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Many teams struggle to let go of their waterfall, silo mentality when they first transition to agile ways-of-working. In particular they shy away from collaboratively working on the definition, evolution and implementation of their backlog items insisting on up-front definition of Features and Stories, and clean handovers between the Product Owners and the Development Teams. This is an issue that we see with all the various agile methods but which always seems to get compounded whenever teams try to scale. So what are the worst things you can do to compromise the agility of your program when using Features? In Part 3 of this series, Ian Spence provides guidance on what it means for a Feature to be Ready.

Use-Case adoption is growing again: In this interview 'Use Cases and its role in Agile Software Development' by Blueprint Systems, Dr. Ivar Jacobson explains how Use-Case 2.0 includes everything important about user stories, but offer significantly more for larger systems, larger teams, and more complex and demanding development projects than user stories alone. They are as lightweight as user stories but can also scale in a smooth and structured way to incorporate as much detail as needed. Most importantly, they drive and connect many other aspects of software development.

In the second of this Use Cases in Practice series of blog articles, author Roly Stimson discusses how a use case model provides a simple, big, visible picture that provides critical value context, which represents a powerful tool that can be used as part of Scrum sprint reviews to ensure that the team and the stakeholders reflect meaningfully on what has been achieved in the context of the overall solution goals and value, and adjust future work objectives, priorities and plans accordingly.

A short series of articles on crafting effective, well-formed objectives as part of the SAFe® Program Increment (PI) / Big Room Planning activity. A series of four related articles: 1. Why do we need PI Objectives when we have Features? 2. Writing good PI Objectives 3. PI Objectives and the PI Planning Process 4. PI Objectives Beyond PI Planning: Reaffirming and Monitoring Your Commitments

A look at the subtleties within the Weight Shortest Job First prioritisation mechanic.