Agile & Scrum
Agile methodologies and frameworks
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Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters
Basecamp's alternative to Scrum and Kanban. Instead of sprints, use six-week cycles with two-week cooldowns. Shape work before building: define the appetite (time budget), narrow the problem, and design at the right level of abstraction. Small batch vs. big batch projects. Gives teams full autonomy within fixed time constraints. Influential in startup and product circles.
Basecamp·15 min read·Jun 1, 2019
Full ArticleAgile & Scrum
Agile at Scale: How to Go from a Few Teams to Hundreds
How organizations like Amazon, Spotify, and Bosch have scaled agile methods from a few teams to hundreds. Covers common pitfalls (imposing agile on everything, trying to scale too fast), and successful patterns (start with leadership teams, sequence rollout by capability). By Jeff Sutherland, co-creator of Scrum.
Harvard Business Review·14 min read·May 1, 2018
Full ArticleAgile & Scrum
Psychological Safety: The Foundation of High-Performing Teams
Google's Project Aristotle found psychological safety to be the single most important factor distinguishing high-performing teams from average ones, more important than team composition, structure, or resources. Psychological safety means team members feel safe to take interpersonal risks including admitting mistakes, asking questions, and offering dissenting opinions without fear of punishment or humiliation. The article provides six specific practices for building psychological safety including framing work as learning problems, acknowledging fallibility, and modeling curiosity.
Harvard Business Review·10 min read·Aug 24, 2017
Full ArticleAgile & Scrum
Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time
Comprehensive guide to adopting agile methods. Agile started in software but now applies to manufacturing, marketing, HR, and C-suite strategy. Covers the conditions where agile works best (complex problems, uncertain requirements, creative solutions), how to start (begin with a pilot), and six practices of agile: lean staffing, small empowered teams, short cycles, active involvement, daily standups, rapid iteration.
Harvard Business Review·16 min read·May 1, 2016
Full ArticleAgile & Scrum
How Google Builds New Products Using Design Sprints
Knapp outlines the five-day design sprint process developed at Google Ventures for rapidly prototyping and testing new product ideas. The methodology compresses months of debate into a structured week of mapping, sketching, deciding, prototyping, and user testing to validate concepts before committing resources.
Classic Articles·14 min read·Mar 8, 2016
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Software Estimation Techniques: From Story Points to Monte Carlo Simulation
Surveys estimation techniques used in software projects, from planning poker and story points to probabilistic methods like Monte Carlo simulation. Fowler argues that the goal of estimation is not precision but enabling better decisions about scope, schedule, and resource allocation.
Classic Articles·10 min read·Mar 7, 2013
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Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders
Captain Marquet transformed USS Santa Fe from the worst to the best-performing submarine by replacing the leader-follower model with leader-leader. Instead of giving orders, he pushed decision-making authority to the people with the information. Key mechanism: replace 'permission to' with 'I intend to' language. Widely used in agile and leadership training.
Harvard Business Review·10 min read·Oct 1, 2012
Full ArticleAgile & Scrum
Kanban: The Art of Visual Project Management
Research showing that of all the things that can boost emotions, motivation, and perceptions during a workday, the single most important is making progress in meaningful work. The 'progress principle': even small wins boost inner work life tremendously, while small losses have an outsized negative effect. Managers should remove barriers and catalyze progress. Links to Kanban visualization of work flow.
Harvard Business Review·12 min read·May 1, 2011
Full ArticleAgile & Scrum
Minimum Viable Product: a guide
The MVP is the version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.
Classic Articles·9 min read·Jun 1, 2009
Full ArticleAgile & Scrum
The New User Story Backlog is a Map
Why a flat product backlog doesn't work and how user story mapping gives teams a shared understanding of the big picture while still breaking work into small deliverable pieces.
Classic Articles·16 min read·Jun 1, 2008
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