Agile Scout » Kanban Tools

WordPress and Pictures [PressGram Kickstarter App]

peter — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:45:56 +0000

I know there are more than a few Agilists who are bloggers among us and even more than enjoy taking pictures of their families, friends, their work, and maybe even their food on occasion (admit it, you do it).

Well, if you’re a blogger then there’s a chance you’re also using WordPress, which is what we use here on AgileScout.com – and we’re always looking for neat implementations that help keep more pageviews and more eyes on the content and community we have here.

Pressgram, a recent Kickstarter project that connect filtered photos directly to WordPress, is doing just that. If you’re a fan of taking photos and blogging about them but also in growing your own business and brand around content, then Pressgram is something that you may want to back.

There are some strong business cases as well as creative control that are worth a second.

WordPress and Pictures [PressGram Kickstarter App]

@pawelbrodzinski – Kanban Workshop – My Notes

peter — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:16:48 +0000

[At Agile Dev Practices Berlin 2013]

Principles of Kanban

Start with what you have
Agree to pursue incremental evolutionary change
Respect current situation
Encourage leadership on all levels

Practices of Kanban

Visualize
Limit WIP
Manage Flow – Monitor/Flow of reality
Make policies explicit
Introduce feedback loops
Improve collaboratively

[SEE MY NOTES - PART 2 on Kanban here]

@pawelbrodzinski – Kanban Workshop – My Notes

[Scrum Tool Review] – SonicAgile – Manage Your Project in a World of Blue

peter — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:15:10 +0000

[We review Agile Tools. Have you seen our Agile Tools list?]

We’ve been looking around for another tool to review and it landed on our desk for sure.

[Enter]: SonicAgile – An Easy to Use Scrum tool in Blue

The SonicAgile folks tell us that they built SonicAgile because they wanted a lightweight and easy to learn project management tool which the developers could coordinate the work that their team performs on software projects.

SonicAgile supports the basic features that many other tools cover as well: creating backlogs, scrumboards, and burndown charts. It includes support for acceptance criteria, story estimation, calculating team velocity, and email integration.

Interested already? It’s simple. You can sign up for 30 days free. Booyah.

SonicAgile Backlog

You use the backlog to create a prioritized list of user stories such as features, bugs, and change requests. It’s a snap, prioritize a story by just drag and dropping the story from one location to another.

Likewise, it’s easy to add stories from the product backlog to the sprint backlog:

Tracking velocity is pretty intuitive and easy as well. Try it out… and then try to overload your team. A nice addition is that when you add too many stories to a a sprint… the system warns you automatically:

SonicAgile Scrumboard

If you’re running a daily Scrum everyday, you can use the Scrumboard to view at a glance what everyone on the team is working on. Below is a view of what an individual is working on in the Product Details Page:

Every story can be broken into tasks and acceptance criteria:

One caveat though, you cannot close a story — and remove the story from the list of active stories on the scrumboard — until all tasks and acceptance criteria associated with the story are done.

SonicAgile Burndown Charts

Currently, SonicAgile supports several versions of burndown reports: Release Burndown, Sprint Burndown by Task Estimates, and Sprint Burndown by Story Points charts. Below is an example of a Sprint Burndown by Story Points:

Email Integration

The folks over at SonicAgile tell us that their system was designed to improve your team’s communication and collaboration. Most stories and tasks require discussion to nail down exactly what work needs to be done. If your rockin’ a dispersed team, or a team that isn’t local, you can collaborate through email, right? When you use SonicAgile, all email discussions concerning a story or a task (including all email attachments) are captured automatically. At any time in the future, you can view all of the email discussion concerning a story or a task by opening the Story Details dialog:

Summary (And some Technical Details)

SonicAgile is very close to being a pure Ajax application (which I like). Looking a bit deeper we’ve found that SonicAgile was built using ASP.NET MVC 3, jQuery, and Knockout. Almost all of the MVC controller actions return JSON results. The controller actions are invoked from jQuery Ajax calls from the browser.

SonicAgile was built on Windows Azure, and the team over at SonicAgile is taking advantage of SQL Azure, Table Storage, and Blob Storage.

