I’ve always said I eventually wanted Scrum and agile to go away. From what I've read lately, maybe we're there. I don’t think a week passes without some article called "Agile Is Dead." or "Is Scrum Dead?" appearing in my browser or email. Does that mean that we are in a post-agile era? Is agile dead? Agile for the Win Within a few years of the Agile Manifesto being written, I began to say I wanted agile to go away. I didn’t mean I wanted us to stop using Scrum and other agile frameworks. Rather, I expected an agile way of working to win. I wanted an agile way of working to become so ..read more

One of the most common struggles faced by agile teams is the need to split user stories. I'm sure you've struggled with this. I certainly did at first. In fact, when I first began using Scrum, some of our product backlog items were so big that we occasionally opted for six-week sprints. With a bit more experience, though, that team and I saw enough ways to split work that we could have done one-day sprints if we'd wanted. But splitting stories was hard at first. Really hard. I've got some good news for you. Not only have I figured out how to split stories on my own, I've learned how to explain ..read more

Have you seen the movie The Princess Bride? If not, that’s "inconceivable" (to quote the beloved character Vizzini)! On the surface, the movie is a swashbuckling tale of high adventure, pirates, torture, and true love. But when I watch it, I see that the movie is actually full of advice for agile team members. The book is even better! Here are nine takeaways for agile teams from The Princess Bride. (As with The Princess Bride, you have two options for enjoying these takeaways. You can read the article or watch the video!) 1. Agile Teams Don't Rush In the movie, the hero Westley dies but ..read more

A typical Mountain Goat Software Certified Scrum Master course attracts people at almost every stage of their Scrum Master journey. I get people who are completely new to Scrum, people who have been working on a Scrum team for years but have recently taken on a Scrum Master role, and people who have been Scrum Masters for a while, but are just now getting a certification. Do you know what all these people have in common? They have all heard various accounts, from various sources, of what it means to be a Scrum Master, and they are confused on at least one or two points. The three questions I’v ..read more

At some point, you've probably wondered, can the product owner and the Scrum Master be the same person? Banish that thought! You wouldn't be the first person to try combining the Scrum Master role with the product owner role. People ask me every day if they can combine the roles of product and ScrumMaster and give both sets of responsibilities to a single person. In general, trying to fill these two roles with one person is a very bad idea. Different individuals should fill these two roles. To see why, let's look back in history at the job of being a pirate ship captai ..read more

Your project is late. Again. The reason why might surprise you. It's likely not because your team is bad at estimating with story points. And it's almost certainly not because your team is lazy. In my experience, the number one reason projects are late is simply because your product is bigger than you think it is. You have a good idea of what the final product will look like, but the complete picture is impossible to visualize at the beginning.  4 Reasons Products Grow Beyond Initial Estimates Let’s look at four reasons why products (and their product backlogs) end up being bigg ..read more

I take questions at the end of every Better User Stories webinar. I've done enough of these sessions that I can almost predict which user story questions are going to pop up in the chat! I thought it might be helpful to answer three of the most commonly asked questions about user stories all in one place. Feel free to share it with your teams and stakeholders, to help get everyone on the same page about user stories. Are User Stories the Same As Requirements? Are user stories the same as requirements? Not quite, but they’re close. Rather than thinking of a user story as a requirement ..read more

While it's true that agile teams value "responding to change over following a plan," high-performing agile teams do make plans. In fact, agile planning is built into the Scrum framework, from daily scrums to sprint planning. The reason? Because good agile plans lead to good decisions. But what makes a decision good?  Does a commitment to agile decision-making and building accurate agile plans mean making perfect guesses every time? The answers to those questions are found in the video below. (I've included the text of the video as well so you can read instead of watch if yo ..read more

I’m the first to say that established agile teams sometimes find approaches that work for them outside the rules of Scrum. But I also believe there is value to be found in teams thinking and working inside the Scrum "box". Why? Because frameworks (e.g., Scrum) enhance creativity. Want proof? The video below uses William Shakespeare, the TV show Friends, and the Wile E. Coyote cartoons as examples of how frameworks boost creativity. I’ve included the text as well if you prefer to read instead. Shakespeare and the Sonnet Framework In addition to all his plays, William Shakespeare wrote 154 sonn ..read more

I hear from a lot of teams that they struggle to estimate well: “We’re really bad at estimating,” they say. They know the reasons to estimate product backlog items, so they want to get better. Too often, though, these teams will attempt to improve by trying harder. They don’t identify problems in their approach and systematically fix them, they just try harder. I’m a mediocre chess player. I’m not going to win more games by just trying harder. To win more games, I need to identify where I’m weak and work to improve in those areas. A team that just “tries harder" to estimate well won’t change m ..read more