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How to use Scrum
Scrum is the most popular and influential framework for agile software development. It has been around for decades, is used all over the world, and is changing how people work. This article will give you a quick guide on how to use Scrum to maximise the value of your product development work. Brief history of […]
Continue readingWhy technical user stories are bad
You might sometimes come across “technical user stories” when doing agile software development. These are generally a bad idea and should be avoided where possible. This article will explain what technical user stories are, and why technical user stories are bad. And some tips on what to do isntead. It will also cover the rare […]
Continue readingThe walls are glass, but you can’t come in
Sometimes teams have good times, sometimes they have bad times. Sometimes things go well, sometimes they don’t. No matter how bad things get, it is important that they be transparent, always. The walls around the team are made of glass: information flows freely in and out. But we need to make sure that while they […]
Continue readingWhat are the Scrum values?
Scrum is a very popular and well-known framework for Agile software development. Lots of people know about the roles, rules and rituals and Scrum. But a few years ago they added values. Not a lot of people know and understand these values. So this article will explain what are the Scrum values. As you probably […]
Continue readingEstimating defects in Agile is an anti-pattern
There is a lot of discussion in the Agile community about estimating defects. A lot of people seem to think you need to estimate defects. There are lots of people arguing about how to estimate defects. This article will show you why you shouldn’t estimate defects. Estimating and assigning story points to defects is an […]
Continue readingProduction support in agile / scrum
A common question I see asked is “how do we do production support in agile / scrum?”. This is a harder problem than it might at first seem. It definitely adds some complexity to the problem of prioritizing work. There are three stages to solving it properly. What actually is production support? Production support or […]
Continue readingMisconceptions about Kanban
There is an enormous amount of confusion and misinformation about Kanban. This article will clear up some of the major misconceptions that surround this topic. Let’s go through them one by one. You have to choose between Kanban and Scrum The most common misconception I’ve found is that people think you have to choose between […]
Continue readingRetros are not continuous improvement
Retrospectives are one of the hallowed traditions of Agile software development. They are mentioned specifically as one of the twelve principles in the Agile Manifesto. They are one of only four regular activities prescribed in the Scrum guide. Extreme Programming says you must “fix XP when it breaks” (and talks a bit about retrospectives in that […]
Continue readingBacklog Refinement in Scrum explained
A lot of people are confused about Backlog Refinement in Scrum. I’d say it is one of the most frequently misunderstood and misused topics. It doesn’t help that the Scrum guide has very little to say about it. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing, and is for a fairly good reason: we are now […]
Continue readingScrum bad smells
There are a number of “bad smells” that you might encounter while doing Scrum. These are generally signs that might seem innocent, but suggest something is badly wrong. You need to watch out for these signs. Standups going over the timebox The bad smell This is a classic one to watch out for. The Daily […]
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