Read
Leading Agile Initiatives: How Leaders Help Agile Change Succeed
Learn what leaders can do to support agile change, remove obstacles, and create the conditions teams need to improve.
Read the ArticleAgile That Actually Works For Your Teams
Private, team-based help for software teams that need Scrum, user stories, backlog refinement, and planning to work in practice.
Through Team Improvement Sprints, workshops, and coaching, we help teams turn new practices into habits using their real backlog, planning conversations, and delivery challenges.
Author of three bestselling books Mike Cohn - Founder of Mountain Goat Software, Co-Founder of Scrum Alliance & Agile Alliance
Organizations Whose Teams Have Worked With Mountain Goat Software
Where Teams Get Stuck
Start With What’s Actually Going Wrong
Similar symptoms can have different causes. Tell us what you’re seeing, and we’ll help recommend the approach most likely to help.
Scrum Isn’t Producing Results
Teams run the events, but delivery still feels slow, unclear, or waterfall-shaped.
Scrum Team Improvement
Backlogs and Stories Are Slowing You Down
Work is too large, too vague, or too hard to refine, estimate, and finish in a sprint.
Backlog And Story Improvement
Planning and Forecasting Feel Unreliable
Sprint plans and release forecasts don’t inspire confidence from teams or stakeholders.
Estimating And Planning
Product, Engineering, and Leadership Aren’t Aligned
Priorities shift, decisions stall, and teams revisit work too often. Leadership Alignment
Possible Paths We May Recommend
The Right Kind Of Support For The Improvement Your Teams Need
You do not need to know which service fits before reaching out. We’ll help identify what is getting in the way and recommend the simplest useful next step.
Recommended Starting Point
Team Improvement Sprints
Best when teams need new habits to show up in day-to-day work. Focused learning, application, reflection, and adjustment are spread over several weeks so improvement is tied to real work.
Concentrated Learning
Private Workshops
Best when a team or group needs focused, practical learning around a specific agile challenge, adapted to your context.
Applied Support
Agile Coaching
Best when teams understand the concepts but need help applying changes consistently during day-to-day work.
One High-Impact Problem
Focused Engagements
Best when a specific issue such as weak refinement, oversized stories, unreliable planning, or unclear role boundaries needs focused attention.
Team Improvement Sprints Help New Practices Become Team Habits
Teams improve when they have time to try a new practice, discuss what happened, and adjust before old habits return.
A Team Improvement Sprint is a short, multi-week engagement built around repeated cycles of focused learning, real-work application, reflection, and adjustment.
Teams use new techniques in real situations, bring back real questions from their own work, and strengthen the practice before moving on.
What Changes
Better Work, Not More Agile Vocabulary
The goal is not certification or compliance. Teams who work with Mountain Goat Software tend to start doing things differently in specific, observable ways.
Backlog Items Get Easier To Discuss And Finish — Teams split large items, clarify intent, and arrive at planning with better-prepared work.
Sprint Planning Becomes More Realistic — Planning includes size, risk, and real capacity because work becomes easier to inspect and adjust.
Scrum Events Produce Better Decisions — Teams have better conversations about ideas, priorities, capacity, and what they can credibly commit to.
Product And Engineering Move In A Shared Direction — Backlog conversations improve when everyone has a clear way to discuss value, scope, and tradeoffs.
Leaders Get Visibility Without Taking Over — Managers support teams with clearer goals, fewer priority changes, and better questions.
Private By Design
Mountain Goat Software works exclusively with private client teams.
Every engagement is built around your people, your products, your backlog, and the specific challenges slowing your teams down.
That keeps the work focused on what your teams need to do differently.
“Mountain Goat Software helped us set a shared baseline for agile practice across a wide range of experience levels. The training gave leaders a common language, space to ask real questions, and the confidence to begin planning their own adoption paths. It was a valuable step in supporting consistency across the organization, without losing flexibility or respect for local context.”
Chief of Staff
About Mike Cohn
Mike Cohn has spent decades helping software teams make agile work in practice as a set of habits that improve how teams plan, collaborate, and deliver.
He wrote the books many teams still use to learn user stories, estimation, and Scrum, and co-founded the organizations that shaped how agile is practiced worldwide.
- Co-founder, Scrum Alliance and Agile Alliance
- Author of User Stories Applied, Agile Estimating and Planning, and Succeeding with Agile
- 25+ years working with software teams across industries
“Agile works best when teams improve how they plan, talk, and finish work, and leaders improve the conditions around them.”
Practical Resources for Agile Teams
Watch
Backlog Refinement: When Is a Story Ready for a Sprint?
Learn how to tell when a backlog item is clear enough for a team to confidently bring into sprint planning.
Watch the VideoTry
Agile Initiative Self-Assessment
Identify which of five areas is most limiting your agile initiative—and turn the result into one practical improvement to add to your backlog.
Take the Self-AssessmentBook A Conversation
Tell us where Scrum, backlog refinement, planning, or alignment is breaking down.
We’ll help identify what is getting in the way and recommend a practical next step your team can act on.