Blog
Practical guides for agile teams
Estimation, retrospectives and the day-to-day mechanics of running a team. Written from experience, not from a textbook. No fluff, no machine translations.
Estimation
Estimating with remote teams: same ritual, different physics
Remote estimation loses the cues that kept in-person poker honest. What breaks over video calls, and how to run sizing that still works.
· 7 min read
Sprint ceremonies
Confidence voting: how to get honest commitment from your team
Everyone nods, the sprint starts, and it was doomed on day one. Fist of five and anonymous confidence votes surface doubt while it's cheap.
· 9 min read
Sprint ceremonies
Backlog refinement: how much is enough?
Refine too little and sprint planning collapses. Refine too much and you're doing waterfall in disguise. Finding the working middle.
· 7 min read
Retrospectives
Sprint retrospective formats that actually change something
Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls, Sailboat and friends compared, plus the follow-through habits that matter more than which format you pick.
· 8 min read
Estimation
Story points vs hours: when each one works
Hours aren't evil and points aren't magic. A fair look at what each estimation unit is good at, and the hybrid mistake that ruins both.
· 7 min read
Estimation
How to run a planning poker session that doesn't drag
A practical walkthrough of planning poker, from prep to reveal, with fixes for anchoring, endless debate, and sessions that run long.
· 7 min read
Estimation
Why estimation decks use the Fibonacci sequence
The gaps in the Fibonacci deck are the feature. Why 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 beats a plain number line, and when to pick a different deck.
· 7 min read
Estimation
What story points actually measure (and what they don't)
Story points size relative effort and uncertainty, not time. Where teams bend them into hours, they break. Here's how to keep them useful.
· 7 min read