How Can I Be Sure My Agile Project Will Deliver On Time?
In agile development the timescale is fixed. So one thing you can be absolutely sure about, is that it’ll deliver on time! The question in agile development is the other way up – how can I be sure...
View ArticleAgile Development: No Sprint Is An Island!
One of the key agile principles is about fixing timescales and varying scope. In DSDM (Dynamic Systems Development Methodology) these iterations are called Timeboxes; in Scrum agile management practice...
View ArticleThe Beauty of NOT Doing Agile Development…
The beauty of NOT doing agile development… is that failure comes as a complete surprise, instead of being preceeded by months of worry! Often in traditional development projects, everything seems to be...
View ArticleHow To Prioritise Quickly And Intuitively
If you’re in a situation where prioritisation is straightforward and you have a single decisive product owner, you probably need to read no further. If, however, prioritisation is difficult in your...
View ArticleHow To Share An Agile Development Team
Scrum, and other agile development methodologies, provide a framework for managing software development projects. But all too often, methodologies focus on a project environment, where the team is...
View ArticleHow To Prioritise – Part II
I recently posted an entry on my blog about how to prioritise quickly and intuitively. I presented a 2d matrix with importance (business value) on one axis and difficulty (effort/complexity/cost/risk)...
View ArticleWhat Is The Point In Estimating?
One technique used by agile development teams is the idea of estimating product features using points. This has a few distinct advantages over estimating in physical units of time. 1. Estimating is...
View ArticleUnderstanding Your Velocity
In a few entries on my blog, I have referred to Velocity and only briefly explained what it is. I think it’s about time I explain properly for those not familiar with it. Velocity is terminology from...
View ArticleSoftware Complexity + Human Frailty + Changing Circumstances = ???
If we accept the above formula, why in non agile development methods is there so much emphasis on analysis, planning and change control? High level planning, such as a feature list (or Product Backlog...
View ArticleAgile Release Planning
A software release may result from multiple iterations (or ‘Sprints’ in Scrum). Sprint Planning is about planning what’s included in the next iteration. Whereas Release Planning is about planning...
View ArticleAgile Project Planning
Projects are a necessary evil :-) But necessary they are. Some people really feel the need to understand precisely what the project will cost and exactly long it will take. If this is the basis for...
View ArticleAgile Prioritisation: Get More Bang For Your Buck!
A while ago I wrote about a fairly simple technique explaining how to prioritise quickly and intuitively… Following this blog post, I got into an email discussion with Scott Sehlhorst from Tyner Blain....
View ArticlePrioritization using MoSCoW
Several years after I first encountered it, I still find MoSCoW one of the easiest methods for prioritization… The MoSCoW approach to prioritization originated from the DSDM methodology (Dynamic...
View ArticleAgility Versus Predictability
George Dinwiddie has written an excellent blog post about Agility Versus Predictability. In this post, George challenges the idea that traditional (waterfall) software development projects are more...
View ArticlePlanning Poker – Agile Estimating
Planning Poker is an estimating technique used by many agile software development teams. Like many agile development techniques, Planning Poker is very simple. Simple, but effective. First of all,...
View ArticleThe Problem With Planning
I think I’ve been pretty successful in my career. But if I was better at planning, I wouldn’t have achieved half the things I’ve achieved in my career! In fact, I wouldn’t even have started some of...
View ArticleStress-Free Priority Meetings using Planning Poker Cards
For many of you, there will be instances where Scrum or Agile is something a company is trying but does not really buy into or understand yet. I would like to start by saying. There is hope! The...
View ArticleThe Agile Planning Onion is Wrong
The concept is simple: there are six levels of planning in an organization, often represented as layers of a metaphorical onion. In the agile planning onion, strategy is the outermost layer. This is...
View ArticleA New Artifact – The Long-Term Product Backlog
The weather turned nice about two weeks ago, which meant it was time for spring cleaning about the Cohn home, affectionately known as the Cohnderosa (which will only mean something if you’re old enough...
View ArticleSome Thoughts on Agile Planning
Agile Math The basic math of team based agile is pretty simple. You can slice it several ways, but at the end of the day, one of these three basic formulas has to hold true. It’s all about time, cost,...
View ArticleA Sample Format for a Spreadsheet-Based Product Backlog
I want to show a real easy way to put user stories in a spreadsheet-based product backlog. I wrote this after seeing someone tweet a screen capture of a product backlog I made 9 years ago and thought...
View ArticleDon’t Plan, Speculate
One thing people are learning is that you can’t plan uncertainty away. Plans are good for things we know, or things that we may have some control over. However uncertainty—and its close cousin’s...
View ArticleWhy Release Planning?
I led a discussion at the Ottawa Agile and Scrum groups last week. I asked the group to come up with some reasons to do Release Planning. In essence, they represent the meta 'purposes' of release...
View ArticleBuild Less, Start Sooner
Jeff Patton recently reminded me of two simple strategies for software development that I’ve talked about from time to time—Build Less Software and Start Sooner. I thought I’d follow up on Jeff’s blog...
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