Going through the system, I wasn’t too disappointed with the experience. It was intuitive and pretty easy to navigate. I specifically liked the ease of the drag and drop functionality, which is a standard these days. The color scheme took a little bit getting used to though.

Since they’ve opened it up for free sign ups and 30 days of trial, it wouldn’t be a bad ride to take if you’re looking for a new tool to use. Consider dropping a couple minutes on this one, you might just find that it will work for you and your team!

[Scrum Tool Review] – SonicAgile – Manage Your Project in a World of Blue

iDoneThis – Lightweight Updates and Status Reporting for Scrum Teams

peter — Wed, 27 Jun 2012 12:15:43 +0000

[We review Agile and Scrum Tools. Have you seen our Agile and Scrum Tools List?

iDoneThis is a tool that promises to bring lightweight status reporting to every company. Its secret sauce is that it makes the process incredibly simple. It’s the easiest way that I’ve found to run a stripped down daily standup… maybe even for dispersed teams.

If anyone you know has been too intimidated to try Agile because of what appears to be complicated rules and protocols, just turn them on to iDoneThis. It attempts to capture the essence of scrum — daily iterative progress and improvement — without much of the overhead.

With iDoneThis, you aren’t going to get a product that’s loaded with features and configurability options. If you’re looking for a very specific agile product and process, iDoneThis isn’t the tool for you. iDoneThis’s is mantra is to keep it simple, and you might be surprised how powerful that is.

iDoneThis is so easy to use that after you sign up, you can keep using iDoneThis without ever having to go to their website again.

Here’s how it works.Every night, the whole team gets an email from iDoneThis asking, “What’d you get done for today?” Just reply. Whatever you write gets recorded in one place that you can search and review. The next morning, the team wakes up to an email from iDoneThis. It shows us a person-by-person list of what everyone on our team accomplished the day before.

Impressed with what one of your team members has done? Send them positive feedback and start a conversation with a single click. The iDoneThis emails make it so easy to give feedback that it becomes almost reflexive. See something cool? Let that person know.

It’s that easy to keep the team in sync and making deliberate progress on a daily rhythm.

iDoneThis is an excellent tool because of its simplicity. There’s no need to sacrifice individual workflow preferences for team needs, or vice versa. Integration with email and cool communication features ensure that all team management needs are met. It’s a simple tool that just makes life simpler.

If you see something you like, you can sign up for a 30-day free trial here.

iDoneThis – Lightweight Updates and Status Reporting for Scrum Teams

Business Optimization and Human Potential

peter — Mon, 14 May 2012 12:15:36 +0000

We are often blind.

As Agile Coaches, consultants, and organizational improvers, we strive to help teams and businesses alike improve their performance, output, and even culture.

The problem is… that we often come into a team or business blind, not understanding the full context of each team and each individual who makes up that team.

This is a problem.

To be the most effective we need to understand how people operate. We need to understand how they work collectively, as a group, as a team, and as individuals. The quicker we can assess and understand the contextual culture of our clients and teams, we are left to empirically deduce assumptions that most often are half-truths.

As we jump into consulting or coaching with any client, it would be great to know their cultural context, how people are behaving, and even how to engage with them best.

Easier said than done, until Action & Influence dropped on the scene.

Action & Influence – Business Optimization and Human Potential

Action & Influence is simply this: A team and business assessment instrument that allows employees, managers, and stakeholders, the ability to understand how to communicate, collaborate, deal with conflict, and engage with each other better.

You now have the right levers to pull. You now have the ability to speak intentionally to each person because you know how they work and operate.

It is no longer an option to go in blind and guess. Know your people. Know your clients. Know how to tap into each team members’ potential.

[HT: myAI.org]

An Example of Individual Assessment Results

[Example Workshop Setup]

Business Optimization and Human Potential

Achievements: An Agile Whitepaper

peter — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:15:46 +0000

An Agile Whitepaper: Achievements

By, Renee Troughton

CELEBRATE WITH YOUR TEAM ACHIEVEMENTS

Abstract: Agile Achievements can be used to track and celebrate both individual and team behaviors in adopting Agile values, principles and practices.

