How Full to Fill a Sprint

How Full to Fill a Sprint

An important consideration in capacity-driven planning is how full to fill the sprint. To answer that, we need to understand that a sprint includes three types of time. The first type of time is…
The Difference Between a Story and a Task

The Difference Between a Story and a Task

What’s the difference between a user story and a task? Well that’s an easy question, I thought, the first time it was asked of me in a Certified ScrumMaster class. “The difference is…
Multiple Levels of Done

Multiple Levels of Done

Having a “definition of done” has become a near-standard thing for Scrum teams. The definition of done (often called a “DoD”) establishes what must be true of each product…
Using Scrum to Plan Your Wedding

Using Scrum to Plan Your Wedding

In my ScrumMaster classes I always make the point that Scrum is a general purpose framework that can be applied to projects of all sorts. I’ve seen it applied to building construction,…
Don’t Blindly Follow

Don’t Blindly Follow

Don't blindly adopt anything. Scrum is comprised of a self-organizing team that is given...
How I Work, and Use Scrum Personally

How I Work, and Use Scrum Personally

I’ve been asked a few times to comment on how I work, what it is I do to stay highly productive, and how I use Scrum at a personal level to make that happen. I tend to work in one-week sprints…
Who Picks the Sprint Length on a Scrum Team?

Who Picks the Sprint Length on a Scrum Team?

Of course, the answer is the whole team – that collective of ScrumMaster plus product owner plus team members such as programmers, testers, designers, DBAs, analysts and so on. But what if that…
Are Vanity Metrics Really All That Bad?

Are Vanity Metrics Really All That Bad?

I have a bit of a problem with all the hatred shown to so-called vanity metrics. Eric Ries first defined vanity metrics in his landmark book, The Lean Startup. Ries says...