Blog: Agile & Business

Breaking Down User Stories – some resources

September 16, 2024

This is a much-requested topic. Here are some resources.  I will try to add comments on all of them.  They each give you a different angle, a different picture.  At bottom a few of my tips.  20 Ways to Split Stories.  By Bill Wake.  https://xp123.com/twenty-ways-to-split-stories/ Bill is a smart guy, and you can talk to […]

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Using Velocity to compare 3 Teams

August 1, 2024

Yesterday I gave a webinar on “Velocity and Story Points”.  The deck is on this website. Pooya asked a longer question, but I’ll start with this simpler question: “Can you use Velocity to compare 3 Teams to each other?” Key Preliminary Scrum is a game. If you do it right, people like having things “gamified.”  […]

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The New Methodology

March 15, 2024

Here is a set of webpages (much like linked blog posts) that Martin Fowler wrote.  Looks like in 2005. https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/newMethodology.html Very good stuff. Most of it still applies.   Martin Fowler was one of the authors of the Agile Manifesto (and the Agile Principles).  agilemanifesto.org For more info on Martin Fowler see this Wikipedia article: […]

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Notes for Improving Scrum Clinic

March 11, 2024

Updated March 18, 2024 These are  4 slide decks. As indicated they are a work-in-progress.  In draft form.  And “notes”. I use them in my Real-World Scrum workshop. And in the Diagnosis webinar.  And elsewhere. There is some repetition. Some of it on purpose, some of it I might edit out later. Each slide deck […]

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Agile Release Planning – Some Questions & Issues

February 14, 2024

Last week I did an Agile Release Planning workshop.  Several different kinds of people there, including from 3 different firms. And some new questions and issues. Some things I should have said: The Agile Release Planning Day is the beginning, not the end. I did say that, but not well enough. Whatever you do the […]

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HBR: 5 Questions to Get Your Project Team on the Same Page

October 26, 2023

Photo by 2H Media on Unsplash   https://hbr.org/2023/10/5-questions-to-get-your-project-team-on-the-same-page Above is the link to the HBR article.  I believe anyone can get access. Here’s the opening paragraph: When a misaligned project team succeeds, it’s an accident. Without alignment — that is, a shared understanding and commitment — team members work at cross-purposes and doom projects to failure. […]

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Priority Poker

September 26, 2023

I revised an article on using wide-band delphi estimation for Business Value. See: Wide-band delphi estimation for Business Value – 1 Two parts. The link is to Part 1, and has a link itself to Part 2. It has links to two downloadable articles. Very useful.

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Kent McDonald: Story Splitting

September 19, 2023

Kent McDonald has done a lot of good work.  We all should thank him. Here is one very useful post about story splitting: Story Splitting The post includes a slide deck with 21 story-splitting examples.  Very handy. To me, it is wrong to think of these examples as the end-all-and-be-all.  These are helpful.  Your situation […]

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Agile Carolinas – June 13 – directions

June 12, 2023

TEKsystems is located on the 12th floor in the old BB&T/now called 200 South College building uptown. 200 South College, Charlotte, NC 28202 https://goo.gl/maps/RGyH5e3esT6op7NZ6 Entry is between the corner of 3rd and College and 4th and College – across from Charlotte Plaza Building [ Panera Bread] The BB&T parking deck can be accessed from College […]

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“Where the head goes, the body follows”

April 17, 2023

Apparently this (the title) is a Ryan Holiday quote. (He wrote a somewhat famous book: “The obstacle is the way.”)   Today I want to talk about the OPPOSITE.  Well, kind of. Many of us believe that “the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach.”  NO, no, I did not really mean that.  […]

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