Sprint Planning

Sometimes, ambitious agile teams fail to deliver everything in a sprint. That's normal. But it …

What are the danger signs that sprint planning is a struggle for your teams? And how can you turn …

Sprint goals are something every Scrum team should try to create. Learn what sprint goals are and …

Sprint goals are considered a mandatory part of Scrum. Here’s why I disagree.

If you’ve estimated with Planning Poker, you may very well have used cards with either the …

We might not like ambiguity, but it’s a fact of life. Find out how to plan with uncertainty in mind.

Planning an exact time to do something within a sprint helps make sure you get the important stuff …

Sprint planning may look like it’s about tasks and estimates but those are not the goal.

Some teams assign all tasks upfront. Others don’t. Here’s what works best.

In an ideal world, a Scrum team could perform the work of its sprints entirely uninterrupted. …

Your team is probably spending too much time in sprint planning meetings. Here’s how to spend less …

Too often, agile teams are expected to finish everything every iteration. This expectation is …

“Large-Scale Scrum” by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde is great for anyone looking to scale Scrum up to …

Some teams like story points so much, they invent task points and use those for sprint planning. …

Most of the Scrum literature describes a situation in which a team is allowed to work without …

A couple of weeks ago, I participated in a painful sprint planning meeting. You might have been in …

There are, of course, a variety of ways to go about planning a sprint. I’ve written previously …

A lot of agile literature stresses that product owners must prioritize the delivery of value. I’m …

In last week’s blog post, I wrote about whether team members should sign up for tasks during sprint …

During sprint planning, a team selects a set of product backlog items they will work on during the …

An important consideration in capacity-driven planning is how full to fill the sprint. To answer …

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

I’ve been asked a few times to comment on how I work, what it is I do to stay highly productive, …

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

There are two primary ways for planning a sprint: velocity-driven sprint planning and …

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

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

You may have heard Scrum is one of the leading agile software development processes. With more than …

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

It's always good to have a Plan B. And all Scrum teams do--it's called an abnormal termination.

An …

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

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

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

One of the most creative things I've seen teams do is pick a theme song for the sprint.

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

Ahh, it's fall. Not only does it bring the return of great, cooler weather but it ...

It may be time to retire the phrase release planning from the Scrum or agile vocabulary.

The book is a comprehensive overview of Scrum. It goes from the principles of agile through the …

You believe that agility is right for your team and for your business. You’ve implemented Scrum or …

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 …

Maybe you work for a vendor who must bid for work in response to an RFP. Or perhaps your company …

You’ve probably heard some people say, “Agile teams don’t plan.” Nothing could be further from the …

Maybe you’ve heard about agile software development projects but aren’t sure if they allow for the …

When will you be done? Though this question doesn’t go away on agile projects, it does get a little …

Planning is the act of thinking about the future. Sometimes that future holds risk and uncertainty. …

Resampling is based on the idea that things we’ll observe in the future will be similar to the …

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

A project management office (PMO) that is engaged in and supportive of transitioning to Scrum can …

It is possible for risk management and agile project management to coexist on projects that need to …

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

The biggest flaw in overlapping iterations is that there is never a time (except the end of the …

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

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 …

I eventually came to the realization that the team would always be smarter than me.

In sprint planning the team should always talk of tasks and hours.

User stories are a great way to get people talking about requirements. However, there's a reason …

Many teams try to divide and conquer when it comes to sprint planning, often with disjointed and …

If the only certain things in life are death and taxes, why do so many teams think that if they …

An academic paper that describes the importance of using more than just the vaguely defined …

Scrum was designed to be lightweight, so if your team is complaining that it's too heavy, you need …

With no land in sight to guide them, it would have been all too easy for early sailors to get lost …

Too much work goes into use cases to not employ them to their full potential. By assigning points …

We all crave regularity. We want a steady rhythm and a strong downbeat so we know the steps we need …

This article was written for the Scrum Alliance soapbox. It presents an initial collection of Scrum …