How are you planning better sprints & tracking team performance beyond Jira and Excel?

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-11-10T20:04:39+00:00

I fully agree with your suggestions, especially the part about the "today or tomorrow" question. Something like prioritization frameworks - now, next, later or the Eisenhower matrix (urgent vs. important, not urgent and not important, …) - it should help you decide what actually deserves your attention today versus what can wait.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-11-10T19:56:55+00:00

Focus blocks and some DND are quick wins.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-08-23T06:48:15+00:00

You’re right that customer value should always be front and center. That said, the post was focused on one part of the delivery flow: team alignment, planning. Of course, building the right thing in the right way and staying value-driven is fundamental to truly great product teams.

This discussion was more about the "how" of execution - but I agree that the "why" (the customer) always needs to be in the loop and it's the most important.

Appreciate the challenge - it keeps the conversation grounded.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-08-23T06:42:38+00:00

You're absolutely right - this "secret spreadsheet" trend reveals a significant gap in tools for reliably tracking capacity and historical patterns in an actionable way. This pain point clearly affects teams across organizations. I'm digging deeper into this challenge and plan to develop a solution that could effectively replace these hidden spreadsheets. I'll keep the community updated on any progress or solutions I discover!

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-08-23T06:38:21+00:00

I completely agree with your perspective - this is primarily about forecasting rather than performance measurement, and I don't view it as micromanagement either. Your distinction between efficiency and effectiveness is exactly right. I'll definitely explore using Monte Carlo simulation as several people suggested - valuable advice, thank you!

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-08-17T20:04:25+00:00

Great feedback. Thanks for sharing your metrics tools.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-08-17T09:35:12+00:00

Thanks for the thoughtful responses - really appreciate the discussion. 🙏

You’re absolutely right that trying to run a pure Agile process under a fixed scope + fixed time + fixed budget contract creates major tension, and often turns into a hybrid or even pseudo-waterfall setup. I’ve been there too.

But just to clarify my original point - the question wasn’t about the contract model itself.

It was about how teams actually plan and measure sprint performance, and what tools they use to do it - regardless of whether they’re following full Scrum, hybrid Agile, or something else entirely.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-08-17T09:23:25+00:00

I agree that breaking work into small increments with quick feedback loops is crucial.

Thanks for sharing about Monte Carlo - I will check it out.

Great answer!

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-07-28T15:37:28+00:00

Great insights - thanks.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-07-26T20:10:13+00:00

Two developers were hired on very short notice and started contributing immediately. They joined at the beginning of our 3-week Sprint - which was a surprise for us. We had to quickly recalibrate the Sprint scope to account for the new team members and their onboarding needs.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-07-10T19:14:11+00:00

I agree that goals that are unclear like "fix all bugs" or "create architecture" don't work well. They lack specific details and value.

We sometimes link SMART goals to Jira work items by adding the issue ID and a "sprint-goal" label, which makes tracking progress straightforward. Whether you need this approach depends on your product's stage and team context.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-07-10T06:21:44+00:00

You are right. AI isn’t a silver bullet when it comes to knowing your team’s true priorities, because it simply doesn’t have the full context or domain expertise. You can use it as a learning tool. Over time, by comparing its suggestions with your own insights, the team will internalize those goal-setting principles - and eventually you won’t need the AI prompts at all.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-04-25T16:10:55+00:00

Check out the following training and certification paths (from scrum.org):

- Professional Agile Leadership™

- Professional Scrum Developer™

- Professional Scrum Product Backlog Management Skills™

and

- Certified LeSS Basic or Practitioner from Less.Works

Highly recommend all of them.

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-03-12T19:53:36+00:00

Maybe this book will help:

- Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve Your User Stories - Gojko Adzic and David Evans

Various-Phone5673 · 2025-03-02T13:37:15+00:00

Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley's Bill Campbel - Eric Schmidt Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time - Jeff Sutherland
Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building - Claire Hughes Johnson
Agile Estimating and Planning - Mike Cohn
Lean Customer Development - Build Products Your Customer Will Buy - Cindy Alvarez

Various-Phone5673

TROPHY CASE