Articles about Scrum

Using Actual Story Points to Become Better Estimators

At OmbuLabs, we strongly believe in continuous improvement.

As a Scrum team, before starting a sprint we estimate the complexity of the stories using the Fibonacci scale. But how do we become better at estimating stories? How do we know we’re evolving as a team?

In this article I outline the process we are following to become better estimators.

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Onboarding New Team Members with Slack Workflows

When a new team member comes onboard, there are several tools and resources they need to access, as well as processes, practices and guidelines they need to be aware of. There is also workflow and company culture information you want to communicate. After all, each company has its unique features and you want new team members to be comfortable with the existing team.

For remote teams, this process can be very challenging. Thankfully, if you use Slack, you can use their Workflows feature to easily onboard new team members, making the process actionable and easy to follow.

In this article I’ll describe how I used Slack Workflows to make the onboarding process here at OmbuLabs quick and easy.

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Making Your Clients Better Product Owners

Different clients bring different projects, perspectives, workflows, and experiences, as well as different challenges. Before starting a project, one of those challenges is to define who will be the Product Owner.

Ideally, you would be able to assign the role internally or to the client based solely on the characteristics of the project. However, that’s not always the case. It might just be that the client insists on being the Product Owner or that you are a small team and can’t really assign the role internally. Whatever the reason, you might end up in a situation where your client isn’t really a good Product Owner.

Here I’ll share some strategies we implement to help our clients become better Product Owners and ensure the best experience for them and for our team.

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