Don’t have a strong product owner?

In this post we explore why a product owner is needed, and how we can ease the burden on the customer as well as the product owner by setting expectations and speaking in language the customer understands.

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Categorized as Q&A

Roles and Responsibility, Essential to a High Performing Agile Team

There are three key roles for every Agile team: Product Owner, ScrumMaster and the Team. And, of course, we also have the stakeholders – our customers, managers, board of directors, etc. We’ll take a look at these roles and their various responsibilities and then we will explore how these people gel to form a high… Continue reading Roles and Responsibility, Essential to a High Performing Agile Team

Eliminate Free Radicals – A Path to Scaling Agile in the Enterprise

You might remember from chemistry class that a molecule can exist without a paired electron, making them highly reactive. Molecules fitting this description are considered “Free Radicals“. What your professor may not have told you (mine certainly hadn’t) is that Free Radicals (or Radicals as I like to refer to them as) also exist in human form… Continue reading Eliminate Free Radicals – A Path to Scaling Agile in the Enterprise

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Categorized as Advice

Why do high performing Scrum teams use story point estimation?

There are two common approaches to estimation in Scrum teams: story points and ideal hours. Ideal hours is taken as ‘given what we know today, how long would this story take to implement?’ if everything went according to plan. It turns out that us humans are pretty terrible at estimating. For example, is this story,… Continue reading Why do high performing Scrum teams use story point estimation?

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Categorized as Q&A

Is Burnover Preventing your Team from Achieving Consistent Velocity?

Burnover.  Another name for Stories or backlog items that are incomplete at the end of the current Sprint and fall into a subsequent Sprint.  Call it what you like, but if you want to reach your Agile Nirvana, then you need to develop better recognition, techniques for handling, and methods of prevention.  If not, then you… Continue reading Is Burnover Preventing your Team from Achieving Consistent Velocity?

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Categorized as Concepts

Planking and its Impact on your Agile Team

New Scrum teams may find meeting their sprint commitments hard, it can be awkward at first! In this post Randall explains what planking is and how to avoid it.

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Categorized as Concepts

Recommended Reading for New Agile Engineering Managers

It’s a common situation. You’re a kick-ass Engineer and you have just been tapped on the shoulder for a promotion to an Engineering Manager, an “EM”. It means your VP has recognised the great work you’ve delivered, the contribution you’ve made. Congratulations! At this stage you are probably a bit overwhelmed with questions from team… Continue reading Recommended Reading for New Agile Engineering Managers