From Scrum basics to advanced SAFe PI Planning, these articles explain how each framework works in practice, how to choose between them, and how to adapt them for your context.
Are you ready to transform your customer support function into a proactive, high-performing force? Traditional support methods often rely on reactive approaches, handling each ticket in isolation.
Embarking on an Agile Transformation is more than just introducing new processes. It reshapes how your organization collaborates, delivers value, and adapts to change.
Customer feedback is an invaluable resource for continuously improving your products, services, and processes. For many organizations, internal metrics take center stage, while customer insights remain overlooked.
Stepping into a leadership role at a new company is both an exciting and challenging endeavor--especially when your goal is to implement an Agile Transformation. You've experienced firsthand how Agile Methodologies drive value, foster innovation, and improve collaboration.
Agile transforms organizational effectiveness by fostering flexibility, speeding up value delivery, and enhancing team collaboration. Industries are shifting from rigid practices to Agile's iterative, results-focused approach.
Achieving success in your Agile journey requires more than adopting new practices. Leaders often find that even when following frameworks like Scrum, Kanban, or even SAFe®, results can sometimes seem unpredictable.
In today's fast-paced markets, putting customers at the center of your strategy is no longer optional--it's essential.
Creating true alignment in software teams can transform your organization. Fragmented communication, conflicting goals, and siloed workflows often derail progress--especially in distributed and hybrid settings.
Agile practices continue to are transform how modern organizations tackle planning, development, and delivery, driving meaningful changes for companies aiming to stay competitive. In fact, Agile practices are at the forefront of rethinking work in today's environment.
During PI Planning, where teams align on objectives for the upcoming Planning Interval (PI), risk visibility is critical. The ROAM model - standing for Resolved, Owned, Accepted, Mitigated - offers a lightweight, structured way to surface and categorize risks in real time.
In today's volatile business environment, Agile teams face constant change. Managing risk isn't just an option--it's a survival skill. By proactively spotting and addressing challenges, Agile teams keep delivering value even in unpredictable situations.
Effectively organizing tasks can be a major challenge for teams, especially when faced with conflicting deadlines, unexpected interruptions, and multiple ongoing projects.
Agile marketing is revolutionizing how marketing professionals approach their work, enabling teams to respond faster, collaborate more effectively, and deliver higher returns on investment.
In today's competitive environment, organizations must connect strategic objectives with daily execution to deliver value efficiently. Value Stream Management achieves this by providing visibility, alignment, and continuous improvement across the entire value delivery process.
Many organizations aim to deliver innovative solutions, exceptional products, and seamless services. However, a significant obstacle often stands in their way: the presence of organizational silos.
Story point estimates have been a staple in Agile software development, used by teams--including Product Owners, Scrum Masters, and developers--to gauge the complexity, effort, and size of work.
In today's dynamic business world, building a high-performing Agile team starts with selecting team members who bring the right mix of technical expertise, adaptability, and interpersonal skills.
In Agile organizations, collaboration, process efficiency, and delivering value at scale are top priorities. For teams utilizing the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®), the Agile Release Train (ART) plays a pivotal role in managing teamwork and aligning toward common goals.
Agile teams flourish through collaboration, adaptability, and continuous improvement, but there's a crucial and often overlooked component that significantly impacts a team's success: emotional well-being.
Team alignment is crucial for success in environments that prioritize collaboration, adaptability, and quick value delivery. For Agile teams, aligning around a shared goal ensures smooth coordination, reduces misunderstandings, and boosts performance.
In the Scrum Agile framework, clear communication and collaboration are essential for achieving team goals, and at the heart of this is the Daily Scrum.
Agile teams thrive on collaboration strategies, adaptability, and continuous improvement. But how do you strengthen these vital skills in an engaging and memorable way?
Delivering value quickly, adapting to change, and fostering effective collaboration are essential for organizational success. Agile frameworks enable teams to shift from traditional, rigid methods to adaptive, iterative processes.