Gaddie Pitch: You know how most teams find it difficult to know what they have to do when developing in an Agile environment?

Well what Achievements does is help to give clear goals about the expected behaviors for teams and individuals.

In fact Achievements can be fun and re-direct the focus away from the Scrum Master or Agile Coach to enable the team to encourage better Agile behaviors.

What is an Achievement?

Unlike normal achievements that are often considered monumental milestones in a person’s life the gamer’s definition of an Achievement is more a small stretch goal outside of the team or individual’s current behavioral norms.

Within Agile when we apply Achievements we are commonly tracking particular Agile practices, artifacts, values or principles. Let’s take a look at an example of an Achievement:

Back to the Future

Sprint Retrospectives have been held at the end of each Sprint for five Sprints in a row.

We can see from this example that the Achievement name is easily recognizable as a pop culture reference, but the link to the relevant practice does not require a huge leap of the imagination. Whilst doing five Sprint Retrospectives consistently might sound like a simple and easy thing to do it does require discipline and the skipping of them is a common problem for teams. You can keep up the consistency through continuing the pop culture reference and introducing “Back to the Future II” and “Back to the Future III” Achievements, widening the number of Retrospectives held consistently and the gauging the effectiveness of them.

A critical thinker may be concerned that despite the Sprint Retrospectives being done were they actually effective? Or did the right people turn up to the Sprint Retrospective? These are important questions, but ones that could be covered off by additional Achievements if it was considered a problem for the team.

Agile Achievements can either measure the:

Consistency of a practice
Quality of a practice and its outcomes
Existence of an artifact
Adherence against values or principle

Agile Achievement categories

The focus of Agile Achievements can change based upon a number of factors:

Team vs individually focused
Positive vs negatively focused
Method focus (for example Scrum vs Kanban)

Other categories may exist. You are only limited by your imagination!

Team versus individual Achievements

As teams start Achievements for the first time consider using just team focused objectives rather than individualistic focused goals. Once the team gets the hang of how the Achievements technique works then you can discuss and agree as a team whether there is value in taking the next step of looking at tracking individual Achievements. Often teams will want to make this transition for one of three reasons:

they are having fun and want to boast about what they are doing and how well they are doing it;
to compete against each other; or
one or two individuals are suspected to be holding the team back

An example of individual achievement would be:

Speed demon
The person has contributed to ten stories that were completed inside of the iteration.

Positive vs negative Achievements

Whilst a positively re-enforcing Achievement would be celebrating the success of a practice well played, a negatively focused Achievement would be more about attempting to “name and shame” a person into practice compliance. This is a risky thing to do and can potentially backfire on the Achievement technique implementer if the environment is not conducive or safe to call this out. Arguably such an environment is a “smell” in itself. An example of a negatively focused achievement would be:

An example of individual achievement would be:

I see dead walls
Less than 5 cards moved inside of the iteration.

Scrum versus Kanban Achievements

Due to the practice differences between Scrum and Kanban you can vary the Achievements based upon which method you are using. For example, if you take into account how you measure progress, you can implement an Achievement around the appropriate measurement artifact.

Kanban

The only way is up!

A Cumulative Flow Diagram has been consistently updated for each day for four weeks.

Scrum

Make them meet

The Burn Up Chart demonstrates that they scope cannot be achieved in the number of iterations left. Consequently the team has formed a new plan.

Venus

A burn up chart of the team’s velocity against expectations has been produced and made visible (You’ve got it!)

What does an Achievement Board look like?

An “Achievement Board” or “Trophy Board” is a gamification technique to record, celebrate and display the earning of Achievements as they relate to teams or individuals.

MAKE IT VISIBLE

An Achievement Board is another big visible chart for your team’s area. Generally it will be displayed as one or more A3s. On these A3s would be the achievement name (short name) and either a blank space for the Achievement token to go on or a black and white picture of the Achievement token. When the team or individual has earned the Achievement you simply place the colored Achievement token on the blank space or over the black and white copy of the image. It is a good idea to keep a key of the achievement name and the trigger or goal for reaching the achievement nearby.

