Home › Agile answers
Agile answers
Every page here opens with a direct answer in about forty words, then goes deeper. They are written to be useful whether or not you ever use Flocci Projects — a page that teaches the concept honestly and mentions the product only where it genuinely applies is the only kind worth publishing.
- What is sprint velocity and how is it calculated?Sprint velocity is the number of story points a team completes per sprint. Calculate it by summing the points of every fully finished story in the sprint, then
- What are story points in agile estimation?Story points are relative units for estimating work: instead of guessing hours, the team rates each story's size against other stories, usually on the Fibonacci
- How do I estimate story points consistently across a team?Consistency comes from reference stories, not discipline. Pick two or three already-delivered stories and fix them as your 1, 3 and 8. Estimate every new story
- Kanban vs scrum board — which should my team use?A kanban board tracks continuous flow — work enters whenever capacity frees and the goal is limiting work in progress. A scrum board resets every sprint: the te
- How do I run sprint planning for a small team?Effective small-team sprint planning takes about 30 minutes: review last sprint's velocity, groom the top of the backlog, estimate un-pointed stories, pull item
- What is a product backlog and how do I groom it?A product backlog is the single, priority-ordered list of everything the team might build — features, bugs, improvements. Grooming, also called refinement, is t
- What is the difference between backlog refinement and sprint planning?Backlog refinement prepares work: clarifying, splitting and estimating upcoming items so they are ready. Sprint planning selects work: choosing which ready item
- What are WIP limits in kanban?A WIP (work-in-progress) limit caps how many cards may sit in a column at once — for example, at most three items In Progress. When the column is full the team
- What is the difference between burndown and burnup charts?A burndown chart plots work remaining in a sprint, falling toward zero. A burnup chart plots work completed rising toward a total-scope line. Burndown answers '
- What is an epic in agile project management?An epic is a body of work too large for one sprint, broken into smaller stories that each deliver a testable slice. Epics group related stories so progress roll
- What is the difference between an epic, a story and a task?An epic is a large outcome spanning several sprints. A story is a user-visible slice that fits in one sprint and can be demonstrated. A task is a unit of work w
- What is the definition of done in scrum?The definition of done is a shared checklist every item must satisfy before it counts as complete — typically code reviewed, tests passing, merged, deployed and
- How do I run a daily standup that is not a status meeting?Run the standup against the board, not around the room: walk the columns right to left, discuss the cards closest to done first, and surface blockers. Fifteen m
- What is a sprint retrospective and how do I run one?A retrospective is a short meeting at the end of each sprint where the team inspects how it worked and picks improvements. The format matters less than the outp
- What happens in a sprint review?A sprint review is where the team demonstrates completed work to stakeholders and collects feedback that reshapes the backlog. It is about the product. The retr
- What are the three scrum roles?Scrum defines three accountabilities: the product owner owns what gets built and the backlog order; the scrum master owns how the team works and removes impedim
- What is the difference between cycle time and lead time?Lead time measures from when a request is made to when it is delivered — the customer's whole wait. Cycle time measures from when work actually starts to when i
- What is planning poker and does it actually work?Planning poker is estimation by simultaneous reveal: everyone privately picks a story-point value, all reveal together, and only the outliers are discussed. It
- What is MoSCoW prioritisation?MoSCoW sorts requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have and Won't have (this time). Its value is the explicit Won't category, which makes exclusion a
- How do I calculate sprint capacity?Start with your average velocity over the last three completed sprints, then adjust for this sprint's reality: subtract proportionally for leave, holidays, on-c
- Which agile metrics actually matter for a small team?For a small team, four metrics are enough: velocity for forecasting, lead time for customer experience, work-in-progress for focus, and completed-versus-committ
- Agile vs waterfall — which is right for my project?Waterfall plans the whole scope up front and executes in sequence; agile delivers in short increments and re-plans as it learns. Choose waterfall when requireme
Where to start
If you are setting up a process from scratch, read in this order: what a product backlog is, then story points, then how to run sprint planning, then sprint velocity. That sequence is the whole loop, and each page assumes only the one before it.
If you already run sprints and something is wrong, the diagnostic pages are which metrics matter, capacity planning and retrospectives. Vocabulary questions are answered term by term in the agile glossary.
Put it into practice on a free board