Category Archives: Key problems

Breaking Down User Stories – some resources

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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Notes for Improving Scrum Clinic

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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Kent McDonald: Story Splitting

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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Controlled-Chaos Software Development

This (the link below) is an article, written I think mainly by Ken Schwaber (and also by Jeff Sutherland). I have been told that many people contributed to the experiments and thoughts implied by the discussion in the paper.  This experimental development of Scrum has been stated by Sutherland and Schwaber in several (all?) of […]

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What if one Team member does not agree with the process? (eg, to do “scrum”)

For our work, we have two related ideas.  The Team and the team’s process.  (Yes, there are many other ideas, principles, values too.) The Team Most people, I think, like working on a pretty good team.  Often quite a lot. Of course, not every team is good. Some people need an adjustment time. See the […]

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Is Velocity Evil? (No.)

In a webinar today, someone said that Velocity is evil if equated with productivity.  I disagree.  And partly agree.   First some explanations (short, maybe too short for some): The Velocity of a sprint is the number of story points that the team “earned” (completed) that sprint. It’s the way we score in the game […]

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Commonalities and Differences

What is unavoidable — in Teams we work with people. And we work also with people outside the Team.  But let’s discuss that topic in another post. The next obvious thing to say is that people are complicated, each person by herself or himself, and in a Team of seven then, we get a lot […]

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Agile Carolinas: Requirements with Agile – How to become better

Agile Carolinas meeting: May 17, 2022 – at 5:30 pm.  IN-PERSON. We may try to also broadcast via Zoom.  ie, Hybrid.  (We need someone to help with that.) [Links to be added]   *** Unclear requirements are always a problem.  Always hard in a way. So, let’s discuss how we are doing “requirements” in an […]

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More, Better…

Goethe wrote at the very end of Faust: Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis Das Unzulängliche, hier wird‘s Ereignis Das Unbeschreibliche, hier ist‘s getan Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan (For those drawn to this quote, see: https://rvgeiger.blogspot.com/2015/01/das-ewig-weiblich-zieht-uns-hinan-or.html) One line in English:  “The unachievable here comes to pass.” It’s a very famous passage in German literature, […]

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An Agile Approach to Requirements

Below is the first draft on this topic.  With a big need to be shorter.  I eventually wrote something shorter. *** An Agile Approach We propose that we discuss this for an hour. INTRODUCTORY THOUGHTS When we start working on a product, there are many unknowns, often including: What is the real problem? What is […]

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