Achievement boards are also great for when managers and executives walk by. Uninitiated managers to Achievements will ask questions about what the board means and it will give the team an opportunity to bring the manager onto the behavioral journey that the team or individual is on.

The usage of Achievement Boards, if they go viral within your organization, can then be used as clout or bragging rights competitively against other teams.

Dependent upon the number of achievements and implementation method, the time it takes a Scrum Master or Agile Coach to track the team’s achievement progress on average it should not take longer than 10 minutes per week. Limit the number of Achievements that you want to strive towards by focusing on the problems that you are experiencing as a team. Focus only on practices that you hypothesize that greater adherence and effectiveness will make demonstrated improvements in both capability and ability to deliver outcomes with.

The examples provided above and within the Appendices are just that – examples. Setting up your own Achievement Board and defining the Achievements is a fun activity in itself and can be used as a team building activity when the team forms up for the first time.

Why would you use an Achievement technique?

The change to become more Agile is an often difficult journey.

Early adopters, frustrated with the current status quo will flock to a solution, any solution, as long as it pulls them out of the desperate situation that they seemed to have fallen into.

Others within the team may be less than willing to try something different. The motivation for them to change is not fostered.

Through the usage of Agile Achievements you can

use a different framework to encourage the team to try a specific Agile practice that they have never done before
step up a team’s consistency against practices
create a safe means to be able to have a dialogue about individuals or teams not following the values, principles or practices
create a collectively re-enforcing peer pressure environment to enable change from the team rather than directly from the Scrum Master or Agile Coach
celebrate consistency
have explicit policies around behavioral change
have a means to be able to consistently measure Agile Maturity across teams within the organization; and
have a tight feedback loop to compare practice expectations to actual behaviors. This aligns strongly with Agile’s philosophy of ‘inspect and adapt’.

As always quality working software, or outcomes, that meets real customer needs is always the true north or end goal, but by creating an environment that encourages better practices you should be encouraging the focus on working software – after all the practices are there to support the Agile manifesto and principles.

Disclaimer:

This article is by no means propagating Achievements as a must have practice for every Agile team. Some would argue that this detracts away from “working software”, but it is there only to encourage teams to strive to new heights. If you feel like this might be a technique that is valuable then give it a go!

About Renee Troughton

Renee Troughton is an Agile Coach with over eight years experience in implementation Agile within large and medium scale enterprises. Renee is an active Agile community member and contributes through both her blog at Agile Forest and through a fortnightly Agile podcast called The Agile Revolution.

You can contact Renee Troughton on renee@theagilerevolution.com.

