Questions tagged [agile]
Use this tag for any questions that involve agile approaches from the perspective of a project manager, Scrum Master, agile coach, or similar role. Please note that "Agile" is not a framework or methodology, and this tag should NOT be used for questions about agile frameworks when a more suitable tag exists.
1,449
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164
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Why use story points instead of hours for estimating?
After using hours to estimate our projects for a long time and rarely coming within 20% of actual "work-to-ship," I have been told by a handful of people that "points" work a lot better at gauging the ...
- 2,191
97
votes
11
answers
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Why would teams use the Fibonacci sequence for story points?
Why do some teams use numbers from the Fibonacci sequence as story points? Is it just a preference, or is there something more to it?
- 1,119
73
votes
5
answers
8k
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Is Scrum a status report meeting or a developer meeting?
I'm a developer and we started using Agile last year (October 2011). And, it has been rough to say the least. I was always taught Scrum was to discuss the following:
What you did yesterday
What you ...
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67
votes
8
answers
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How to deal with unavoidable on-demand tasks in Scrum? Or should we even try?
I was put in charge of implementing Scrum in my Development Team. Unfortunately, the company I work with has a rather stale structure that does not go well with this framework. The team works on a ...
53
votes
14
answers
89k
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Where to Find a Desktop Kanban board application? [closed]
I have been looking for a week now, all over the net for a simple desktop based kanban management system. I work in a distributed team, but my company won't accept to use an exterior webapp like ...
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45
votes
15
answers
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Should bugs be treated as stories or as tasks?
If you're using scrum you should know that there is a clear difference between tasks and stories. A story is something that is valuable to user. A task is a step to produce that value to user.
So, ...
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36
votes
4
answers
4k
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How do you convince a client to use Agile Methods?
Here's the thing: In agile, client has very important role to fulfill - if they aren't involved, agile loses much of its value.
How do you convince clients to change the way they run projects, ...
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35
votes
16
answers
63k
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How long should an Agile Sprint be?
I'm currently the PM on a project that is scheduled to run for about 14 months. The current sprint structure is 4 weeks of development; week 5 allows us to show the progress to the client, deploy it ...
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34
votes
17
answers
3k
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How to allow developers to get enough quality development time while keeping to support & maintenance obligations
I work for a small company of 6 multi-skilled developers where we have developed our own product which requires constant improvement but also maintenance and support, both for the current release from ...
- 441
34
votes
7
answers
7k
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Advice for dealing with a cowboy programmer in an agile team
We have a cowboy coder in our team i.e. he likes to take advantage developing some new features or tools that are not always requested nor useful. We use scrum/kanban for development, and it is quite ...
- 1,219
34
votes
7
answers
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How do you schedule delivery dates in Scrum?
I've run into a constant issue. When a project starts, the client typically has a list of functionalities to be built in to the application. As a team we would like to follow Scrum. But the next thing ...
- 648
31
votes
2
answers
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What are the definitions and differences between: Theme, Epic, Feature, User Story and Task?
There are several terms which we use to describe requirements:
Theme
Epic
Feature
User Story
Task
What are the formal definitions of these terms and what are the differences between them (except ...
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28
votes
14
answers
20k
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Can a Product Owner be a developer in Scrum?
Can a Product Owner be a developer in Scrum? In theory, yes, but is it recommended by Scrum?
- 497
28
votes
7
answers
4k
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Scrum, Agile, Kanban looking for 'for dummies' type of information [closed]
I'm sure I'm not alone in this. I have heard and read a lot of snippets of information about this topic and I've formed my own understanding - probably not the best way to assess the value or try to ...
28
votes
6
answers
12k
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Are Gantt diagrams compatible with Agile methods?
If they are, is it simple to use them with theses methods? Have you some use cases to present?
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28
votes
7
answers
8k
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Why use both story points and hours?
I'm a new scrum master for a team that is using story point estimation and hours. We do story points first during grooming and then hours during planning.
I always thought of story points as being ...
- 383
27
votes
6
answers
2k
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Any tips on how to 'sell' the necessity of dealing with technical debt to nontechnical stakeholders?
