The Mountain Goat Software Blog

Practical and actionable advice, tips and guidance for creating high-performing teams.

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Public Training Schedule Changes: Your Last Chance to Take a Public Class

Years ago, I saw blues legend Pinetop Perkins perform in Austin. He was 95 years old and still playing incredible boogie woogie piano. What’s remarkable is that Perkins hadn’t started as…

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estimating

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Product Backlog Refinement: A Practical Guide to Doing It Right

Product backlog refinement should create confidence, not certainty. Learn how to improve Sprint Planning, reduce surprises, and stop refining when work will fit in a sprint.

Estimating and Planning in Agile: Why They Still Matter in 2026

By 2026, most agile practitioners have plenty of scar tissue when it comes to estimating and planning.

Getting Better Estimates Is Easier Than You Think

Is your team hesitant to estimate? Here's the secret: we're not as bad (or as good!) at estimates as we think. Learn why.

5 Ways to Achieve Accurate Estimates That Everyone Trusts

Pressure for guarantees can ruin agile plans. Learn how to build stakeholder trust with accurate estimates.

#1 Reason Your Projects Are Late

Ever wonder why your projects always seem to be late? The reason might surprise you.

7 Ways to Get the Best Estimates of Story Size

Agile teams often struggle to estimate product backlog items. Here are 7 ways to make solid improvements.

What Are Agile Story Points?

Story points are perhaps the most misunderstood topic in agile. Story points are not based on just one factor--such as complexity, as is often mistakenly claimed. Instead, story points are based on a…

product backlog

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How the Story Critic AI Skill Helps Teams Write Better Backlog Items

See how the Story Critic skill coaches teams toward clearer, more testable backlog items and better refinement conversations, using examples of a simple story, a story with acceptance criteria, and a…

Product Backlog Refinement: A Practical Guide to Doing It Right

Product backlog refinement should create confidence, not certainty. Learn how to improve Sprint Planning, reduce surprises, and stop refining when work will fit in a sprint.

#1 Reason Your Projects Are Late

Ever wonder why your projects always seem to be late? The reason might surprise you.

Definition of Ready: What It Is and Why Its Dangerous

This post explains how to use a Definition of Ready successfully and avoid it becoming a first step back toward a waterfall process.

User Story Template: What It Is and Why It Works So Well

The standard “As a...I...so that…” user story template is a way of expressing product backlog items. Learn what the three-part user story format is, more about the questions it…

Agile Requirements Gathering: Three Types of Requirements

Deadlines are often missed because teams fail to consider emergent requirements. Learn about the 3 types of requirements your agile team should be gathering.

What Are Agile Story Points?

product owner

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Story Splitting: How To Split User Stories So Teams Can Finish

Story splitting helps teams turn large user stories into smaller, valuable pieces they can finish within a sprint without turning them into tasks.

Product Backlog Refinement: A Practical Guide to Doing It Right

Product backlog refinement should create confidence, not certainty. Learn how to improve Sprint Planning, reduce surprises, and stop refining when work will fit in a sprint.

What Does a Product Owner Do, When, and Why?

Ever wondered what product owners do? Have you scratched your head, wondering when they do it all, and why? If so, this blog is for you.

Can the Product Owner and the Scrum Master Be the Same Person?

Discover what pirates have to teach us about why the ScrumMaster and product owner require different skills, and different people.

How to Engage & Help Busy Product Owners

With many competing pulls on their time, product owners can be hard to catch during a sprint. Learn how to help harried product owners seize opportunities to inspect and adapt outside the…

Should You Become a Product Owner?

Is product owner the right role for you? Discover 4 skills product owners need, 5 popular paths to product owner, and 4 questions to ask yourself when considering the job.