For organizations seeking improved performance, faster innovation, and greater responsiveness to customer needs, combining Lean Management and Agile Methodology can be a strategic approach.
Transitioning from traditional Waterfall methodologies to Agile represents a fundamental shift in how organizations approach planning, execution, and stakeholder engagement.
Delivering exceptional software in a dynamic and competitive market requires a development process that adapts to rapid changes and complex demands.
In today's fast-paced business environment, organizations strive to deliver value quickly and efficiently. One of the key strategies to achieve this is mastering Work In Process (WIP) methods within Agile methodologies.
In the ever-changing landscape of Agile, teams must adapt quickly, take risks, and engage in open collaboration. Achieving these outcomes hinges on a less visible but crucial factor: Psychological Safety.
In today's rapidly evolving healthcare landscape, organizations face unprecedented challenges in delivering high-quality patient care efficiently.
Did you know organizations that successfully implement Agile Transformation practices can improve their project success rates significantly?
The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) is a popular and widely adopted framework for scaling Agile practices across large organizations. Organizations must be able to respond quickly to market demands, align teams towards common goals, and continuously deliver value to customers.
Did you know that organizations adopting the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) report significant increases in productivity and time-to-market? SAFe 6.
The WHAT The Art of Saying 'No' in Agile: A Key to Effective Prioritization In the world of Agile, one of the most powerful, yet often overlooked, skills is the ability to say 'No.'
Implementing the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe) can be a game-changer for organizations seeking to enhance their agility and deliver value faster. However, the journey to effective SAFe implementation is filled with complexities and challenges.
In the fast-paced world of Agile Transformations, Scrum teams stand at the forefront of organizational agility, driving product success with precision and adaptability. Effective planning and capacity management are crucial pillars in enhancing the performance of these teams.
Scaling Agile practices in large organizations can be challenging, requiring strategic foresight and robust planning to agile teams and business strategies effectively.
Effective communication plays a pivotal role in the success of Agile software teams. As these teams navigate the complexities of rapid project cycles and evolving requirements, the role of communication becomes pivotal in enhancing collaboration and driving productivity.
In a rapidly evolving business landscape, the shift towards Agile Practices has become imperative for organizations aiming to stay competitive and responsive. However, managing change during such a transformation is not without its challenges.
In the fast-paced world of Agile development, the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe®) stands as a beacon, guiding enterprises through the complexities of scaling Agile practices.
In the dynamic world of enterprise agility, the Scaled Agile Framework®, or SAFe®, stands as a beacon for organizations striving to scale their Agile practices.
In the rapidly evolving business landscape, large organizations are increasingly turning to Agile methodologies to stay ahead of the curve. However, implementing Agile at scale (6 teams or more) presents some unique challenges.
Key Takeaways Understand Agile's Core Principles: Gain clarity on the foundational values, guiding principles, and why Agile has become essential for modern business success.
Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) has become a pivotal strategy for many organizations aiming to optimize their product development efforts and align them with business objectives.
When it comes to Sprint Planning in the Scrum framework, precision and predictability are paramount. Yet Sprint Planning based on story points and average velocity, while popular, has inherent flaws.
I recently had the opportunity to listen in during a LinkedIn/YouTube Live conversation between my fellow AV Transformation Coach Colleen Johnson and Roger Turnau, both seasoned Lean-Agile practitioners.
We have developed a Kanban Excel reporting template for you to use when measuring Cycle Time. This template is for a team to generate a cycle time and spectral analysis charts. The Cycle Time Chart shows the trend over time for cycle time.
Some people look at SAFe® and they say a couple of things. They say, 'Wow, that is really complex, and it has a lot of rules.' And then they kind of dismiss the whole framework because of that. Some even use the word 'rigid.' But those of us who have been on the inside [...]
Key Takeaways: Is ART Right for You?: ARTs are ideal for organizations facing challenges with scaling agile practices, needing to align multiple teams, or aiming for more predictable delivery at scale--especially in environments where traditional team-level agile isn't enough.
