A few years ago I worked with a product team who were keen to try using a pull model for their work. The idea is that instead of a product manager or tech lead pushing tasks to individuals, each team member has the autonomy to pull a task when they are ready to pick something up. The product manager should already be working on a prioritised backlog, with the highest … [Read more...] about How the pull model can make a Kanban board run smoothly
Archives for February 2023
Epics should be completable
An epic is sometimes described as a large user story which is too big to fit into a sprint. There’s also a similar definition: epics can span multiple sprints. But if an epic is just a big story (“it’s so big, it’s epic!”) and it can span many sprints, shouldn’t we break it down? Is it still a story? Shouldn’t we aim to complete all the stories by the end of the … [Read more...] about Epics should be completable
Why you shouldn’t have a Blocked column
The classic, simplest Kanban board has three columns: This is fine to get started, particularly when the board doesn’t have many items on it. However, keeping the pure 3 column layout can mean you have many tasks sitting in the “In progress” column, and it’ll be harder to find out why. Splitting “In progress” into more columns can help to understand where things are. … [Read more...] about Why you shouldn’t have a Blocked column