Category Archives: Planning & Estimation

Swimlane Sizing – Complete & Fast Backlog Estimation

Thanks to Adrian Wible for sharing this tip when I was in Nevada a couple of years ago. It’s now one of the most powerful simple tools I have at my disposal. I use it frequently with teams to rapidly size their backlogs … Continue reading

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Escaping the Oubliette (Part 4) – The Litter Patrol

As promised in my last installment on oubliettes… Your team might not be fully ready for the merciless refactoring encouraged by some agile approaches but this will help you stay heading in the right direction whilst keeping the delivery vs … Continue reading

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Escaping the Oubliette (Part 3) – Bug Blitz

Every product team I’ve ever worked in had a bug blitz at some point and often one every year or two. There’s no arguing that a decent bug blitz is a powerful way of getting the numbers down and clearing … Continue reading

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Building a Case for Change

I recently led a short evening session discussing strategies for collective code ownership. We opened with a set of patterns and practices but the team highlighted something painfully obvious that I’d overlooked… What’s the business value and driver behind collective code … Continue reading

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Escaping the Oubliette (Part 2) – Tailing

Following my previous articles on topping and debt prevention, we’ll now focus on the easier parts. How to clear old defects and debt. we’ll cover 4 simple strategies; 2 for defects and 2 for debt. (there are paired similarities across these). For defects, we’ll focus … Continue reading

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