The second article of this series talked about success criteria and how to facilitate the voting process. This time, we talk about a critical aspect of PI Planning. Whether onsite or online, how do you make this event valuable and fun.
Path to Agility Navigator - OCT 2022 Release A Hey Path to Agility Friends! Here is a little video tour of some of our new features. \U0001F389 Feel free to read below for more details... https://youtu.be/mO6SSX8XUbg I.
In the last article, we talked about why PI Planning is so 'magical' and how to prepare (there's an art) for PI Planning.
We sat down with Enterprise Transformation Coach David Gipp to discuss the ins and outs of PI Planning, how to make it more successful (whether it's remote or in-person), and why this event is the 'magic' of SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework).
The SAFe Big Picture lays out all the things needed to go through a SAFe transformation. The level of depth behind the SAFe Big Picture makes you feel like if you implement all the processes, events, and roles you'll be Agile.
In a previous post in our Scrum Assessment Series, we shared some ideas to help catalyze engaging sprint reviews. Here, we take a deeper dive into the topic of awesome Sprint Reviews.
I'm one of the many Agile Velocity coaches who like to read books. (Or in my case, listen to audiobooks while running.)
I was a late bloomer when it came to swimming and didn't learn how to swim until I was 8-years-old, the year I immigrated from the Philippines to America. One of my goals as a parent was to make sure that my kids were confident and safe in the water so they began swim lessons [...]
Last September, we had a 'Getting Stuff Done' (GSD session with Path to Agility (P2A) Facilitators. But this GSD was a little different from past sessions.
STATIK (Systems Thinking Approach To Implementing Kanban1 2) can be a great technique to help teams get up and running quickly, even teams that are using Scrum.
The Kanban Method is a powerful way for Agile teams and organizations to visualize work, identify and eliminate bottlenecks, and achieve measurable operational improvements in throughput and quality.
As a person who has a high preference for in-person workshops, transitioning to a 100% virtual delivery and facilitation has been an experience to say the least. However, there are a few things I learned in the last few weeks that helped make our workshops more fun and engaging.
Scaled Agile Framework or SAFe® is the most popular and far-reaching of the Agile scaling frameworks out there. But before you make the decision to go all-in with this popular framework, it's important to know the facts. Here are 4 busted myths about SAFe. 1. Scaled Agile Framework is prescriptive!
We are excited to join Scaled Agile's Partner program. This worldwide network includes transformation and platform providers who help enterprises facilitate and accelerate business results through the adoption of the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®).
Agile transformations can do wonders for organizations across the board. Agile helps teams to continuously improve while focusing on attainable goals and timely delivery. However, implementing Agile across a large organization comes with its own challenges.
Horse Before the Cart - An Outcome-Oriented Approach to SAFe® Transformations | Mike Hall | Agile2019 from Agile Velocity Leaders often ask, 'Will implementing SAFe® lead to my desired outcome?'
Is HR Agile a thing? That's what Samantha Wiseman (Sr. HR Business Partner) wanted to find out when she took our Scrum Master cert class this January. After spending two days learning about empirical process, Agile, and the Scrum framework, she began to see how it can be applied to her role as a [...
Be The Change: Transform Your Organization Through Servant Leadership - Global Scrum Gathering 2019 from Agile Velocity 'Revolutionary Ideas do not change institutions. People change them.' - Robert K. Greenleaf. People over Process is the very first value in the Agile Manifesto.
We've been watching companies thrive--and struggle--for a long time. 2019 is our ninth year as a company and marks over 15 years of my personal work with clients as they transition to Agile.
Agile Roles are well defined in any foundational training for Scrum or Kanban. However, it's not always clear who will be filling those roles as an organization begins using its chosen framework.
When considering scaling Agile, it is important to start small. Some of the various scaled Agile frameworks available can look incredibly complex, while others can look simplistic and incomplete at first glance. Relax. Don't over-complicate it.
This is another in a series of blogs on the topic of Lean Economics, emphasizing the economic aspects of product development. You can find the first post about WIP limits here. As a developer, do you work multiple projects in parallel?
