How we stopped using backlog management tools and why you should

1. Dejirafication
free your process
Alexey Krivitsky
an agile2016 lightening talk

2. Most of us use some sort of backlog management tools…

3. There are many different ones… but i’ll just call them ‘jira’

4. From lean thinking perspective:
managing the inventory is a non-value-adding activity

6. Jira issue list is beamed to the wall from a PO’s notebook -
That’s how Most backlog refinement meetings look like.

7. Those meetings are made for the team to meet with the tool.
Not for team collaboration. Robots control us.

8. Printed jira issues
Time-boxed discussions
Break-out groups working in parallel
Updates to jira a;er the mee=ng
Some ideas that I’ve tried to
improve the meetings:
Result: just less badly jirafied meetings.

9. Jirandicitis (or the ‘jira symptom’)
An observable process
when team collaboration
(such as a meeting)
is degrading to become
a plain tool-updating activity
(with a sole goal of updating the tool).

11. welcome to
jira rehab program

12. One of my client joint my jira rehab program:
We went back to paper:

13. We use A4 sheets for stories

14. Backlog refinement activities are much more lively

15. And is about building shared understanding of product & work

16. It also looks chaotic but this doesn’t meet it lacks structure

17. So how this works in practice?
4 steps to get clean

18. #1 mind-mapping for product themes – no more lists

19. #2 JIT story slicing – minimal inventories

20. I call this a ‘parmigiano method’:
Grate fresh stories only when hungry.

21. #3 backlog refinement with shuffled groups – amplify learning

22. #4 shape discussions – lean coffee with confidence voting

23. Get clean today.
#1 mind-mapping for product themes – no more lists
#2 JIT story slicing – minimal inventories
#3 backlog refinement with mixed teams – amplify learning
#4 shape discussions – lean coffee with confidence voting
Sign up for jira rehab program now!

24. Joint Backlog refinement
This nicely scales for a multi-teams scrum setup

25. That’s how our multi-team sprint planning looks like

26. But that’s another story…

27. I offer jira rehab hugs.
Approach me after the talk.
Thank you!
@alexeykrv