Appendix A: Example Positive Team Achievements

Achievement Name	Trigger
All aboard!	All core team members are on time for 10 stand-ups in a row (excluding planned leave)
Risky business	Risks have been looked at for the last 5 iterations in a row
Hot stuff!	The average team temperature check has been >= 8 for 4 iterations in a row
Seekers of truth	Customer feedback has been received for everyone in the team
Show and tell	The team has successfully demonstrated showcases to the customer three iterations in a row
Working on all cylinders	All planned stories for the iteration have been completed by the end of the iteration
Superheroes!	All planned stories for four iterations in a row have been completed by the end of each iteration
Under the same roof	All team members are co-located on the same floor, in the same area.
Socially bound	A social contract exists for the team
I don’t mind a good game of blackjack too	All cards on the team’s story wall have estimates of their size against them (planning poker’ed)
Back to the Future	Retrospectives have been held at the end of each iteration for five iterations in a row
Back to the Future II	Retrospectives have been held at the end of each iteration for ten iterations in a row
Back to the Future III	Retrospectives have been held at the end of each iteration for ten iterations in a row. Additionally, all actions raised have been raised as new stories and prioritized into the backlog or the next iteration or have been done by the next Retrospective
From Russia with love	All cards in the backlog are prioritized (MoSCoW)
Forward thinking	For four weeks in a row all new cards added in scope have been prioritized and estimated
Taking it as it comes	For four weeks in a row work is pulled from the backlog in order of priority. Stories don’t miraculously skip upwards.
Have a say	Everyone within the retrospective participates by putting at least one post-it note up in an area for four retrospectives in a row
The Borg	10 positive team achievements have been reached (you have been assimilated
Venus	A burn up chart of the team’s velocity against expectations has been produced and made visible (you’ve got it!)
Yesterday’s weather was rain	The team uses the velocity of the last iteration to predict what can be achieved in the next iteration. Consistently applied three times in a row
Like a G6	After five iterations the team is still on track to complete the must haves, should haves and could have scope items (you are feeling so fly!)
Make them meet	The burn up chart demonstrates that the scope cannot be achieved in the number of iterations left. This has been escalated to the steering committee and a new plan formulated
The only way is up!	A Cumulative flow diagram has been consistently updated each day for four weeks (for Kanban)
Steady flow	The Cumulative Flow Diagram has been used to identify incorrect WIP limits or resource assignments and the team has changed to even up the flow.
It’s not the size but how you use it that counts	Big Visual Charts exist for the stories, risks/issues and social contract for the team
Pot of gold	The team reflects on the confidence ratings on the project’s rainbow slider for four iterations in a row.
Make good	The Big Visual Charts don’t use sticky or masking tape. Instead painters tape and blue tak is used. Additionally nothing is stuck to outside glass walls
Keeping it brief	For five stand-ups in a row the team has kept to the 10 minute time slot.
The empire strikes back	All stories have a clear definition of done prior to starting them for three iterations in a row. (done done done da da done da da done)
A worthwhile investment	All stories follow the INVEST principles prior to starting them for three iterations in a row
Breakdancing	All stories to be completed inside of the iteration have been broken down to something that is achievable within four working days
Once upon a time	All stories for three iterations in a row are written using the standard story format. (As an achievement writer I want to define achievements so that people can have fun whilst they learn and deliver)
Tokenizer	Tokens are being used by the whole team to represent key elements of the story – slow moving card, new, blocked, risk, urgent.
Jake Sully	Avatars are used to represent responsible ownership of the card.
I wont be outdated!	Dates of importance are represented on all relevant cards on the wall.
Dance-a-thon	The team has a means to celebrate success of completing stories, this means is used for four weeks.
Impedimentia	Blockers are addressed and resolved before the next stand-up for all stories for three stand-ups in a row.

Appendix B: Example Negative Team Achievements

Achievement Name	Trigger
I see dead walls	Less than 5 cards moved inside of the iteration (or 2 weeks for Kanban)
Only person at the show	Less than three people turn up for the showcase
Unbroken	A story has stayed in progress for four weeks
On the wrong side of the track	There has been a cost, time, scope or quality change to the project that is inconsistent with the success sliders
Red warriors	The team has completed more than 10 stories that do not have any visible indication of their priority on them (MoSCoW)
Busy bumble bees	Five actions have not been progressed from previous retrospectives
Sit-downs	One of more people sit down in the stand-up (with no valid Occupational Health & Safety excuse)
Illadin	An iteration has been started with iteration backlog stories that haven’t been fully elaborated (you are not prepared!)
Hoarder	All stories for the iteration have been assigned out to team members at the start of the iteration
My GANTT chart is as big as a wall!	The story wall is split up from month to month. Work is not flowing, it is just being done in the time period that was expected of it

Appendix C: Example Positive Individual Achievements

Achievement Name	Trigger
You don’t have to tell me	The person has attended every standup for the last month
Epic	The person has completed all stories associated with an epic story
The offliner	The person sidelines/takes offline five bogged down discussions
Flatlining	The person has canceled five stories as no longer being needed/important
Speed demon	The person has contributed to 10 stories that were competed inside of the iteration
Storyteller	The person has completed 25 stories
Library owner	The person has completed 50 stories
Librarian	The person has completed 100 stories
Cheesy	The person has achieved 20 positive achievements
Careful Casper	The person has raised 10 risks
Seeker	The person has asked for feedback from three people
Born Whippy	The person has not exceeded their WIP limit for four iterations
Showing off!	The person has run the showcase three times
Touchy feely	The person touches each of their in progress cards for five stand-ups in a row
Socialite!	The person has the courage and confidence to call out deviations from the team’s social contract.
Two’s company	The person has worked with someone else in the team, real time, to deliver a story.
Iron Maiden	The person has had the courage to call out that the direction that the project is going is misaligned with the success sliders.
It’s not you, it’s me	The person takes on a story that is someone else’s

