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Lessons Learned: Combining agile development with customer development

Startup Lessons Learned

XP and Scrum don’t have much to say - they punt. If you look at the origins of most agile systems, including Scrum and XP , they come out of experiences in big companies. Both Scrum and XP had a role which you could happily call by the modern title "Product Manager". Embedded in that assumption is why startups fail.

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Startup Tools

steveblank.com

Github - Free public repositories, collaborator management, issue tracking, wikis, downloads, code review, graphs Pivotal Tracker – Agile project management tool that enables real time collaboration. WebSequenceDiagrams - sketch sequence diagrams. Lighthouse – Issue Tracking Tool.

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The four kinds of work, and how to get them done: part three

Startup Lessons Learned

To begin with, see if you can get designers, programmers, and QA on the same team together. The advantages of cross-functional teams are well documented, and for a thorough treatment I recommend the theory in the second half of Agile Software Development with Scrum. At IMVU, we found 60 days was just about right. Bring your questions.

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Lessons Learned: The product manager's lament

Startup Lessons Learned

These specs are handed to a designer, who builds layouts and mockups of all the salient points. Then the designs are handed to a team of programmers with various specialties. The programmers keep asking for more say in the designs and direction that they work on. First, he writes it nice and clear.

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You don't need as many tools as you think

Startup Lessons Learned

Heres something I can relate to: We used assembla for subversion, scrums, milestones, wikis, and for general organizational purposes. Scrum reports would come in once a month, nobody was actually responsible for anything. And wait until you see a "non-technical" designer writing simple code to try and speed up a release.

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Lessons Learned: The lean startup

Startup Lessons Learned

I would add -- think of your development and running your business like a PM/Developer uses Agile or Scrum in software development. Lean Startup Wiki - including a complete list of local meetups and meetup organizers. The wise entrepreneur will take this advice seriously in order to distill his ideas down to their essence.

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Lessons Learned: A new version of the Joel Test (draft)

Startup Lessons Learned

There are several ways to make progress evident - the Scrum team model is my current favorite. If you have a true cross-functional team, empowered (a la Scrum) to do whatever it takes to succeed its likely they will converge on the result quickly. Lean Startup Wiki - including a complete list of local meetups and meetup organizers.