5 Metrics to Measure Success on Your Software Project

Metrics can be a tricky thing. They help a team understand how they are being measured, which means they can be gamed to look great — hiding issues under the surface. My general guidelines are that metrics should be: Easily understood by the entire team. Visible to the entire team. On the chopping block at […]

4 Product Management Concepts to Use on Your Next Software Product

There are many different philosophies and management styles when it comes to developing a new product. Knowing and incorporating different concepts will help you continue to grow as a technical product owner and will increase your ability to successfully build, deploy, and manage software. In this post, I’ll introduce four concepts that I’ve used in […]

Software Project Estimates – When, Why, and How?

It can seem daunting to estimate the effort involved in a large software project. And it’s easy to start thinking: “Because estimates are always wrong, they aren’t that valuable.” But there are many benefits of estimation. If you get in the habit of estimating regularly, you can turn a daunting, nonproductive exercise into one of […]

A Strategy for Release Planning

Imagine you’re building an internal business tool for your global company. This new tool will improve and streamline the work of hundreds of your coworkers. It’ll also give the business better visibility into how your bottom line is being built. You’re close to having a minimal usable product to ship, so what’s next? Because We […]

My Project/Product Management Toolkit

I recently switched roles from developer to delivery lead. Quickly after the shift into project/product management, I realized my existing toolkit was obsolete. I no longer needed Docker, Git extensions, or a million Chrome tabs open to Stack Overflow. Over the past eight months, I’ve been re-building my toolbelt to make me an effective Delivery […]

What Makes a Good Scrum Master?

Atomic does not have a dedicated scrum master position. The closest comparison is our delivery lead role, which is a blend of project management, account management, and product management. However, we often work with clients that do have dedicated scrum masters. Many times, the people in these roles were hired as traditional project managers, but […]

Bring Focus to Your Check-Ins with a Six-Step Meeting Guide

In my last post, I described a process for keeping a large Agile team focused on getting work ready for developers. The process includes a few crucial check-in meetings: product backlog refinement, design refinement, and technical refinement. Because the check-ins are so few, it’s very important to keep that time focused on the work at […]

The User Story Pipeline: A Visual To Guide the Agile Process

Every Agile project needs user stories. But where do stories come from? I’m not asking who types the description into your backlog, I’m really asking how a team works together to create the definition of features that developers should complete.

Three Ways Planning a Conference Helped Me Grow Professionally

This year, I had the opportunity to serve on the committee for GLSEC (Great Lakes Software Excellence Conference). Originally, I thought it was just a way to help support the local development community. However, I’ve found that it has been a fantastic professional development opportunity for me.

“Battle of the Brackets” Supports Kids Sports – and it’s Fun!

We support several charities and events at Atomic Object, but few are more fun than the annual Battle of the Brackets. If your business is looking a fun way to give back to the community, it’s not too late to join! Battle of the Brackets is a March Madness event benefitting the GR8 Sports, Great […]

Atomic Spin

Atomic Object’s blog on everything we find fascinating.

By: Ryan Abel

Author: Ryan Abel