Category: Project Management
Core Use Cases
In this series, we are focusing on creating a software system. This has many steps. We created a mental model. Next, we got an overview of the project. Then, we gathered requirements and built an epic-level backlog. In this step, we are going to take those artifacts and break them down into core use cases…
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Build Your Backlog
In my previous post, we talked about gathering requirements. This post will discuss getting those requirements into an epic-level backlog. There are three things I think about when building a backlog. When we start this process, we must keep in mind the danger of incomplete pictures. The danger is real and often happens on many…
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Gathering Requirements
In our previous post in this series, we discussed getting an overview of a system. In it, I provided the following items that you should know as you assemble an overview: Now that we have an overview, it is time to start gathering requirements. Requirements are, in many ways, the most important part of the…
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Do You Have a Product Backlog?
Picture yourself as an eager entrepreneur with a strong vision for a software product that is going to solve lots of problems within your industry. You work through the early phases of testing your problem-solution fit and develop your minimum viable product (MVP). It’s post MVP launch, and you start learning some things. The software…
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The Life of the Product Owner
Life is a funny thing; I fell into a product manager role several years ago and, in the process, inherited the role of product owner (PO). As of late, I have found myself providing guidance on what it means to be a product owner to various organizations of different sizes and products. The common theme…
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One Tool to Consider When Tackling the Dreaded Backlog
It doesn’t matter if you are a startup, a company that has found your product-market-fit, or you have found business-model-fit…chances are you still have a backlog prioritization problem. These problems come in all shapes and sizes: an unruly backlog, a lack of clarity on the things in your backlog, duplicate user stories/features, no level of…
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Earned Value
Tracking project progress isn’t as simple as you would think. Common questions often include, “are we there yet?”, “are we going to end over budget?”, and “are we going to end past the schedule?” These questions keep people up at night. And the answer, “we’ll be done when we are done,” usually doesn’t fly. Earned…
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Acceptance Test Criteria: Gaining a Shared Project Understanding
We have several activities that add layers of quality to our software development projects. These activities include unit tests, sprint code reviews, and test plans. Recently, we added another quality layer to our process: acceptance test criteria. This new step occurs at the development story level before any coding begins. The goal is to ensure…
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How to “CATCH” an MVP
I was recently asked to participate as a panelist for a startup week event to share my experience developing MVPs (Minimum Viable Products). Ahead of the panel discussion, our organizer shared potential questions so each panelist could reflect and create our responses for the audience. Perhaps because I was focused on the MVP acronym, I…
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Backlog Visualizations: Tables Are Your Friend
Agile backlogs have become the standard tool used by software teams to document, prioritize, and discuss functionality requests. Although agile backlogs are simple to use and easy to implement, they suffer from the same problem as all lists—growing to a point where they become unmanageable. Although Agile methodologies suggest a number of practices to help…
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