How to Use Relative Sizing and Burn-Up Charts to Scope a Project

At the beginning of a project, there can be a lot of uncertainty about upcoming work. We recently had success doing an exercise called relative sizing and modeling our results with a burn-up chart. It helped the team understand the scope of work and uncover questions and risks earlier. It also gave the stakeholders a nice […]

Five Ways to Raise Your Team’s Morale During COVID-19 Lockdown

As a result of the coronavirus spread, Atomic Object (like many companies) has asked employees to work remotely. Technically speaking, the shift went pretty smoothly; we had practices and technology in place to support the change. But mentally and emotionally, switching to remote work is stressful — compounding the feelings of anxiety and uncertainty that […]

Recruiting & Coordinating User Interviews with “User Interviews”

User research is critical when validating ideas for a product. But finding participants and scheduling interviews is not as easy as you’d think. People are excited for the results, but they don’t understand all the tasks involved in the upfront recruiting. We needed to conduct a set of user interviews for a recent project. After […]

My Five New Backlog Management Habits for 2020

It’s 2020! In theory, you should be staying on top of your backlog all year long, but we all know how that goes… So, like working out, eating better, and getting into better habits, the new year marker can give us a chance to refresh and improve our product backlog management. Here are five ways […]

Two Ways to Improve Your Daily Stand-Up with a Large Team

At this point, anyone who is doing Agile software development is familiar with the daily stand-up. Traditionally, during that meeting, each team member answers the following questions for the larger group: What did you do yesterday? What did you do today? Is there anything blocking you from moving forward? This approach works well for teams […]

Five Requirements to Bring Software to the Market

As consultants who build software, it’s sometimes easy to forget that, for our clients, the software itself is only one piece of the larger product launch. You could build the best software in the world, but if no one knows about it, that doesn’t matter.

Is Software the Best Solution? These 5 Questions Will Help You Decide

These days, most companies are expected to have some sort of digital or connected solution. Even industries that have been paper-based or seem removed from connected solutions are feeling pressure. Their executives may think they need a solution, but what should it be? And how do you determine if software is the right solution?

Agile Misconception #2: We Don’t Need Documentation

Documentation means a lot of different things to different people. I’ve also found it’s one of the top five topics to cause a developer to cringe. If you’ve used a waterfall software development process, you’re all too familiar with documentation. From requirements to systems architecture to design, you’re creating documentation at every step of the […]

Four Ways to Bring Your Team Together with a Mid-Project Kickoff

There are many books, articles, and blog posts that describe how to plan and run an effective kickoff. Unfortunately, most of these resources talk about the kickoff as a one-time event. I believe there’s value in having a kickoff-like meeting at least twice a year so that the project team can pause, reflect, discuss, and plan […]

Starting Strong – 5 Ways to Establish Good Team Dynamics & Norms

You just kicked off a project, and it went well! Everyone is happy, hopeful, and on the same page. But how do you keep that momentum and camaraderie going?

Atomic Spin

Atomic Object’s blog on everything we find fascinating.

By: Amy Burke

Author: Amy Burke