4 ms·

Agile Backlogs. Sigh.

33 points by DanielBMarkham 15y ago

jeffclark 15y ago
Funny, was just talking about this at lunch earlier. I've been trying to wrap my head around how to continue building my 1-person project (boxrowseat.com) in an agile-ish format. Not that I'm getting confused with the work to be done, but so that when I do bring in number 2, we can continue on the right path. Any suggestions from those more experienced than myself?
- rhizome 15y ago
  Process will emerge, and once you take another person on it may be apparent that Agile is the exact wrong methodology for you two. So, don't worry about it. At all. Just make your stuff.
  - jeffclark 15y ago
    Solid. Thanks.
- DanielBMarkham 15y ago
  I'll take a stab at it. I agree with rhizome. My advice is to stay very, very simple. Just keep a to-do list. Use post-its. If you have to use an online tool, use Trello (http://trello.com http://trello.com) This "future behavior" stuff only becomes important as part of promising work to be done. Since it's only you, and you're only "promising" this stuff to yourself, it kind of doesn't make sense right now. (Unless you are very forgetful or get off-track easily) If you really think you need it, each week have a "theme" or "story" that you're working on (along with everything else). Maybe one week it's "When the user visits the site, he sees all the recent activity that has to do with him so he can respond" There's a magic formula to story titles, but that's a longer post. But for now I imagine you can track that kind of stuff in your own head. If you're worried about bringing somebody else on, I can see where it might be good to get in the habit about making clear what the goal is. You'll need it later. As you grow, you might have several of these "stories" that you've promised to do in the next week or so. You might have a bunch more on the back burner. At that point you're into a full-time backlog. As you grow, process emerges. We can talk in generalities, but a lot of how it's going to look in the future depends on the people and the project. Learn Agile not as a recipe book, but as a conceptual framework -- a bunch of ideas and how they are related to each other -- for stuff you might (or might not) need to add as you figure out how to kick ass. RUP is like Windows, it comes in a big, nice bundle you get out of the box and take home. But it never really works perfectly, it's way too commercialized, and it's a freaking huge amount of stuff for what you really need. Agile is much more like Unix, you get a big bag full of parts and a picture of a golden mansion. You have to assemble it yourself, everybody puts theirs together differently, and you're never really done fooling around with it.
  - jeffclark 15y ago
    Great advice. Thanks for taking the time to write it out.
rhizome 15y ago
5 paragraphs talking around "agile backlogs" before you get to the ad at the end for their forthcoming book on...guess!
- bwarp 15y ago
  Spot on. Why do you need a book on backlogs? That's just insane. That's like buying books on driving cars: "volume 4: the steering wheel" and "volume 5: the indicator stalk".
keeptrying 15y ago
This is a great point. I know it sounds shallow but its a really really good point. This is the reason that even though lots of shops think they are agile, in essence their processes are really just granular waterfall. I had one pm who wouldnt know what "agile" was if you asked him but he ran his product more agile than I've seen anyone else do. We would sit every 3 days, with his excel sheet. He would then pick the next important task to do. No priortities, no color coding, no gantt chart - just linear list of what needs to be done and what could be done in the next week. He stored the things we couldnt do on a "backlog" excel sheet. Every meeting we would pull out the main excel sheet and he would decide whether he needed something brand new to be built or something from his "backlog" excel sheet. I never had to look at the backlog at all. We would keep releasing the software weekly and delivering features. It was the best business relationship I've ever had in my life.

Funny, was just talking about this at lunch earlier. I've been trying to wrap my head around how to continue building my 1-person project (boxrowseat.com) in an agile-ish format. Not that I'm getting confused with the work to be done, but so that when I do bring in number 2, we can continue on the right path. Any suggestions from those more experienced than myself?

rhizome 15y ago
Process will emerge, and once you take another person on it may be apparent that Agile is the exact wrong methodology for you two. So, don't worry about it. At all. Just make your stuff.
- jeffclark 15y ago
  Solid. Thanks.
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
I'll take a stab at it. I agree with rhizome. My advice is to stay very, very simple. Just keep a to-do list. Use post-its. If you have to use an online tool, use Trello (http://trello.com http://trello.com) This "future behavior" stuff only becomes important as part of promising work to be done. Since it's only you, and you're only "promising" this stuff to yourself, it kind of doesn't make sense right now. (Unless you are very forgetful or get off-track easily) If you really think you need it, each week have a "theme" or "story" that you're working on (along with everything else). Maybe one week it's "When the user visits the site, he sees all the recent activity that has to do with him so he can respond" There's a magic formula to story titles, but that's a longer post. But for now I imagine you can track that kind of stuff in your own head. If you're worried about bringing somebody else on, I can see where it might be good to get in the habit about making clear what the goal is. You'll need it later. As you grow, you might have several of these "stories" that you've promised to do in the next week or so. You might have a bunch more on the back burner. At that point you're into a full-time backlog. As you grow, process emerges. We can talk in generalities, but a lot of how it's going to look in the future depends on the people and the project. Learn Agile not as a recipe book, but as a conceptual framework -- a bunch of ideas and how they are related to each other -- for stuff you might (or might not) need to add as you figure out how to kick ass. RUP is like Windows, it comes in a big, nice bundle you get out of the box and take home. But it never really works perfectly, it's way too commercialized, and it's a freaking huge amount of stuff for what you really need. Agile is much more like Unix, you get a big bag full of parts and a picture of a golden mansion. You have to assemble it yourself, everybody puts theirs together differently, and you're never really done fooling around with it.
- jeffclark 15y ago
  Great advice. Thanks for taking the time to write it out.

rhizome 15y ago

5 paragraphs talking around "agile backlogs" before you get to the ad at the end for their forthcoming book on...guess!

bwarp 15y ago
Spot on. Why do you need a book on backlogs? That's just insane. That's like buying books on driving cars: "volume 4: the steering wheel" and "volume 5: the indicator stalk".

keeptrying 15y ago

This is a great point. I know it sounds shallow but its a really really good point. This is the reason that even though lots of shops think they are agile, in essence their processes are really just granular waterfall. I had one pm who wouldnt know what "agile" was if you asked him but he ran his product more agile than I've seen anyone else do. We would sit every 3 days, with his excel sheet. He would then pick the next important task to do. No priortities, no color coding, no gantt chart - just linear list of what needs to be done and what could be done in the next week. He stored the things we couldnt do on a "backlog" excel sheet. Every meeting we would pull out the main excel sheet and he would decide whether he needed something brand new to be built or something from his "backlog" excel sheet. I never had to look at the backlog at all. We would keep releasing the software weekly and delivering features. It was the best business relationship I've ever had in my life.