The Mountain Goat Software Blog

Paying the Cost for More Precise Estimates

Given enough time, a good agile team can estimate how long a product might take to deliver, even if the product backlog is huge. But the more precise the estimate, the higher the…

4 Reasons to Include Developers in Story Writing

Participants in my Certified ScrumMaster courses are often surprised when I recommend that programmers participate in story-writing workshops. After all, a story-writing workshop is a meeting targeted…

2 Times to Play Planning Poker and 1 Time Not To

I recommend using Planning Poker on product backlog items rather than on the tasks that make up a sprint backlog.

Building a Product Users Want: From Idea to Backlog with the Vision Board

Vision and Backlog Scrum is a great framework for building a product with the right features. It encourages the use of a vision shared by the product owner, the ScrumMaster, the development team, and…

Introducing the LAFABLE Process for Scaling Agile

Over the last year or so, scaling agile and Scrum have become very popular topics. A variety of scaling approaches have been promoted—and...

3 Roles That Need to be Involved in Agile Estimating with Planning Poker

All of a Scrum team’s members should be present when playing Planning Poker. You may be tempted to estimate without the individuals in some role—don’t.

Know Exactly What Velocity Means to Your Scrum Team

To see how this applies to an agile project, consider the issue of whether a team should earn velocity credit for fixing bugs during a sprint. A team that uses velocity to measure how much…

Making the Decision to Abnormally Terminate a Sprint

It's always good to have a Plan B. And all Scrum teams do--it's called an abnormal termination. An abnormal termination is essentially...

Six Times Two Plus One Equals a Good Project Cadence

In last month's newsletter I wrote about the idea that everything happens within a sprint. There is no

Unfinished Work at the End of a Sprint is Not Evil

I guess I angered a few Scrum purists recently when I said that it's OK for an experienced team to occasionally show unfinished work in a sprint review. I'm probably going to anger them…

Only Show Finished Work During a Sprint Review—Maybe

During sprint reviews, teams are supposed to demonstrate only those product backlog items that are done. But there is one time a team might consider breaking this rule. Discover when and why that…

Using Vertical Slicing and Estimation to Make Business Decisions at Adobe

I recently helped to facilitate a two-day planning session for an important initiative at Adobe that would require coordination across several component teams in multiple locations. Going in, my agile…

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