A number of stakeholders do not quite understand the necessity of dealing with technical debt preferring new features on top of not very maintainable code. Development is sometimes seen as kids who ...
- 519
27
votes
4
answers
11k
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How do handle adhoc work during a sprint from pressing customers
I intend to introduce sprints to my company, fairly new to it myself. Not sure if it's appropriate for my current situation, we have several on going projects, all of them are ERP scale size and most ...
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26
votes
3
answers
21k
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Scaled scrum/agile frameworks (SAFe vs. Nexus vs. LeSS) comparison
Would someone please shed some light on the differences between:
LeSS: https://less.works/
Nexus: https://www.scrum.org/Resources/The-Nexus-Guide
SAFe: https://www.scaledagileframework.com/
...
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25
votes
4
answers
7k
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Why does Pivotal Tracker discourage estimating points for bugs and chores?
Pivotal Tracker "strongly discourages" estimating velocity points for bugs and chores – you have to change a setting and accept a warning to be able to do it.
They explain why here, but I just don't ...
- 353
25
votes
6
answers
18k
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Where should design be incorporated in an agile process?
We use a scrum-based agile development process. But where should design get incorporated? Separate user stories? Tasks on stories?
We currently think of design as a separate task and break it out as ...
- 2,191
24
votes
6
answers
5k
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Which is better: large feature branches or merging frequently? Which is better small work items vs large work items?
My team has problems pushing work items through all the stages in the Kanban board to done.
The work items hit code review and pile up and stay there for a long time. The following stage (the QA stage)...
- 341
24
votes
7
answers
20k
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Is Certified Scrum Master valuable?
What is the value in Certified Scrum Master certifications? I'll be quite honest in saying that I've never put a lot of thought into such certifications, but it seems like if you are interested in ...
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24
votes
2
answers
19k
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Difference between grooming and refinement
What is the difference between the terms "grooming" and "refinement" of the product backlog in scrum methodology?
I am not able to find an accurate answer to this question. Are they the same?
- 599
24
votes
5
answers
19k
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How to make Scrum of Scrums meetings more productive?
At my job, we're having a Scrum of Scrums meeting where all the Scrum Masters get together. This meeting is turning into a boring meeting where everyone gives their status update. I'm trying to make ...
- 379
23
votes
4
answers
4k
views
Task estimation for PMs who are not developers
While working Agile, how can a PM estimate a task when he/she is not a developer?
- 383
23
votes
15
answers
12k
views
What is better: a physical Scrum board or an online board?
I used to practice Scrum with a physical board. We often faced problems when working with distributed teams or just when going into a meeting room. So I decided to implement a SaaS service to provide ...
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23
votes
9
answers
14k
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Senior developers 'reject' agile. What now?
I'm about to have my first day as Product Owner at a new job as one of three product owners, and during the interview one of the current challenges that was brought up was the renewal of the processes....
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23
votes
10
answers
3k
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Is estimating a project without basic requirements or user stories a good idea for a fixed cost proposal?
I am currently trying to create an estimate for a software proposal.
In this context, we are requesting a fixed cost amount of funds.
I personally lean toward Agile development practices. I, however,...
- 351
23
votes
8
answers
11k
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How to apply Scrum in fixed date, fixed budget project?
Considering that we work on a project with fixed deadlines and fixed budget and we use Scrum: what are best practices we should use to make this setup successful? Since Scrum wasn't directly designed ...
23
votes
2
answers
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Kanban: A cure for what ails me, or snake oil du jour?
I manage a team of developers and testers that makes widgets. We manage several dozen widgets; in addition to creating new widgets, we have to update old ones with new functionality and fix urgent ...
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22
votes
8
answers
8k
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How can a Scrum team work with a Waterfall team
My Scrum team needs an API to retrieve data. It's not overly complicated, essentially its just one request that gets sent to the API and then the API returns some data. This is the end of the journey.
...
- 2,436
22
votes
5
answers
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What is the difference between Scrum and XP?
Everything is in the title: What is the difference between Scrum and eXtreme Programming? Is it possible to have a simple but explicit explanation?
