Agile, Scrum & Kanban

Bring It All Together: How to Implement Processes in a Nutshell

When a company is small, it is important to establish specific frameworks and strategies to add method to the madness. To do this, squads were created with a product manager, engineering manager, data analyst, and designer. The charter was then established to define expectations and goals. A regular cadence was set up for sprint planning, grooming, demo sessions, and daily standups. Tools were used for knowledge management and a product roadmap was created to provide a clear picture of features. The outcome was positive as teams now understand the value of interdependency and collaboration. Everyone should be involved in the change management process.

Optimizing With Scrum

This story is about how the author was able to turn around a project in the game industry using Scrum. The project had lost its publisher and the team was making no progress. The author reorganized the team and implemented Scrum, which resulted in the project being signed by a large game company. The author learned that strong leadership and the right organization of the team are key to success, and that Agile should be used to help people who are failing in their projects.

Best Product Ideas Will Come When You Stop Forcing Them

This article discusses the process of coming up with a new product idea, specifically for HR software. It outlines the steps to take, such as learning more about the industry, identifying barriers to entry, and understanding the direction of the company. It also emphasizes the importance of not being discouraged by existing competition and understanding the challenges of competing with well-trained humans. Finally, it suggests that patterns will emerge once the client base reaches a certain size, and that a product should be built around one of these patterns.

Prioritizing Urgent Tasks in Scrum

This article discusses how to manage a project with an external task that needs immediate attention. It suggests introducing a "Prod first" policy to prioritize urgent tasks, and to refine the backlog each day to prioritize new tasks. It also highlights the importance of leaving bandwidth for urgent tasks, but also the difficulty of committing to long-term goals when urgent tasks take precedence.

Destressing the Software Delivery Cycle

When joining a project with a customer who was unhappy and software being rushed to release, the team was under high-stress. To destress the team, a project manager documented what the customer expected and prioritized tasks. The team then set a steady release date to improve the customer experience and reduce the number of bugs. After a month, the team regained the trust of the customer due to the high-quality software delivered in a predictable manner. The learnings from this cycle were that it is difficult to break the stressful cycle when in the middle of chaos and that it is important to understand team dynamics to create a customized solution.

Gaining trust from a new team

This article discusses the challenges of leading a team of engineers in different locations. The author found that gaining the team's trust was the most important factor in success, and this was achieved through personal connections and clear communication. The author also learned the importance of having a boss who trusts their methods and techniques.