Sprint Planning is the most underappreciated Agile event. Unfortunately, that leads to a whole host of errors and problems, as we will soon see. The ScrumGuide says: “Sprint Planning initiates the Sprint by laying out the work to be performed for the Sprint. This resulting plan is created by the collaborative work of the entire […]
Notes from a Tool User
The Humble Sprint Backlog
We might not be able to make Sprint Backlogs exciting, but we can make them more effective. Let’s look at what purpose they serve, and how to improve them. What is a Sprint Backlog A Sprint Backlog consists of a set of Product Backlog Items (PBIs) that the Developers think they can complete in the […]
Red-Yellow-Green Status Reports and Other Models – How They Should and Shouldn’t Be Used
Red-Yellow-Green status reports are a widely-used tool to help executives have a fast and simple understanding of the current state of a project through a visual model that makes it easy to spot patterns. Green means everything is good, yellow means there’s some risk, and red means the project is in serious trouble. Simple, right? […]
How Escape Rooms Teach About Teams
Mark and his wife, Doris, along with a small group of their friends, have become very good at solving challenges and escaping locked rooms. In their first escape room in 2015, they were two puzzles away from success but failed to get out. So they changed the team membership. Over the years, they failed another […]
Sprint Goals Provide Purpose
Go Beyond Merely Completing Work Lists A Sprint should be so much more than just completing a number of User Stories or fixing bugs. If your Sprints are merely about ticking off items on a scattered work list without having a shared understanding of why they’re important or what purpose they serve, your Development Team […]
Retrospectives Gone Bad – Toronto Agile Conference 2020
Fresh off the completion of his newest book, The Guide to Effective Agile Retrospectives, Mark Levison presented “Retrospectives Gone Bad” at the Toronto Agile Conference 2020. Do you dread going to work? Are interruptions from outside making progress difficult? Is improvement almost nil? Sprint Retrospectives are the tool to help with all of these issues, […]
