Incremental Delivery

Explaining the difference between increments and iterations and their implications for agile delivery.

Incremental and iterative development are not the same thing. Here is an explanation of the key difference and why agile is both, using Jeff Patton's famous example of the Mona Lisa and Karl Scotland's concept of fidelity.

A description of empiricism, how it is used and why it is so critical when practicing Scrum.

Professional Scrum Trainer Mark Noneman describes empiricism, how it is used and why it is so critical when practicing Scrum. He notes that Empiricism is an essential and critical way by which we can emerge the best-fit solutions for complex problems, as it helps us to quickly inspect and adapt to the actual environment and be transparent about our organizational goals. Let's view the clip to learn more from the Scrum master about empiricism and its key role in Scrum.

Have The Conversation. Do The Thing. Review. Go Home.

John Cuttlefish proposes a one-day sprint to teams failing at their sprints saying that he tried it with the single-batch flow after a chat on long sprints with a friend and the results were successful. Through the chat, the friend suggests shortening a sprint down to a day if necessary could be a solution. He further details how it can be done as John asks questions noting that the process only entails, showing up for the sprint, having the conversation, collaborating on what to deliver together with the team, and reviewing the work by the end of the day. Open the article to get a deeper insight into what is a one-day sprint and how it can be implemented.

The pros and cons of shorter and longer Sprints, and how to discover what works best for your team.

A very descriptive agile text focusing on the pros and cons of short scrum sprints and long sprints to help teams decide on which would work best. We learn that a Scrum Sprint is a fixed period of time for the Team to focus and develop a product with quality high enough that they could release it to the customer. A “good” Sprint Length, then, has to be long enough to produce results, but short enough to limit risk. The article also notes that short sprints help reveal problems and impediments faster while longer sprints are vulnerable to risks due to the high chances of unpredictability. Let's read to explore the merits and demerits of these two and narrow down why shorter sprints are more effective.

The three primary mechanisms for implementing flow that increase throughput and accelerate value delivery.

A descriptive text of the 3 primary keys to achieving continuous flow for increased throughput and high-value delivery. We learn roles that visualizing and limiting the work in process (WIP), reducing the batch sizes of the work items, and managing queue lengths play to eliminate the obstacles that hinder seamless flow in an organization. Read to know more about the advantages of these principles and the reason lean organizations leverage them for real-time flow to turn new system features quickly from concept to cash.

The benefits of deploying small batches as seen through the experience of multiple large-scale organizations.

Take a look at this descriptive presentation explaining the benefits of small batches in real cases for multiple organizations. Generally, we see that working in small batches is among the principles of continuous delivery, and from a changes deployment perspective, they make it easier to detect and fix problems. View the slides for more insights on the importance of small batches.

Learn how to use the Scrum cycle to create a product with the right features and the right user experience (UX).

Scrum is a simple framework based on the idea of inspect and adapt: Create a product increment, show it to the stakeholders, and use the feedback to see if the right product is developed. This post describes what Roman Pichler regards as the essence of Scrum: a cyclic three-step process. It shows how the three steps help create a product with the right features and the right user experience (UX).

The sprint backlog is a list of tasks that must be completed during a Scrum sprint.

The Sprint Backlog is a list of tasks to complete during a delivery, created from selected items of the product backlog. In this video/article description of Scrum Tools, Mike Cohn details how teams may tweak the sprint backlog as sprints move forward, some do-and-don'ts, and the usages of the burn-down chart. This resource is part of a 19-part Scrum Foundations video series available on the Mountain Goat site.

Why and how our development teams sustain a deliberate, weekly release cadence and use a train metaphor to drive planning.

Working in a fact-based, experience-based, and evidence-based manner.

In this minimalistic article, Hiren Doshi shares his view of the three pillars of empiricism: Adaptation, Inspection, and Transparency. As the author points out, Scrum works not because of its structure or practices, but by adhering to the underlying principles of iterative, value-based incremental delivery by frequently gathering customer feedback and embracing change.

The Sprint length is of major influence to a team’s agility, with shorter Sprints having less risk that the definition of what is being built may change.

How to determine the perfect sprint duration for every project phase.

Sprints are basically equally divided sections of the main project that each have their own planning, work phase, and review. Your project goal determines how long your sprints should be. Agile coach Matthias Orgler explores the answer to "What is the optimal sprint length in Scrum and how you can determine it" in this piece.

He writes that everything shorter than 1 week creates too much overhead compared to the time you get to actually work on the product. And everything longer than 1 month deprives you of the much-needed checkpoints. So the sprint length always has to be between 1 week and 1 month. Read to find out what is sprint, why you need it, the benefits of doing multiple sprints, and a lot more.