Agile

Jira recently launched ‘Standup Mode’ feature, and love it! ...

When I don’t feel like I’m making sufficient progress at work, I have a favorite technique: asking “What would finishing this today look like?” ...

Retrospectives are one of my favorite engineering team practices. In this post, I’ll explain why and how I run retros. ...

When preparing feature development work, I write Gherkin-style tickets, which follow the “Given/When/Then” format. Many people call these stories, and I do, too. This technique is incredibly effective! But why? In this post, I’ll try to answer that question. ...

I’ve been lucky to have worked with some great engineers, and one thing that they tend to do exceptionally well is reporting about their work at meetings. Today I’d like to summarize what I think makes a great standup report. ...

Action items are small, defined, actionable TODOs to follow up on after the meeting. An example: “close all pull requests opened more than 90 days ago.” Agile retrospectives should produce many of these. ...

A naive implementation is a programming technique that prioritizes imperfect shortcuts for the sake of speed, simplicity, or lack of knowledge. ...

I recently completed a winter survival course where we built shelters in just ten minutes with only the contents of our packs. The pack I brought was nearly empty, so I made a tent out of my parka. It was ugly, but it could have saved my life. How does this apply to software? When building a feature, first get it working, then make it look good. ...

I think the most important factor in consistent delivery is understanding the work. When you understand the work, you build what the stakeholder wants, better and faster. ...

When I create Agile bug tickets, I leave the story points blank. Why? Two reasons: pointing bugs creates the wrong incentives, and bugs are hard to estimate. ...