Appendix D: Example Negative Individual Achievements

Achievement Name	Trigger
King of the turtles	The person has five slow moving cards against their name on the wall
The feet dragger	The person, as a core team member, has skipped five stand-ups in a row
MIA	The person, as a core team member, has skipped more than ten stand-ups
The creeper	The person has increased the scope of 5 stories whilst they are inside of an iteration
Distracted juggler	The person has passed their work in progress limit (first time)
Snowed under	The person has passed their work in progress limit for two iterations in a row
Ball dropper	The person has passed their work in progress limit for four iterations in a row
Talkative	The person has spent too long talking for their turn at standups 5 times in a row
Please hold the line	The person has 8 cards in waiting/review at the same time
Marshall Invisible	The person has discussed three items in their standup that aren’t visible on the wall

DOWNLOAD THE FULL WHITEPAPER HERE:

View this document on Scribd

Achievements: An Agile Whitepaper

[Review] – Mike Cohn’s eLearning Agile Videos

peter — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:15:17 +0000

Online Agile Videos

Mike Cohn recently announced that he’s providing a kick butt online eLearning tool to learn all about Agile. I reached out to him to see what it’s all about and we kicked a few emails back and forth. Regardless, I went ahead and got my hands on it. That’s what AgileScout is here for: Do the heavy lifting for you .

[Mountain Goat Software Online eLearning Agile Course] LINK

With so many Universities doing online learning these days, wouldn’t it be about time for Agile and Scrum Trainers to start offering online training tools? You’betcha. Who better to do it than Mike?

Here are my thoughts and experiences after a full 3.5 hours and taking all 9 of the tests:

Agile Topics Covered

Introduction
The Problem
Iteration Planning
Story Points & Ideal Days
Estimating the Product Backlog
Release Planning
Other Topics
Conclusion

I was captivated by the introduction video of a goat running around. Fantastic!

Review of Course Presentation

I couldn’t start this section without mentioning the quality of the videos. They are absolutely fantastic. We’re talking about:

A nice BIG video player @ 981 x 791 pixels
Professionally done transitions and video editing
Bright colors and contrast to each video
High-Def Resolution pictures and graphics
Plus a nice big view of the man himself at certain points

Review of Course Content

In terms of course content, the full narrative of the topics went smoothly from transition to transition. The course content outline was logical and there wasn’t any odd breaks from topic to topic. Mike spoke with clarity and conciseness (as expected) and it was very easy to understand exactly what he was talking about during each segment.

Each video is about 3-4 minutes long, with the longest being 8:40. This is nice because it breaks up the content into logical segments and enables you to watch at your own leisure, not feeling compelled to sit through 30 minute chunks at a time.

In my estimation, all the basics of Agile were covered (though a lot of the ideas are scrummy). It’s a healthy dive into Agile for noobs.

Review of Test Questions

Dude...

The test questions were solid… what I really mean is they were solidly from the content in the videos, almost word for word. What made some of the questions ‘tough’ were that there were extrapolations from what Mike said, and in turn, you had to put your thinking cap on to make sure you selected 3/4 of the options to get it right. Which is why on one of the tests I got 3/5 because I didn’t ‘choose’ all of the right choices (check box). Huh. It does hurt your ego a bit. What is super nice, though, is that when you get something wrong, you get hit with 2+ paragraphs on the correct answer and WHY. This is super helpful.

Another oddity around the questions was that in a couple sections, I found quiz questions that weren’t covered yet by what Mike had taught. For example: During the first planning eLearning section, I got a question on Sprint Planning, which isn’t covered until the next section. If you know anything about Agile, you’d still get it right… but it didn’t flow 100% with the content.