This is the first in a series of blogs on the topic of Lean Economics, emphasizing the economic aspects of product development. I have a friend who once emphatically stated 'Agile will never work at my company because we have more projects than people!
We've discussed what a ScrumMaster is and what their main responsibilities are. We've even discussed the hard and soft skills needed to make a successful ScrumMaster (thanks, Leslie Knope). But, still, what does a ScrumMaster do anyway? What makes up an entire work day?
Scrum sprints can be tricky. Agile teams often fall into the trap of turning their Scrum sprint into a mini-waterfall. In other words, they take on work and save testing until the end of a Sprint, which tends to create more carryover than truly done work.
This video breaks down the basics of one of the most popular Agile frameworks, Scrum, and covers topics like: Scrum Roles Scrum teams Backlog Prioritization Scrum ceremonies Sprint cycles See below for the full transcription.
We handle risk in Agile differently than how we handle risk in traditional development. Because there's more visibility into the risks, we are better able to mitigate them and deliver quality software.
Backlog Refinement has been gaining momentum as a best practice in Scrum. I think it's so important that I champion it to be a standard event, on par with Sprint Planning, Sprint Retrospectives, and Standups. (If you agree you should go to the Scrum Guide's site and vote it up).
Confused about the correct sprint ceremony schedule? Does the sprint planning come before or after the daily scrum? For new Agile practitioners, all of these meetings can be confusing and hard to keep track of.
Most teams say they are doing Scrum, but they really aren't. One of the core elements of Scrum is something called the Potentially Shippable Product Increment (PSPI), or getting to Done Done.
Daily Scrum Meeting Purpose The goal of the Daily Scrum meeting is to synchronize and plan the team's work toward the Sprint Goal over the next day (until the next Daily Scrum) meeting.
If you read David's blog about story mapping, you may have gotten extremely excited to try it out and then the fear and doubt set in. Just because you are in the middle of building something doesn't mean story mapping isn't for you.
As a 15-year Scrum practitioner, I try to revisit the official Scrum Guide, sometimes referred to as the 'Scrum Bible', to make sure I stay on top of any updates associated with the framework roles, events, artifacts, rules, and underlying philosophies.
'Individuals and interactions over processes and tools; 'Working software over comprehensive documentation; 'Customer collaboration over contract negotiation; 'Responding to change over following a plan.'
A few years back, I experienced what I will call 'the true cost of a non-safe team environment'. I was working on a program-level initiative and had worked up an email (names changed to protect the innocent) to a remote member of our team that reads something like this: 'Barb - we really need a [...]
The Agile Manifesto was created over 15 years ago. Most of the focus in the Agile/Scrum world since then has been to improve product delivery; we have fixated on how we make the development of ideas more effective.
When you hear the term 'extreme programming', what do you think of? Coding while skydiving at 15,000 feet? Bug-fixing while scaling the north face of Kilimanjaro? Refactoring while swimming with sharks at the Great Barrier Reef?
Let me ask you this: If you had a team of five would you rather have 20% annual gain without adding another developer, or go hire and integrate a new developer every year to get a 20% productivity gain YoY? If it was up to me, I'd go with option one and make sure that [...]
User Stories have become the standard way Agile teams capture requirements and were introduced almost 20 years ago as a part of XP (Extreme Programming). To put it in context, that''s four presidents and 14 iPhone models later.
Photo by Alexandra Gorn on Unsplash Three weeks ago. It's Friday night. We're in a lazy mood so we hop in the car and go to the new neighborhood pizza place, Aviator Pizza. It's our second time to go and it's even busier than the first time, which is a good sign. The burger joint [...]
Sprint Retrospectives...the other bookend to Sprints. Retros mark the official end of the Sprint and provide teams the opportunity to reflect so the next Sprint is even more efficient.
In the perfect Agile world, a ScrumMaster is a ScrumMaster...and that's it. There's not a never-ending custody battle where a person goes back and forth between two roles. Unfortunately, we live in the real world.
