Release Planning: How to Decide How Much Work to Commit to In Your Next Release Without Counting Hours (or Story Points)
Release planning is essential to fulfilling the expectations of both your customers and your teams. However, often the approaches we use to create a release plan are inherently unreliable. One of the senior managers that I’m currently consulting came to…
Do You Perceive Your Workflow as a Knowledge Discovery Process?
Modeling your workflow as a knowledge discovery process stays true to the nature of knowledge work and is fundamental to enabling continuous improvement. If you consider your workflow steps as containers for workers, you’re highly likely to hinder your ability…
When is the Right Time to Say “Yes” to New Commitments?
Saying “Yes” to the right commitments (and “No” to the wrong ones) is all about making reliable decisions on what work to take on next. These are paramount to managing a steady flow of work and meeting your customers’ expectations….
Keep Your Teddy Bear! Introducing Probabilistic Forecasting to Your Team
When it comes to introducing probabilistic forecasting, it is paramount that you tackle any resistance head-on. Do you have kids? My son David is 4 years old, and my daughter Louise is now 6. She will start first grade in…
Why Using Averages to Make Delivery Predictions Will Land You in Hot Water
Often, managers use average delivery times to make future predictions. Even though this method is intuitive and widely spread, making delivery commitments based on averages is not reliable. Let’s explore the challenges that come with this approach. What Are Delivery…
Our Christmas Wish For You!
It’s that time of the year once again. As we celebrate the close of one year and look towards the beginning of a new one, we’re all inclined to make a little bit of a recap. It’s a fresh new…
3 Strategies for Effective Demand Management
Effective demand management is the cornerstone of delivering results in a consistent manner and keeping your commitments. And the balance between demand and capacity is in its foundation. When demand exceeds your capability, delivery times increase and, in the end,…
You Should Never Resort to Story Point Estimation Again
Story point estimation is a widely known technique that Scrum teams use to plan their work. However, this approach is not objective and has the potential to hinder your performance. There’s a very simple explanation that we can use to…
The Top 5 Kanban Hits of 2020
2020 has been, undoubtedly, a markedly unusual year for a variety of businesses. Teamwork and collaboration have had all sorts of new challenges thrown their way, and so assessing our performance has never been so vital. Luckily, 2020 has also…
Why Your Performance Will Decline If You Don’t Stop Moving Cards Backward on Your Kanban Board
Moving cards backward on your Kanban board is one of the most common antipatterns that agile teams practice. And often, the negative effect it has on your productivity is not obvious. If a card doesn’t meet the criteria from the…
