Operational Practices: Streamlining Workflows for Continuous Improvement

Learn how evolving engineering practices like Feature Flags, TDD, and refactoring enable smoother Sprint workflows and reduce technical debt in Scrum …

Delivering working, valuable software at the end of each iteration, ensuring value is incrementally added to the product.

Worried about cloud migration chaos? Discover why a hybrid approach beats “lift and shift” and how to align teams for a seamless, risk-free …

Using hypothesis-driven approaches to test ideas and validate assumptions in agile workflows.

Azure DevOps is a product from Microsoft that provides tools around CI/CD, collaboration, and agile project management. Other names are Team …

Team performance is a systemic indicator of how well a team consistently delivers value, reflecting its collaborative and technical delivery …

Many product development surprises stem from poor backlog management, not true unknowns. Regular refinement and reflection help teams anticipate and …

A Service Level Expectation predicts how long work items take to complete, helping Scrum Teams improve workflow, identify issues, and set clear …

Answers common questions about integrating design and UX work into Scrum Sprints, clarifying why dedicated Design Sprints aren’t needed and how to …

Inspecting and adapting the increment to ensure transparency and stakeholder feedback.

Technical debt includes slow feedback, fragile systems, and manual processes that hinder progress. Addressing it early with automation and testing …

Technical debt limits business agility, slows engineering, and hinders innovation. Managing it with automation and transparency is key to staying …

Team issues with quality or delivery often stem from weak systems, lacking clear standards, automation, and leadership support—not just team …

Explores why traditional Dev-Test-Staging-Production pipelines fall short and highlights audience-based deployment for safer, faster feedback in real …

True organisational resilience means improving technical health—like testing, automation, and architecture—beyond just surviving incidents or …

Drive high-quality software development with Acceptance Test Driven Development (ATDD). Define clear, testable acceptance criteria before …

Explores how lacking developer control over production, telemetry, and deployments undermines DevOps, leading to fragile automation and failed …

Best practices for enabling effective distributed and remote agile teams.

Explore and compare Agile frameworks. Understand their principles, applications, and impact on organisational agility and value delivery.

Delaying software releases increases failure risk. Frequent, small releases improve success rates, adaptability, and recovery, as shown by CHAOS …

Driving software design through automated tests for better quality.

Explores how inefficient processes, not individual shortcomings, hinder developer productivity and performance, highlighting the need for systemic …

Frequent changes to the Definition of Done reduce team quality and predictability. Consistent, enforced standards are key to reliable delivery and …

Platform Engineering is the practice of designing, building, and maintaining internal platforms that enable developers to deliver value independently, …

Frequent software releases reduce risk, enable faster feedback, and help teams adapt to user needs, preventing costly mistakes and improving overall …

Throughput is a delivery metric used to inspect how much work is completed per unit of time, enabling analysis of flow efficiency and system …

Staging environments can’t fully replicate production, often leading to false confidence. Real risk reduction comes from safe, incremental releases to …

Balancing backlog refinement prevents wasted effort and chaos. Aim for just enough detail so developers can plan sprints confidently without …

Highlights the importance of delivering a usable product each sprint in Agile, warning against focusing on process over outcomes and emphasising real …

Strategies for iterative and continuous value delivery to customers.

Deliver what matters. Shape systems and decisions around customer outcomes, not internal convenience.

Scrum Masters must have technical and business expertise to guide teams, improve code quality, and drive real agility—not just schedule meetings. …

Microsoft’s switch to 3-week Sprints increased team anxiety due to greater transparency, exposing inefficiencies but enabling faster, more frequent …

Ensuring backlog items meet a clear, actionable standard before sprint planning.

Explains why using blocked columns for stalled tasks on project boards harms workflow, and suggests better ways to highlight and address blocked work …

A London flood shut down most datacentres, but Rackspace stayed online by regularly live-testing failures, proving true resilience comes from …

Explains the Scrum Master's role in ensuring team delivery by fostering agility, removing blockers, and being accountable for improving team …

Enable Business Agility to rapidly adapt, innovate, and deliver value in an ever-changing market.

Managing and reducing technical debt to maintain sustainable development velocity.

Resilience must be designed into products from the start, not added later. Build systems to detect, contain, and recover from failures, making …

Explores how technical excellence in Agile development reduces risk, prevents technical debt, and boosts product quality and delivery speed through …

The foundation of Agile: clean code, automation, and test-first development.

Many organisations cite software complexity as a barrier to continuous delivery, but real obstacles are technical debt and lack of investment in …

Managing the development, maintenance, and governance of software applications throughout their lifecycle.

Explains how Scrum Sprints are primarily for planning, not fixed delivery, and discusses aligning delivery schedules, continuous deployment, and …

Incompetent Scrum Masters reduce team performance and ROI by lacking key skills. Learn how to measure their impact using innovation, usage, and …

Explains how simplifying complex software and committing to change enables continuous delivery, highlighting the need for cultural shift, resilience, …

Releases feel risky when teams lack a clear Definition of Done. Learn how a strong DoD ensures stress-free, reliable software delivery with built-in …

Practical experience is essential for effective Scrum Masters; certification alone is insufficient. True expertise comes from guiding teams, solving …

Explores why special sprints like Sprint Zero or hardening sprints undermine Agile by delaying work, increasing risk, and reducing continuous delivery …

Learn three key Agile strategies: define clear completion criteria, avoid overcommitting in Sprints, and prioritise backlog refinement for better team …

Intensive five-day course for software developers covering Scrum, Visual Studio 2010, .NET, and Agile practices through hands-on team sprints and …

The process of delivering usable working software products to customers, including planning, development, testing, and deployment.

Common Goals are a first principle of effective delivery. They align strategy with execution, enabling every decision, every Sprint, and every line of …

Explores why diligence—consistent attention to quality and standards—is vital in Agile teams, how it’s often overlooked, and practical steps to foster …

Guidance for identifying genuine agile software development in DoD projects, including key principles, warning signs, essential tools, and critical …

Guides and discussions around setting up, installing, and configuring tools, software, and platforms.

Explores key qualities of an effective Scrum Master, focusing on team empowerment, backlog management, collaboration, and removing organisational …

Learn how to spot fake Agile practices using six key questions from the US Department of Defense, and discover steps to assess and improve true Agile …

Explains how self-managing teams in Scrum need structure and leadership, clarifying the Scrum Master's role in maintaining clarity, alignment, and …