If your Sprint begins with two days of design followed by six days of development and finally two days of QA, each phase stacked right behind another like dominoes, then congratulations...you have a mini waterfall.
Nod your head if you have said the following: 'I need a day off so I can get some work done.' 'I've been in meetings for the last 6 hours solid.' 'It feels like I haven't been at my desk in two days.' 'I'll get to that this weekend.' You've likely heard phrases like this [...]
This is the second half of our short series on Scrum events. Check out the first post explaining the necessity of Scrum events, including the impact if they were not to occur. We get a lot of questions on when Scrum events should happen.
In Scrum, there exists a general confusion about the Scrum events or meetings: when they happen, who attends and why they exist. The last question comes up...a lot. There will be resistance to 'all the overhead' of Scrum, meetings included.
![Portfolio Kanban: Applying Lean & Agile Principles At The Portfolio Level [Keep Austin Agile 2016]](/_next/image?url=%2Fimages%2Fblog%2FScreen-Shot-2017-08-18-at-3.15.52-PM.jpg&w=2048&q=75)
Presented at Keep Austin Agile 2016, William Baxter explains how a true Agile transformation goes beyond the team level and team practices through his experience coaching a media company in New York City.
As a ScrumMaster, some of my teams resented the burndown chart and me for pestering them to update their time. Sometimes, teams feel the updating of hours and the burndown are ways to make micro-managing easier. And, sometimes, that''s EXACTLY what it is used for.
User stories are a staple of Agile practices.
Once upon a time, there was a Scrum team that was new to the methodology. It was their first backlog grooming session and they needed to prioritize their newly written user stories.
Tesla unveiled the next addition to its premium electric vehicle family, the Model 3, last week. At $35,000, Elon Musk made good on his promise for an 'affordable' EV option and the public has responded by exceeded expectations for the slow rollout.
Whether transient like sudden thunderstorms or constant like Eeyore's rain cloud, negative attitudes can sap energy from those around them, particularly if it's the latter.
With Daily Scrum, Backlog Grooming, Sprint Planning, Sprint Review, and finally the Retrospective, Scrum provides a lot of opportunities for the team to come together and discuss, assess, and pivot when necessary. In other words, meet on a regular basis.
A digital marketer slowly tests Agile marketing by incorporating Kanban and writing acceptance criteria in day-to-day.
Part 6 of 6 in the 'Double the Value in Half the Time' series based on David Hawks' presentation from Keep Austin Agile 2015. The last problem is this: everything's important, everything's high priority, everything must get done.
Part 4 of 6 in the 'Double the Value in Half the Time' series based on David Hawks' presentation from Keep Austin Agile 2015. Stay tuned for subsequent posts... So we've got all of these challenges.... and one of them is a problem I call Drowning in a Sea of Opportunity.
Part 3 of 6 in the 'Double the Value in Half the Time' series based on David Hawks' presentation from Keep Austin Agile 2015. Stay tuned for subsequent posts... The third problem holding teams back is long feedback loops. Some of us have long feedback loops, while others have no feedback loops at all!
In Scrum, the goal is to have a Potentially Shippable Product Increment (PSPI) at the end of every sprint. However, many teams fail to accomplish this on a regular basis. I believe achieving this is what unlocks much of the power of agile.
There is no doubt that the in-vogue tool today in product and software development is the 'canvas'. Everywhere you look a new version appears touting new value and insights: Business Models, Opportunities Assessments, Organizational Visioning, and Sales Strategy.
At ProductCamp Austin, David Hawks presented Accelerating Learning and Overcoming the 6 Traps of Agile. Accelerated learning is the key to unlocking the true potential of Agile. Often organizations implement the process aspects of agile/scrum but fail to find the key to unlocking its true potential.
Kent Beck said it best: 'I'm not a great programmer, I'm a pretty good programmer with great habits.' What are some of these habits which help product development go from good to great?
We need your help! Agile Velocity is putting together a video about Scrum dysfunction and are looking for input on what dysfunctions to cover and what tips to offer.
I struggled with a number of potential topics for this blog before settling on this one.
