When an idea for a new project gains steam and people gather to decide what exactly it is to do, there are many options to choose from to help with initial scoping. One technique I use quite regularly is known as Impact Mapping. Why Impact Mapping? C...

If you've spent any amount of time in the software world, you bump into what is sometimes called the magic quadrants. You'll most often see this as an effort/impact activity. I want to share two ways I use this little technique when helping groups be...

Imagine this scenario as we explore an effective risk assessment method that was in the exceptional movie Fight Club. A company utilizes several different third-party services to help run its software company. One day, one of those services has an ou...

I've often felt like one of my natural talents or superpowers is how I prioritize features for products. Now, I know it is easy for anyone to feel that way, but there is a very sharp contrast between the backlogs I create and what most others create....

I’m not a fan of most roadmaps or their usage, but so what? They are a near-universal tool in many companies that awkwardly try to communicate what is going on and their timelines. Despite them turning into vague work-breakdown schedules, there is so...

Some friends were discussing a post by Jeff Sutherland about how AI will make estimation easy. What I thought was odd about that post was looking at where AI would begin to replace various Scrum activities, so I thought I’d plug in a prompt to see wh...

I often wind up helping groups understand some aspects of agility and Scrum. One common topic that seems to confuse groups is user stories. I want to go over several shapes they tend to appear in and close with my desired one. Hopefully, you’ll see t...

A familiar reprieve from many consultants, agilists, and others is, “There are no silver bullets.” I’m going to describe the closest thing I know of as one, and it is also the most controversial thing I bring to my clients. A Word Of Warning Just lik...

User stories are ubiquitous these days as the method of representing work that development teams need to do. Yet, very few groups ever really understand them well enough to get much value out of them. While I still think user stories are an excellent...

Its all-to-often that during meetings, people make numerous decisions and aren’t communicated out. Maybe a new strategic direction was set for a few teams or its time to experiment with agility, we’re going to try OKRs, or a new set of people are bei...