Blog
Practical guides for agile teams
Estimation, retrospectives and the day-to-day mechanics of running a team. Written from experience, not from a textbook. No fluff, no machine translations.
Sprint ceremonies
A Definition of Done without the bureaucracy
Done means done, not done except testing. How a short, real Definition of Done kills carry-over, and why ten-item checklists get ignored.
· 8 min read
Sprint ceremonies
Sprint goals that teams actually use
Most sprint goals are a list of tickets wearing a sentence. What a real goal does for daily decisions, and how to write one worth having.
· 8 min read
Estimation
Spike stories: estimating the unestimatable
When the room throws up its hands instead of cards, you don't need a braver guess. You need a spike. How to timebox research work properly.
· 8 min read
Retrospectives
Running remote retrospectives that don't fizzle
Remote retros die from silence, not from lack of format. How to structure writing time, discussion, and follow-up when the team is on a call.
· 8 min read
Estimation
Forecasting with velocity instead of promises
How to turn sprint velocity into honest delivery forecasts with ranges and confidence, and the two mistakes that make forecasts lie.
· 8 min read
Sprint ceremonies
Story splitting patterns that actually work
Splitting by architecture layer gives you three unshippable pieces. Seven patterns that produce small stories which still deliver value.
· 7 min read
Sprint ceremonies
The daily standup is not a status meeting
If your standup is fifteen minutes of people reporting to a manager, you can stop. What the daily is for, and how to get it back on track.
· 7 min read
Estimation
Writing user stories your team can actually estimate
Most estimation pain is really a story-writing problem. What makes a story sizeable, and the fixes for the ones that stall every refinement.
· 8 min read
Estimation
Estimating with remote teams: same ritual, different physics
Remote estimation loses the cues that kept in-person poker honest. What breaks over video calls, and how to run sizing that still works.
· 7 min read
Sprint ceremonies
Confidence voting: how to get honest commitment from your team
Everyone nods, the sprint starts, and it was doomed on day one. Fist of five and anonymous confidence votes surface doubt while it's cheap.
· 9 min read
Sprint ceremonies
Backlog refinement: how much is enough?
Refine too little and sprint planning collapses. Refine too much and you're doing waterfall in disguise. Finding the working middle.
· 7 min read
Retrospectives
Sprint retrospective formats that actually change something
Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls, Sailboat and friends compared, plus the follow-through habits that matter more than which format you pick.
· 8 min read
Estimation
Story points vs hours: when each one works
Hours aren't evil and points aren't magic. A fair look at what each estimation unit is good at, and the hybrid mistake that ruins both.
· 7 min read
Estimation
How to run a planning poker session that doesn't drag
A practical walkthrough of planning poker, from prep to reveal, with fixes for anchoring, endless debate, and sessions that run long.
· 7 min read
Estimation
Why estimation decks use the Fibonacci sequence
The gaps in the Fibonacci deck are the feature. Why 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 beats a plain number line, and when to pick a different deck.
· 7 min read
Estimation
What story points actually measure (and what they don't)
Story points size relative effort and uncertainty, not time. Where teams bend them into hours, they break. Here's how to keep them useful.
· 7 min read