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 […]
Notes from a Tool User
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, […]
The Guide to Effective Retrospectives – Now Available
Responding to one of the most common complaints he hears about Scrum done poorly, Certified Scrum Trainer Mark Levison spent this summer applying two decades worth of Agile study and personal observation to write his newest book, The Guide to Effective Retrospectives. Available for download here, this eBook offers practical advice and specific suggestions to […]
Agile Retrospectives
What is the difference between an Agile Retrospective and a Post Mortem? Retrospectives are the foundation of Continuous Improvement and Short Feedback loops.
What is the Recommended Scrum Team Size?
Nearly every client I work with asks me this question at some point. The Scrum Guide offers very limited guidance, suggesting 3-9 people per team (exclusive of ScrumMaster and Product Owner), without giving reasons or context for those numbers. There isn’t one universally correct answer for optimal team size, but there are a number of […]
Definition of Done vs. User Stories vs. Acceptance Criteria
One of the more frequently asked questions in my Scrum workshops is around the difference between Definition of “Done” and Acceptance Criteria, and how they relate to User Stories. While Acceptance Criteria is a commonly understood concept in software development, Definition of “Done” is unique to Scrum. People get confused between these two things but […]