This is Part 1 of a 3-part blog series for Scrum Masters, Product and Product Managers, and facilitators. Use these exercises to break the ice and lead meetings that are fun and energized, resulting in more participant engagement.
This is Part 2 of a 3-part blog series for Scrum Masters, Product and Product Managers, and facilitators. Use these exercises to incite brainstorming meetings that are fun and energized, resulting in more participant engagement.
This is Part 3 of a 3-part blog series for Scrum Masters, Product and Product Managers, and facilitators. Use these exercises to lead long meetings that are fun and energized, resulting in more participant engagement. These exercises are great for re-energizing a group, especially in long meetings.
All of us have led or attended meetings that were boring or a waste of time. We aspire to lead meetings so people are engaged, actively contributing, and eager to help solve the pressing problems. In this blog series, we'll share exercises increasing engagement and ways to energize your meetings.
In the first part of this blog series, we introduced the Advanced Release Chart Template and discussed how to communicate progress to customers and stakeholders using burnup and burndown charts.
In October 2012, we released our first downloadable template to help forecast and chart release progress.
This is the fourth post in our Scrum Assessment Series. Often we'll attend a Sprint Review where the team is present and ready to demonstrate the work they completed during the Sprint, but there are no stakeholders or customers present to see the demo!
'That's not Agile and Lean!' 'We're not being lean enough.' 'We're not supposed to make deliverables!' Sound familiar? I hear these statements all the time from teams moving towards a more evidence-based approach to product discovery, conception, and production.
In the first post of the series, I discussed the basic building blocks of a successful in-house innovation team: small, dedicated, collocated, and self-sufficient. In this post, I'm going to talk about a key philosophy for these teams: transparency.
This is the fifth post in our Scrum Assessment Series. Often teams are working on features over multiple sprints scheduled in a release. Planning and tracking these releases can be very difficult, but you can't tell the business we have no idea what will be delivered.
This is the third post in our Scrum Assessment Series. Too many teams we observe are trying to get out of their Sprint Planning meetings as fast as possible. They think the goal is to just get a plan. Some cheat by having everyone task their work ahead of time or skip the tasking altogether. They [...
This is the first post in our Scrum Assessment Series. The Daily Scrums or Standups are a critical planning meeting for the team. It should be fun and engaging. A great team demonstrates a culture of shared ownership.
Agile software practitioners focus a lot of attention on people, communication, collaboration, and strong values. In many environments, these are unquestionably the best opportunities for improvement.
There has been a lot of talk over the years about having a definition of 'Done' or 'being Done', but I think it is just important to have a definition of Ready. Have you ever been in Sprint Planning and been surprised to find out the requirements aren't clear or the team has no idea [...]
Many Product Owners we work with find themselves struggling with when and how they should break their epics down into an actionable user story. In this post, we'll talk more about the 'when' portion and how you can get into a regular cadence of evolving your backlog.
I just returned from the Lean Software and Systems conference in Boston. There was a definite common thread around learning cultures and a focus on treating our industry as a set of scientific experiments. The heavy influence from the Lean Startup movement was prevalent.
I feel the Retrospective is the most important ceremony, especially for new teams. I am concerned when ScrumMasters boast they can get their Retrospective done in 30 minutes or less. I must ask, 'Did your team learn anything? Are they improving?
Kanban vs. Scrum - Which is Right for my Team? Clients frequently ask us when they should use Kanban and when they should use Scrum. To form a recommendation, these are some of the questions we ask: What best describes the nature of your team's work?
The Daily Scrum Meeting is for the TEAM to self-organize towards achieving their Sprint commitment.
If Your Sprints are crazy, do any of these issues sound familiar?
Author: David Hawks Why Lean Principles Matter in Modern Software Development Embracing lean principles isn't just about efficiency--it's about building smarter, more adaptive software teams that consistently deliver customer value.
For new teams, I try and encourage them to use a physical task board over tracking tasks in a tool. This can be problematic when all team members are not in the same location, but it has some huge advantages for co-located teams.
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