One of the most common questions facing teams that are new to Scrum is “What’s the best sprint length for us?”. Although this question can seem daunting at first, there’s…

Many teams struggle with getting the right level of detail in their backlog. If the backlog is too vaguely defined, then the team picks up stories that aren’t immediately actionable…

When we think of agile, we often think of quick reactionary planning to the realities of a project as it unfolds. For that reason, most discussions of agile planning focus…

Often when someone becomes a Scrum Master the only instruction they are given is to “remove impediments”, but what does that even mean? Impediments can come in many forms and have…

Founders pay a lot of attention to Minimum Viable Products, or “MVPs”. However, for all of the attention that’s paid there seems to be just as much confusion about what…

If you’re building a product then you want users…it’s that simple. And you want these users as soon as possible because the earlier you can get users, the sooner…

Is your Sprint Review just a dog-and-pony show for your stakeholders? If so, then you may be missing one of the most valuable aspects of the Scrum process. It’s Not a…

It’s that time of year when our thoughts turn to the Holidays, Family, and for much of the world…Santa.

I have a soft spot in my heart for this time of year so I never miss the opportunity to catch a classic Christmas movie from my childhood. Not the modern takes on the season, but the classic films where just when times seem the darkest our clay-crafted heroes pull out a Christmas miracle in the last moments before Santa’s sleigh leaves the icy tundra for his trip around the world.

Lately, however, I’ve started to notice a consistently recurring theme in these movies…Santa and his elves are actually saving Christmas with Scrum.

Let’s see how.

If you’re like most Product Owners, you probably have a backlog full of user stories modeling just what you’d like to see your best users do with your product.

But what about your “not so great” users. Not just those who are casual users of your product, or approach it with the lackluster enthusiasm. No, I’m talking about those malevolent users who have set out to do you harm. You have those users, too…you just may not be thinking about them.

These are the users who have only dubious intent towards your company, your product, or even your other users. We call these users our “Evil Users”, and whether you want to think of them or not…they’re your users, too. And they deserve they’re own user stories.

We often talk about our “customer”, they’re at the center of everything we do. But we rarely talk about who our “customer” may actually be. Often, we just assume that…