…we are managing an agile project where team membership or size changes frequently? To answer this question most effectively, you should collect data on how teams of different sizes have performed over time in your organization. When I was a VP of Development at a couple of agile organizations, I…

…I've been asked that agile project management question in one way or another. I have never once been asked, “How hard will my team have to think to develop this project?” Clients, bosses, customers and stakeholders care about how long a project will take. They don't care about how hard…

…backlog items. One common agile project management question is what to do with work that could be performed as part of either of two backlog items but that only needs to be done once. As an example, consider these two product backlog items, which are written as user stories: As…

…in popularity of the agile development methodologies, including Scrum. These approaches have become popular because, among other benefits, they help companies deliver products more quickly. Why I’ve been thinking about this lately is I’ve begun to wonder if we’re nearing the end of the era in which time is a…

…it that is specifically agile, but it is very easy to apply to an agile context and we do. Sharing a tool with others makes it easy for me to quickly get someone else to do something and later see if it was done. How Do You Stay Productive? I’d…

…them fully in the Agile Estimating and Planning video course, but there is one compelling reason that on its own is enough to justify the use of points. It has to do with King Henry I who reigned between 1100 and 1135. Prior to his reign, a “yard” was a…

…Shortcuts without Cutting Corners: Agile Tactics, Tools, & Tips” which is full of advice on speeding up your adoption of Scrum. It's a great book I can highly recommend. You can read my foreword to it for more of my thoughts. Here are Ilan's thoughts on what to do with…

…where you began. In agile terms, we might want to call this your velocity and say you swim 2 kilometers per hour or per sprint, if a swimming sprint is an hour long. But, what if the river had been flowing at the rate of one kilometer per hour against…

…as the author of Agile Product Management with Scrum. For the last few years Roman has been working on various ideas to support envisioning and ideation. I’ve asked him to write a guest post here describing his Vision Board and how it connects to Scrum’s product backlog. I’m sure you’ll…

…decision maker asking an agile team to estimate how long it will take to deliver a product, even if the product backlog has a huge number of product backlog items. There could be hundreds or even thousands of items, and I'd have no issue with someone asking for an estimate.…

…those of us on agile project. Early in his talk, Bradbury recommends that aspiring writers write short stories rather than novels. He says that writing a novel at the start of one’s career is a mistake because “you could spend a whole year writing one, and it might not turn…

…does the decidedly non-collaborative, non-agile environment of a pirate ship have to do with Scrum? Just as pirate ships had separate individuals as captain and quartermaster general, agile projects should have separate Scrum Masters and product owners. Let's look at four reasons why the product owner and Scrum Master should…

…specifically about Scrum or agile, but since a great deal of a ScrumMaster's job is indeed coaching a team to better performance, I think you'll find the book applicable to your work. In the following guest post, Geoff shares with a story about a feeling I think we can all…

A lot of agile literature stresses that product owners must prioritize the delivery of value. I’m not going to argue with that. But I am going to argue that product owners need to optimize over a slightly longer horizon than a single sprint. A product owner’s goal is to maximize…

…leader's job in an agile organization is to create vacuums so that the right people can step forward and fill them. Creating a vacuum entails deliberately leaving a gap in an organization. Rather than filling the gap by identifying a specific person or group of people to fill it, a…