Rethinking ‘User Stories’: A Call for Clarity in Product Backlog Management
In the world of product development, the language we use can profoundly shape our approach to work. 🗣️ One term that I believe has been misused to the point of causing more harm than good is “User Stories”. 📚 In my latest blog post, I argue for a shift away from this term towards a more flexible and transparent framework for describing our work: “Product Backlog Items”. 🔄 This change can help us avoid the pitfalls of trying to force all our work into a user story format and ultimately lead to more effective product development. 💡 Join me as I delve into this topic and propose a new way of thinking about our work. 🚀 #ProductDevelopment #BacklogManagement
Storms of Neglect The Perils of Not Delivering Usable Products in Agile Iterations
⚡🌩️#StormsOfNeglect: The Cataclysmic Consequences of Ignoring Usable Products in Agile!🌩️⚡ What if I told you that neglecting usable working products in Agile is like navigating a stormy sea without a compass? 🌊🚢 If you think skipping usable products in iterations is harmless, brace yourself for the torrential downpour of woes it can unleash! From eroding stakeholder trust to the tsunami of technical debt, from getting engulfed in the quicksand of adaptability to the barren desert of feedback. It’s a whirlwind of compounding issues that no Agile team should weather! 🌪️💥 Dive in as I illuminate the catastrophic perils of neglecting usable working products when it should foster trust, alignment, adaptability, and quality! 🛡️⚙️
Risk Mitigation: Agile Usable Products vs Documentation in Traditional Project Management
As the software development landscape evolves, evaluating the time-tested traditional project management strategies alongside the burgeoning agile methodologies is essential. The central tenet I would like to explore today is comparing using usable working products as a risk mitigation strategy in Agile with the elaborate documentation characteristic of traditional project management. TL;DR: Agile’s emphasis on […]
Hiring a Professional Product Owner
One of my customers is asking me about the accountabilities of a Product Owner and how they break down. While I had seen many things around the Scrum Master for my post on Hiring a Professional Scrum Master, this was a little bit more of a discovery session, which is why I asked some of […]
Sprint Goal is an Immediate Tactical Goal
In the The Evidence-Based Management Guide we talk about the Intermediate Strategic Goal and I likened that to the Product Goal in the 2020 Scrum Guide. If we also think of each Sprint as a tactical move towards fulfilling that Product Goal then the Sprint Goal becomes an Intermediate Tactical Goal that moves us towards […]
There is no place like production
Value is such a subjective thing that we will often be wrong, and there is no way around that wrongness. In order to minimise the wrongness and maximise the amount of value that we deliver we need to have a clear understanding of what our users need, how they are using the product, and validate […]
Product Goal is an Intermediate Strategic Goal
The Evidence-Based Management Guide describes not only a Strategic Goal but also an Intermediate Strategic Goal that is needed to evaluate and adapt your progress towards your intended visions of your product. The key to realising an agile mindset within the business is the idea of experimentation and that we don’t know where we want […]
If your backlog is not refined then you are doing it wrong
Most Scrum Teams that I encounter don’t do refinement of their Product Backlog and try to work on things that they don’t understand correctly. However, if you get to the Sprint Planning event and your backlog is not ready, then you are doing it wrong. If what you build is not of good quality then […]
Evolution not Transformation: This is the Inevitability of change
There is no such thing as an Agile Transformation, Digital Transformation, DevOps Transformation, or any of the Whatever Transformation that you can think of or have been sold. You can’t buy agility, and you certainly can’t install it. There is no end state, no optimal outcome, No best practices. We are no longer factory workers.
How do you incorporate a Design Sprint in Scrum?
As part of the Scrum.org webinar “Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer – Martin Hinshelwood – Answering Your Most Pressing Scrum Questions” I was asked a number of questions. Since not only was I on the spot and live, I thought that I should answer each question that was asked again here, as well as those […]