The Mountain Goat Software Blog

Mike Cohn is surrounded by questions about agile leaders. He answers the top 3 in this blog. One takeaway for agile leaders is to allow space and time to do the right things.

Short Answers to Big Questions about Agile Leaders

Discover 3 things that define agile leaders and explore their role in change and learning.

Story maps help teams discover user activities or functionality, ensuring the product meets customer needs. Cards placed on the horizontal axis represent user activities. Cards that cascade vertically are alternative ways a user might accomplish a task.

User Stories: How to Create Story Maps

Story maps help to create a shared understanding of the product, visualize user needs, and elicit user story ideas. Discover how to create your own.

A series of arrows, each reading sprint, leads down a highway to a distant sign reading "product goal." One of a product owner's many responsibilities is to set a product goal: that next mile marker for the product.

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

Clarify what product owners do before work starts, during planning, and throughout each sprint.

Two headstones decorated with flowers read Scrum R.I.P and Agile R.I.P, while mourners gather in the distance. But not so fast--what if agile isn't dead, but is instead becoming standard practice.

Are Agile and Scrum Dead?

Have you heard the rumor that agile is dead, and Scrum along with it? Join me as I ponder the truth behind all the chatter.

Ax splitting wood to illustrate splitting user stories.

SPIDR: Five Simple but Powerful Ways to Split User Stories

Splitting user stories is hard. Here are the only five techniques you need to be able to slice any user story into small, manageable chunks of work.

Two characters from The Princess Bride battle with swords. Next to them is a twist on a Princess Bride quote: "Agile is difficult. Anyone who says different is trying to sell you something"

Working on an Agile Team: 9 Lessons from The Princess Bride

We can learn so much from books and movies! Enjoy these 9 takeaways about working on agile teams from The Princess Bride.

Mike Cohn answers three frequently asked questions about Scrum Masters so that everyone can get on the same page, including who Scrum Masters report to, how to prove your value as a Scrum Master, and how to introduce new practices to reluctant teams

Short Answers to Your Big Questions about Scrum Masters

Mike answers three common questions about Scrum Masters, including who Scrum Masters report to.

Article artwork for Can the Product Owner and the Scrum Master Be the Same Person?

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.

Article artwork for Lost in Translation: When Clear Writing Isn't Clearly Understood.

Lost in Translation: When Clear Writing Isn't Clearly Understood

When writing falls short of communicating a message: Two stories that prove the point.

Article artwork for #1 Reason Your Projects Are Late.

#1 Reason Your Projects Are Late

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

Mike Cohn answers team questions about acceptance criteria, so-that clauses, and requirements vs user stories.

Short Answers to Your Big Questions about User Stories

Get quick answers to common questions about user stories and acceptance criteria.

A good decisions is a bet you'd make again, regardless of the outcome. Bets could be made for a single die landing on 1 or landing on 2-6. Most people bet correctly on the choice with the best odds (2-6) but the die lands on 1.

Agile Decision Making: Good Decisions & Agile Plans

Improve agile plans by making decisions at the right time with the right information.