TLC Really Doesn’t Like Waterfalls

Project Stakeholders

Stakeholders are people who have an interest in the project. For any project there will be many stakeholders. Here are a few examples:

Scrum Task Boards & Swimlanes

Scrum Task Board

When practicing Scrum, we can make the sprint backlog visible by putting it on a Scrum task board. Team members update the task board continuously throughout the sprint; if someone thinks of a new task (“Test the snark code on Windows 8.1”), she writes a new card and puts it on the wall. Either during or before the daily scrum, estimates are changed (up or down), and cards are moved around the board.

The Meaning of INVEST

INVEST is an acronym, short for Independent, Negotiable, Valuable, Estimable, & Scalable.

Epic: Why you must know this term.

Have you ever been given an extremely broad description of a product that you are needed to create? Many people refer to these as epics, and typically you should respond to an epic request by breaking it down into smaller stories or features.

Waterfalls

TLC was a girl group that produced music in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s. They were known for using the Waterfall method when releasing new songs to the public. Over time they became very dissatisfied with the Waterfall method. Now they hate waterfalls.

Why Scrum Rocks: 5 Reasons

There are many reasons why self-organizing teams work well. Here are 5:

Scrum VS Waterfall

As with any concept, method, or process, there is no perfect solution 100% of the time. Scrum was designed as a response to the many shortfalls of the Waterfall method, but Scrum itself is not infallible.

Stories: Why you must know this term.

Stories are short, simple description of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, usually a user or customer of the system.

Feature: Why you must know this term.

In my usage, a feature is something bigger than an individual Story, something that is tracked at a higher level of the organization, and is usually involved in the release plan for dictating what will be in a given release.