Here’s how introducing yellow and red meeting cards can help you focus your teams meetings, and stop them getting taken off track. We’ve all been there when a meeting loses focus. Sometimes participants get too far in the weeds, sometimes they start talking about things that aren’t relevant, or maybe start talking about redundant things […]
Use Defect Thresholds to Help Product Quality Most scrum teams have backlogs that contain more than just user stories and new product features. Oftentimes, they contain bugs and defects that have been reported by customers or users or even by the team itself. These aren’t always handled right away. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, […]
Agile QuickTip: Using Multiple Choice Estimates If you ever find that estimating tasks during sprint planning is painful and argumentative then multiple choice estimates might really help with your team’s planning. Most scrum teams follow a similar path during sprint planning. Team members will break user stories or backlog items down into individual implementation tasks […]
Don’t manage cross-team dependencies – eliminate them. One of the biggest challenges that a scrum team has to contend with when working in a multi-team, or scaled enterprise environment is managing cross-team dependencies. This is where your team is dependent on some other team to deliver something of their own, before you can make any […]
How Do You Capture Your User Stories and Product Ideas? Try Index Cards Here’s an out of the box idea that at first glance might seem counter-intuitive. I believe that user stories and product ideas should be born on index cards, rather than immediately logged electronically. Most Agile or scrum teams will use some kind […]
Safety Checks to Kick Off Your Meetings We often assume that participants in teams feel comfortable being open, transparent and forthcoming in a way that will make meetings and interactions meaningful and valuable. But what if this assumption is wrong? How would we know? How might this affect a meeting, it’s participants and the meeting […]
Process management tools are a common way to for a team to manage its work, it’s backlog, and its plans. But these are repositories of information, they are not likely the best way to create this information. Here’s an idea that might make work better. Most agile scrum teams will use some kind of digital […]
Get rid of the ‘Survey 7’ to Level-Up the Way You Get Feedback Surveys can be a really effective tool when collecting feedback or gaining insights from different stakeholders. Their versatility allows them to be used to get feedback from users and customers as well as to get ideas for improvements from team members. Surveys […]
Add Expiration Dates to Your Backlog Items If you have a backlog that’s getting out of control, consider using expiration dates to help control the list and streamline your team’s priorities. Many mature agile teams or scrum teams that have been together for a while might find themselves with a backlog that’s hundreds if not […]
Use Working Agreements for your Daily Scrum Have you ever considered that working agreements for your daily scrum might make them a lot more valuable, and help separate the daily scrum from any other meetings you have each day? Your team’s daily scrum or daily stand up might be one of the most important meetings […]