Maybe I’m just being picky…

AgileScout Bottom Line:

I Passed!

You have two purchase options:

[Streaming-only] License at $200 bones – *License expires after 6 months*
[Streaming + Download] at $300 bones – *My choice… cuz you get to keep the video*
These prices scale if you buy more licenses

This may just do the trick if you’re looking for an alternative to classroom training. Though, I would advise that you don’t go that route if you’re looking for a full experience. Agile, in my opinion is all about experiencing it. Gettin’ down and dirty into it. Understanding and seeing the team nuances and seeing the exercises and workshops and having those internal lightbulbs go off.

I would say, nothing beats hands-on training. But, if you don’t have that option, this might just be the next best resource.

For those that want a refresher, or those that want a quick introduction to Agile. This may just be your best bet. It isn’t cheap by the way, but do you have any other alternative?

I thoroughly enjoyed my time listening and watching Mike go at it. It was an enjoyable experience by and large. Thanks again Mike for putting together a top-notch professional video resource for the Agile community. Rock on!

So what do you think? Online Agile training for the win?

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Extra Course Details Below from Mountain Goat Software:

Based on the instructor’s years of teaching this course at locations worldwide, this eLearning course offers you all the benefits of in-person training but with the convenience of watching whenever and wherever you want, including on your iPad, iPhone or Android device.
All the important topics are covered–from iteration planning to release planning. You’ll learn about story points and ideal days and the advantages to each. You’ll leave knowing how to produce fixed-date, fixed-scope, and fixed-price plans you can be confident in as well as how to avoid anchoring and other common pitfalls. An ideal course for ScrumMasters, agile project managers, product owners, team leaders or anyone who needs to produce or understand a project plan.
After finishing the course, you will earn 4 PDUs that can be applied toward the PMI Agile Certified Practitioner (PMI-ACP) or toward Scrum Alliance membership renewal.
Participants also earn valuable certificates of completion, which are available in a variety of sizes suitable for your personal website, resume or online profile. Certificates are also stored online within your profile at Mountain Goat Software and your page on our site can be used to showcase your participation in Mountain Goat Software’s online and in-person courses.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

[Have you made it this far down the blog post? Congrats. You get the easter eggs]

If you fail a quiz you get greeted by Mike Cohn’s version of a fail whale.

If you pass a quiz you get greeted by Mike Cohn’s resurrection Jesus goat.

[Review] – Mike Cohn’s eLearning Agile Videos

[Tool Review] – UpstartHQ – Next Best Thing to a Physical Kanban Whiteboard

peter — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 13:15:44 +0000

What does a little green frog, a new startup, and free software look like? It may just look like UpstartHQ, who are currently building yet another light and simple kanban tool (tailored for startups)? Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty. It’s simple… almost offensively simple. But that’s the point, right?

[Enter]: UpstartHQ – Not a physical kanban board, but may just be the next best thing!

Go on, add your first story. It’s simple. If you’re quick enough, you can fill up an entire kanban board in seconds (like I did above).

Easy as pie. In terms of options, you don’t get many. You get to change stories around, change assignees, delete stories, edit swimlanes… and that’s about it. But don’t get bummed about it. That’s the point. Simplicity and lack of options. Maybe they’re taking a Steve Jobs approach to this whole thing.

It’s free for now, but it will be interesting to see what the monitization strategy looks like as they move forward. I’m assuming it’ll be a freemium style pricing model.

Give it a run. Who knows. It may just be what you’re looking for.

Features below:

Kanban Board

Upstart provides you with a super slick Kanban board that ensures visualizing your work-flow, limiting your W.I.P and reducing your feature lead times has never been so much fun.

BDD Style User Stories

Behavior Driven Development (BDD) allows you to capture user stories in plain consistent language that can easily be understood by developers and stakeholders alike.

Real Time Collaboration

Get a birds eye view of your product development and watch developments play out in real time. Upstart puts the fun back into product collaboration.

