The Mountain Goat Software Blog

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

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Are You Really Doing Scrum? A Practical Scrum Litmus Test

Scrum has a bad reputation in some organizations. In many cases, this is because teams did something they called Scrum, it didn’t work, and Scrum took the blame.

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estimating

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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…

Don’t Equate Story Points to Hours

Story points are about time, specifically effort. But that does not mean you should say, “One story point = eight hours.” Find out why.

Why the Fibonacci Sequence Works Well for Estimating

If you’ve estimated with Planning Poker, you may very well have used cards with either the FIbonacci sequence, or a modified Fibonacci sequence.

product backlog

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#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?

Epics, Features and User Stories

I've been getting more and more emails lately from people confused about the difference between

Relationship between Definition of Done and Conditions of Satisfaction

I'd like to clarify the relationship between two important concepts: a team's Definition of Done and the Conditions of Satisfaction for a user story. Let's start by reviewing each of these…

product owner

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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.

What Product Owners Do & 7 Mistakes to Avoid

Learn what good product owners do to avoid 7 common product owner mistakes.

Be a Great Product Owner: Six Things Teams and Scrum Masters Need

Learn six ways effective product owners ensure their teams’ success.

Non-functional Requirements as User Stories

When writing user stories, how should agile teams handle non-functional requirements—desired product attributes or characteristics? Get the answers you need in this blog post from Mike Cohn.