Agile, Scrum & Kanban

Tracking Task Estimation

This article discusses the importance of tracking ticket estimation and completion within sprints. It outlines the steps taken to ensure that tickets are estimated and completed within sprints, such as setting a total number of points per person, estimating for QA and ticket closure, and keeping things balanced. It also highlights the importance of tracking progress quarterly and making it open to engineers to ensure that tasks are completed.

An Outsourcing Success Story

This article discusses a problem faced by a team that was working at full capacity but had the opportunity to bring in a big return on investment. The solution was to outsource the project to a developer who had expertise in the domain and platform, and to bring him onsite to build a connection and trust between him, the team, and the company. The lessons learned from this experience were that it is important to find a good outsource provider, prioritize quality over time and cost, and that bringing an outsourced provider onsite is not always necessary.

Dividing a Product Engineering Sprint Team

In order to better manage resources and reduce overhead, an organization split their scrum team into two dedicated sprint teams. Each team was assigned a dedicated Product Manager and engineers were assigned based on skills and preferences. Projects were distributed to the lesser booked team to provide flexibility and balance, and the change resulted in improved productivity, visibility on resources, and better project planning.

Simultaneously Transitioning Two Offices from Waterfall to Agile

A consultant was brought in to roll out Agile to a 50 person engineering team across two offices. The consultant worked with the VP of Engineering and Product to develop pods aligned to business objectives, and then brought in a consultant to each office for 2 days of Scrum Master training. The consultant then provided coaching and guidance for each team for two months, and worked with the executive leadership team to set expectations around adoption and velocity. The lessons learned were that it is important to start with one team/pod that has practiced Agile before, and to roll out Agile to teams one at a time, allowing each team to adopt to Agile at their own pace. It is also important for all team members to have training and it's best if the team can do the training together.

V2 infrastructure project

Multi-year infrastructure overhaul (V2) projects are complex and require a clear business driver and customer-facing value. The engineering leader needs to work closely with business leaders and stakeholders to ensure there is consensus on making the long-term investment. The team needs to go through a prototyping phase to identify components that need refactoring/re-architecting, risks associated with the proposed architecture, and the resources/time required to deliver the project. The engineering leader must also decide how to organize the team for success, either by embedding the V2 team in the V1 team or by spinning up a new V2 team. The project plan should include deliverables, budget, resources, and time, and the team should identify risks early and have mitigation plans. The team should also set KPIs and OKRs and celebrate small victories and demos to stakeholders.

Tackling Technical Debt - A CTO's Guide for Startups

Technical debt can significantly hinder a startup's progress and agility. This blog post explores the concept of technical debt, its implications, and strategies for managing and mitigating it from a CTO's perspective. Strategies include prioritising debt reduction, creating a technical debt register, establishing coding standards, investing in continuous learning, and balancing short-term and long-term goals. By proactively addressing technical debt and balancing business value, resilience, and engineering performance, startups can maintain their agility and continue to iterate and adapt to ever-evolving market conditions.