Meaningful Analytics

Armed with key metrics relating to product, team and user performance you’ll be able to quickly identify blockages to avoid losses in momentum.

Upstart reduces the chance of failure caused by lost momentum, focus or motivation. Upstart integrates a set of powerful tools to keep your team motivated, focused and informed. Grounded in agile & lean philosophies this is your killer route to success

[Tool Review] – UpstartHQ – Next Best Thing to a Physical Kanban Whiteboard

[Tool Review] – LeanKit Kanban – Optimize Your Flow

peter — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 12:15:08 +0000

[We review Agile tools. Have you seen our Agile tools list?]

Kanban is kicking into high gear these days as more and more enterprises are taking on the challenge of utilizing Kanban to help them visualize their business. It’s just a matter of time before some really good Kanban tools come out to help. Lucky for us, they have.

[Enter]: LeanKit Kanban – Optimize Your Flow of Work

After you sign up for a 30-day free trial, you’ll have access to a simple dashboard. Get started with a few clicks and you’ll be on your way to creating your board:

The board is so intuitive and simple to use. Simply add a story, fill in as much information as you need into the card and save it!

Then you have a pretty snazzy drag and drop interface:

What else could one say about this tool? Easy to use, colorful and inviting, and just enough options to get you started.

After taking a deeper dive into the system, I believe that where this tool really shines are not only the plethora of settings you get, but the metrics options. Kanban is supposed to be simple by nature, but having metrics and ways to track productivity and progress are a must in our business world. Well, you can do with them, or you can do without.

From Cumulative Flow Diagrams, Cycle Time Diagrams, Card Distribution Diagrams, and Efficiency Diagrams, you have more than enough ways to visualize how work is being done.

Features include the ability to:

Organizational-level analytics allow you to monitor the health of work across the entire company
Analyze the data from multiple views (by User, Card Type, Priority, Queue Size, Card Size)
Choose the Lanes and sublanes that you wish to include and exclude from your analysis
Rollup sublanes into their parent lanes for aggregate level reporting
Select the start and end lanes for calculating lead time and cycle time

Filters upon filters allow you to dive even deeper into these metrics allowing for the right information you need to know and then get back to workin’.

Lots of options.

As a techie, I love shortcuts and hotkeys. LeanKit allows this as well. Have they thought of everything here?

See your teams status, the way you want to:

Cut down on status meetings and just SEE your team’s status. With LeanKit Kanban, work tasks are represented by note cards which are organized into lanes that represent the status of your work. This reduces the time you must spend tracking down the status of your team’s work.

Make sure you work on the right things:

With the amount of tasks you are responsible for, it can be difficult to know what your top priorities should be. With LeanKit Kanban, you see the priority on your tasks and immediately know what to work on next. This prevents you from slowing up other team members by working on something they do not need.

Of course they have email and RSS integration. You can subscribe to the entire board or just individual lanes. Say, for example, the QA department only wants notifications when there are new items ready for them to pick up. They could subscribe to the QA: Ready lane, and only get notified of the events they care about.

iPhone and iPad!

Oh, and iPhone and iPad apps make keeping up-to-date easy while on the go: [Download here]

iPad Features

Full visualization of your entire Board just like web based version
All the visual signals provided in the web based version
View, create, update, move, delete ,and comment on cards directly within the app
Drag and Drop movements of cards (tap and hold then drag)
Easy navigation with gestures including slide, pinch, and double tap.
Move all card within a lane by tapping the lane header.

iPhone/iPod Touch Features

List based visualization of your entire board suited for the small viewing area.
Easy drill-through navigation
View, create, update, move, delete ,and comment on cards directly within the app

This tool is free for a single user, so definitely jump on it, try it out and see whether it’s something that can scale for your organization.

[Tool Review] – LeanKit Kanban – Optimize Your Flow

Cool Printable Kanban Card

peter — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 14:15:11 +0000

Came upon this pretty neat Kanban card that you can use with your team. For some reason the stars (priority indicators) and hammers (complexity indicators) remind us of Soviet Mario. Sorry, couldn’t help it.

Cool Printable Kanban Card