Practical writing on user story mapping, agile, and building better products.
CardBoard now has dark mode across the whole app, with a light, medium, dark, or chalkboard background on every board. Miro's most-voted request has been open since 2020, and FigJam's since 2021.
ReadAI agents made spec-driven development pay off, and made specs too long for people to review. What one story map caught that the spec never would.
ReadOur toolbar felt disjointed, so I had Claude critique it as David Hussman. The fix: fewer sticky note colors on the toolbar, more in the drawer.
ReadHow to facilitate a user story mapping session, from who to invite to slicing the first release, and how to end the session with actual decisions.
ReadWhat is Scrum? It began in a 1986 HBR article about cars and copiers. Its accountabilities, events, artifacts, and what it asks of a product owner.
ReadKanban vs Scrum, and where Agile fits. How a Toyota idea borrowed from supermarkets became the Kanban Method, its six practices, and when to run both.
ReadMonte Carlo project estimation replays your backlog 10,000 times to forecast a finish date with odds. The method, a worked example, and its limits.
ReadWhat an agile sprint is, how to run one from planning to retro, and why the Scrum Guide swapped "commit" for "forecast" in 2011 to protect teams.
ReadWhat product operations is, the three pillars of product ops, what a product ops manager does all day, and when your team needs one.
ReadWhat is Agile? In 2001, seventeen people at a Utah ski lodge wrote 68 words. The four values, the twelve principles, and what teams still misread.
ReadProduct metrics that change decisions: AARRR pirate metrics, product vs. growth metrics, examples by stage, and how to choose one to move.
ReadProduct backlog vs user story: one is the ordered list, the other is a single item that might be on it. And what a story loses on the way in.
ReadA backlog is a to-do list, and to-do lists forget. How to get a backlog into a user story map, organize it, and manage it there without the two drifting apart.
ReadHow to do customer discovery: Airbnb's $400 week, Steve Blank's four steps, The Mom Test's interview rules, and where your notes go after.
ReadHow to write agile user stories: the template, the 3 C's, INVEST, acceptance criteria, worked examples, and why a story lands better on a map than in a list.
ReadUse the Hooked model (trigger, action, variable reward, investment) to plan release slices on a story map, so your first release closes the loop.
ReadSoftware estimation for product managers. Why single dates fail, what points and counts are for, and how a story map turns estimates into learning.
ReadFeature bloat starts when teams build past the first place a user can succeed. How to spot it, and how a user story map shows where that line sits.
ReadA product roadmap template built on horizons, not dates: four focus areas, 3 to 12 months out, and five steps to fill it in on an online whiteboard.
ReadBending Spoons is buying Miro. Five questions for choosing an online whiteboard, starting with the one Miro users are asking now: how would I leave?
ReadEvery office has a whiteboard that says DO NOT ERASE. Five benefits of an online whiteboard, and what each one fixes about the one on the wall.
ReadWhat a network diagram is, what it's for, and how to make one step by step, with tips from an IT admin who drew one in under two hours.
ReadThe 4Ls retrospective asks what your team Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed for. How to run one step by step, and how to keep the action items alive.
ReadHow to prioritize user stories so your first release leaves someone able to do the job. Ranking by value, effort, or votes only sorts the list.
ReadWhere user story mapping fits in SAFe: bring a map, not a flat ART backlog, to PI Planning, and let its cut line decide what makes the interval.
ReadAn empathy map puts what a customer thinks, feels, hears, sees, says, and does on one page. How to run one with your team, plus a worked example.
ReadHate estimating? Build a user story map, count the cards, and run a Monte Carlo forecast. You get a range of dates with odds instead of a guess.
ReadThe Opportunity Canvas frames one feature idea for an existing product on a single page. The ten sections, the order to fill them, and what to guess.
ReadThe Business Model Canvas fits a business on one page in nine blocks. Where to start, what each block asks, and the judgment calls in between.
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