checklist for ScrumMasters, part I. The aim of this series is to help Scrum Masters to prepare better for daily stand-up so it is efficient, productive and engaging. These tips are based on our observation of 100+ agile teams in their agile transformations. In the first part, we covered the Room, Tools and Status sections. Let's continue with the rest. Finish [...]
The checklist for your daily standups, part I.
The daily standup meeting is a fundamental ceremony in Scrum. Even if you do not follow Scrum, it has a huge impact due to the transparency it brings. Most of the Agile teams and ScrumMasters think the daily standup ceremony is the easiest part of Scrum. Well, should it brings you the value, you want to do it correctly. In a disciplined way. Agile is about freedom & responsibility. You need [...]
10 ScrumMaster’s Failures
We see ScrumMasters fail very often while supporting agile teams in their agile transformations. Based on stories of more than one hundred of ScrumMasters we think that the following 10 ScrumMaster's failures are the top most important for agile teams. 1. Because of Agile People do not care about Agile or Scrum. They want a purpose, mastery and personal growth. Offer them agile principles as help which allows [...]
ScrumDesk Roadmaps are here!
Do you take care of the complex agile project developed with one or more scrum teams? Are your teams dislocated? Or do you manage product portfolio with the help of ScrumDesk? Now you can do scheduling of the project in ScrumDesk not just with releases or sprints. ScrumDesk Roadmaps are an easy way to plan and schedule your project continuously without losing mid-term and long-term timing. What can be done with [...]