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22
votes
10
answers
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Sprint vs milestone vs release
I am new in agile and Scrum, and I got confused as to what the differences are between a Sprint, a Milestone and a Release.
I heard some say that the Sprint is a Milestone. Also in some software the ...
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22
votes
7
answers
10k
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Agile team missing commitments regularly and complaining about no trust
I am on the product side and have an agile team that has missed every sprint commitment through the first 4 by between 40 and 60% measured by points. The team continues to say, that it is OK and that ...
- 329
22
votes
6
answers
3k
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What role is there for a PM on an Agile project?
Back before agile was everywhere, having a PM on all but the smaller projects was considered essential. Now, only the largest projects have people assigned to just in a PM capacity.
I guess I have ...
- 321
21
votes
10
answers
7k
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Help - Technical team does not want to work in agile way
I am a Product Owner on a Scrum Team whose developers do not want to embrace work in an agile, incremental fashion. Simple example: the customer currently has to contact us to create users each time ...
- 309
21
votes
7
answers
9k
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How to apply daily stand-up meetings with a large team on multiple projects
Background
There are:
4 .Net Developers
4 PHP Developers
2 QA Specialists
2 Integration Specialists
2 Analysts
3 PMs
11 Projects in active development. None are trivial. Some are programs with sub-...
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21
votes
9
answers
29k
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What is the difference between acceptance criteria and the definition of done?
I don't get what is the difference between both. They seem to be similar to me. For instance, I have this typical login/register User Story. Can you provide some DOD examples?
As a user
I want to ...
- 1,141
21
votes
3
answers
10k
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How can a team working on research based items work in an Agile project?
My R&D organization is following an Agile (Scrum) development methodology. One of the development teams is working mostly on items that are really problematic in terms of the certainty during the ...
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21
votes
8
answers
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Is Software Architecture still Relevant in Agile ?
Agile focuses on developing workable codes from small user stories. Pair programming encourage developers to pair up, actively engage with one another to come up with the best solution for the problem....
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votes
9
answers
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How should a Scrum master handle disagreements about story-point estimates in Scrum?
For example : Some see its userstory (e.g. 2 points) and others see technical complications and judge that the story should be 20 points. The 2-point voters say, "I understand your opinion, but don't ...
- 217
20
votes
15
answers
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How do you name Sprints in Scrum?
I was wondering if it's a good idea to name Sprints with user-friendly names instead of using numerals like Sprint 1, Sprint 2, etc. Are there best practices or standards for naming the Sprint after ...
- 309
20
votes
8
answers
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Designing for the future in an agile environment
I started my working life as a database designer, before moving at a later date into project management. Most of my working life has been spent in "waterfall" environments for a variety of ...
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20
votes
5
answers
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What is the role of a QA tester on a Scrum team?
I've recently added a QA tester to our new Scrum team. The tester comes with a lot of experience in automated testing and is capable of scripting, light coding, etc. He will be using automation tools, ...
- 727
20
votes
10
answers
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Agile methodologies such as Scrum in non-software development projects
Even though Scrum was originally suggested for managing product development projects, its use has focused on the management of software development projects.
None of the project management teams I ...
- 2,758
20
votes
6
answers
6k
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Running a sprint from Wednesday till Wednesday
Currently we have three teams who start their two week sprint on Monday and end it on Friday. We have some team-members who have every Friday off. Planning sprint reviews on Thursdays or earlier is ...
- 5,543
20
votes
9
answers
16k
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Managing scope creep in Agile
I often get asked this question in the interview, and no matter what I answer the interviewers do not seem to get satisfied.
So, they start with asking how to manage scope creep in Project Management?...
- 301
20
votes
2
answers
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What does "Architectural Spike" mean?
What does Architectural Spike mean?
I know, that this is investigation activity for unknown and unestimated tasks. But I want know more details.
When we should do it: during Sprint or between them?
...
- 5,301
20
votes
7
answers
17k
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How can we manage multiple projects, as one small scrum team?
I know Agile came about as a group of 'adaptive software development' methods, where Scrum is one of them.
Some background: We are an innovative web agency, which implies design and development. We ...
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