Archive for category kanban

Starting this month, the development budget for my current project has run out. Our last sprint ended little over a week earlier, and with two-week sprints, we did not feel comfortable planning and starting a new, much shorter sprint. Instead, we switched to a different mode of operation, working in a Kanban-like fashion, fixing minor annoyances and small bugs all around.

For our team, the transition was remarkably smooth. We did away with planning, story points and committing to sprint goals, and replaced it with a list of issues (each roughly the same size that we had in our sprints) and a priority set by the product owner. All the practices we already had in place have stayed the same: we still use pair programming, have an interaction designer on board, and only declare an issue closed when at least one other pair of eyes has looked at it. We did not even have to alter our scrum board, we just removed the headings we used for sprint goals.

With the fixed deadline coming up, we do not plan big features, and keep the product continuously in a shippable state: each issue we handle is one in and of its own, and not part of a bigger feature. If we cannot finish an issue, we just don’t, and nothing gets hurt. This allows us to cope with the interruptions that such a last week brings, without having to worry about leaving the product in an inconsistent state.

All in all, it has worked out perfectly for us. If you are looking at a fixed deadline, and have a few days left that don’t make up an entire sprint, you should try it!