Bees and Ants in Agile? Swarming for Problem Solving
One of the key underpinnings of Agile is the concept that the things that have the most value go first. In Business as Usual conditions this means items land in…
Top Five Books for Software Development Professionals
Code Complete Steve McConnell The foundation of your library could do worse than to start with Code Complete. This book guides you from the basics of code convention and standards…
Most sprint planning meetings are Crap! How do I make mine great? (Part One)
Our teams break down sprint planning into two main meetings: the "What" meeting and the "How" meeting. The "What" meeting involves the product owners and stakeholders. The "How" meeting is…
What is a Scrum Development Team?
Don't limit your thinking when it comes to defining "what" a Scrum development team is. It is not just those writing code. It's not just developers or programmers. The team…
How to Groom User Stories
User stories start their lives as an unruly mess. They often have just the briefest of descriptions, no direction and no vision for what they will be when they mature…
The Terrible Cost of Multi-tasking
Very simply I want to illustrate the impact of multi-tasking. It has an impact on value delivered as well as satisfaction from stakeholders and customers. My very simple model consists…
Capturing a Backlog of User Stories
An effective Agile shop starts with a well groomed backlog of user stories. This means collecting all of the user stories the organization is asking for into the backlog. But…
What is a Scrum burn-down chart?
I was first introduced to burn-down charts without knowing that’s what I was seeing. I was attending a monthly chapter meeting of the Project Management Institute (PMI) and the guest…
Article Recommendation: What are Story Points? By Mike Cohn
Mike Cohn has a great introduction to the concept of story points and how to think about them on his blog at MountainGoatSoftware.com. It is a brief introduction that gives a…
Do yourself a favor, setup a Kanban board RIGHT NOW!
If you've ever found yourself struggling to stay focused on the work you need to be doing there's a simple tool that can help you prioritize, stay focused, and get…
