Product Backlog

Ever wonder why your projects always seem to be late? The reason might surprise you.

This post explains how to use a Definition of Ready successfully and avoid it becoming a first step …

The standard “As a...I...so that…” user story template is a way of expressing product backlog …

Deadlines are often missed because teams fail to consider emergent requirements. Learn about the 3 …

Story points are perhaps the most misunderstood topic in agile. Story points are not based on just …

I've been getting more and more emails lately from people confused about the difference between …

I'd like to clarify the relationship between two important concepts: a team's Definition of Done …

Estimating product backlog items provides benefits beyond predicting when a project will be finished.

To prioritize a backlog, think about what users need, what they want, and what they merely wish for.

Capturing too much or too little detail in a user story causes problems. Here's how to get it …

As useful as user stories can be, they’ve never been right for every team. An exciting alternative …

When estimating in story points, teams should think in terms of ranges and rounding up. Here’s why.

When a product backlog becomes too big, it hinders agility. Discover four steps your team can take …

Succeeding with agile isn’t just about knowing where to start, it’s about knowing where to go …

An agile product backlog should evolve over time, with product backlog items and user stories …

A summary of the most popular and engaging blog posts of 2016.

In this agile principles post from Mike Cohn, discover how Scrum organizations define products. …

A lot of traditionally managed projects begin with a Software Requirements Specification (SRS). …

I'm occasionally asked about the merits (and whether there are any) of putting an estimate of zero …

My wife, daughters and I use Wunderlist to manage our shared grocery list. Any time one of us …

It’s quite common for a team to have a bit of unfinished work at the end of an agile sprint or …

I've written before that we should only estimate if having the estimate will change someone's …

User stories are great. When you’ve got users, that is. Sometimes, though, the users of a system or …

Learn about product backlog refinement: how, when, and why the agile team and product owner refine …

What’s the difference between a user story and a task? Well that’s an easy question, I thought, the …

In the following guest post, Lisa Crispin argues the benefits of scheduling anything that's important.

The problem with velocity-driven sprint planning is that velocity is simply too variable to be …

There are two general approaches to planning sprints: velocity-driven planning and capacity-driven …

“Working software over comprehensive documentation.” You’ve certainly seen...

In case you haven’t noticed, a few months ago we launched Front Row Agile, a site dedicated to …

If story points are an estimate of the time (effort) involved in doing something, why not just …

Story points are about time. There, I’ve said it, and can’t be more clear than that. I’ve written …

In last month’s newsletter I wrote about how we make personal financial decisions in a now vs. …

I think I’d like to buy a big-screen plasma television. And maybe after that, a new amplifier for …

I've been playing a fair amount of Go lately. If you're not familiar with Go, it's a strategy game …

When writing user stories there are, of course, two parts: user and story. The user is embedded …

It's May, and we're well into spring now. If you're like me, you haven't yet done your annual …

Given enough time, a good agile team can estimate how long a product might take to deliver, even if …

I recommend using Planning Poker on product backlog items rather than on the tasks that make up a …

Vision and Backlog

Scrum is a great framework for building a product with the right features. It …

All of a Scrum team’s members should be present when playing Planning Poker. You may be tempted to …

To see how this applies to an agile project, consider the issue of whether a team should earn …

I recently helped to facilitate a two-day planning session for an important initiative at Adobe …

Happy New Year! It's resolution time. A ScrumMaster may want to resolve to praise the team more often.

A common question I get is how can a product owner (or team) be sure they've thought...

As much as I value estimating the product backlog, not every team needs to do it. And those who do …

Humans are natural hoarders and that’s why we often find ourselves in Backlog bedlam!

In a recent interview for an upcoming agile book by Sondra Ashmore and Kristin Runyan, they asked …

I was recently interviewed for an upcoming agile textbook written by Sondra Ashmore and Kristin …

I've never been a fan of naming user stories. Stories should generally be short enough that naming …

They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure—this adage definitely applies to new …

Just the right amount of urgency can generate greater creativity.

One of the biggest problems with having a sprint zero is that it establishes a precedent that there …

Is your agile team excluding the Scrum product owner from your sprint retrospectives? Check out …

A Scrum trainer recently asked for a couple of good, real examples of large user stories (epics) …

Estimating is a way of buying knowledge. If having the additional knowledge will lead to different …

I was looking forward to reading this book. I haven't paid much attention to the PMI-ACP initiative …

An organization's Wise Architects often provide requirements to a team in the form of …

Does a team have to work with user stories to do Scrum? Of course not.

You know that before the development team writes their first line of code, they need a funded …

The biggest risk to most projects is building the wrong product. Regardless of how fast your agile …

I've been wondering lately if Scrum is on the verge of getting a new standard meeting--the Backlog …

Story points on an agile product backlog represent the effort to implement the backlog item.

Removing the large values from a deck of Planning Poker cards is like deciding to strike millions …

How do we estimate how many hours it will take to deliver a given product backlog if we have no …

I want to show a real easy way to put user stories in a spreadsheet-based product backlog. I wrote …

Doing performance testing creates some amount of overhead on the team (the tax). This overhead or …

Left unattended, a product backlog can become large and hard to work with. If your backlog has …

Agile is most appropriate on any urgent project with significant complexity and novelty--and that …

It would be nearly impossible to remove all dependencies between product backlog items and so our …

This agile estimation blog post from Mike Cohn looks at story points. Learn why user story points …

As a project management framework, Scrum introduces many changes. One of the biggest is the role of …

Teams with subgroups formed around compatible skills, attitudes and approaches to work are less …

With a little experience, most teams are able to see how to overlap some types of work and create …

Scrum teams learn to work by doing a little of everything all the time.

A DEEP product backlog is detailed appropriately, estimated, emergent and prioritized.

The difference on a Scrum project is not that intentional design is thrown out, but that it is done …

The effort of adopting Scrum is best managed using Scrum itself.

The ideal situation is to put the bugs right onto the product backlog.

What should we do in the case when the team really likes having a task board, but when one team …

Each person on the team should ideally be able to see each other person on the team.

We've already overloaded the word backlog with product backlog and sprint backlog. Why confuse …

Until I learn how to receive divine inspiration at the start of my iteration planning meetings, I'm …

Discover whether agile teams should work on one product backlog item at a time or if it's OK for …

Most teams do the daily scrum per person, but some encounter the problem described here and discuss …

A common criticism of story points is that the meaning of a story point will differ among teams.

Rolling lookahead planning is a useful technique for large projects or any project with external …

Treemaps are an excellent way of visualizing large product backlogs.

Not everyone involved in an agile transition wants the change to be successful. This …

By producing a single chart that shows both a team's rate of progress and the product backlog, we …

A question I get frequently is what to do with tasks that do not belong to a particular user story …

When a team plans a sprint they make a commitment to complete the user stories they select from the …

Sprint planning meetings typically go into deeper detail than is appropriate for product backlog …

This article addresses the issue of how much detail should be included in product backlog items and …

One measure we may want to include in our suite of metrics could be the responsiveness of the …

I don't use story points for sprint planning because story points are a useful long-term measure. …

While I want teams to come to agreement, I don't care how heartfelt the agreement is.

When we estimate it is important that we not mix knowledge-before-the-fact with knowledge-after-the-fact.

A common misperception is that testers cannot do any work during an iteration until the programmers …

The two best things about this book are that it: (1) provides a framework for adopting Scrum across …