Agile on Jake Worth

How I Run a Fully-Remote Software Engineering Standup

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 10:31:38 -0500

I’ve been participating in fully-remote software standups every day for over a decade, and over the past two years, leading them, too. Here’s how I run the best standup meetings that I can.

Getting It Right the First Time

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 07:51:03 -0500

There’s an enviable quality of great engineers I’ve known: they seem to get things right the first time. When you ask them to do something, and they say “It’s done”, it is, almost always. How?

Running Great Refinement Meetings

Mon, 01 Dec 2025 11:18:17 -0500

This year I’ve run over 25 Scrum refinement meetings; here’s what I’ve learned.

Acceptance Criteria That Actually Work

Tue, 30 Sep 2025 03:37:56 -0400

Acceptance criteria, or AC, describe what a feature or bugfix does. Writing them is an art, and some AC work much better than others. So, how do we make them work? By including a little more detail.

A Kaizen for Knowledge Work

Wed, 16 Jul 2025 09:00:30 -0400

Confluence was messy. Our documentation felt outdated, hard to navigate, and unreliable. Rather than scrap everything and start over, I decided to try something different: a Kaizen.

How to Start a Standup in Jira

Thu, 01 May 2025 20:51:07 -0400

Jira does have a “Start Standup” button, but it’s hidden and not well documented.

How to Deliver Code Every Day

Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I recently calculated that I merge 0.8 pull requests every day into my team repo. Let’s round up and say I merge about one PR every day, delivering one or more features to production. I like this velocity, and in this post, I’ll explain how you can achieve it yourself.

"What Would Finishing This Today Look Like?"

Thu, 09 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

When I don’t feel like I’m making sufficient progress at work, I have a favorite technique: asking “What would finishing this today look like?”

My Feature Writing Template: Given/When/Then

Tue, 20 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

When preparing feature development work, I write Gherkin-style tickets, which follow the “Given/When/Then” format. Many people call these stories, and I do, too. This technique is incredibly effective! But why? In this post, I’ll try to answer that question.

Retros Need Action Items

Tue, 19 Jul 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Action items are small, defined, actionable TODOs to follow up on after the meeting. An example: “close all pull requests opened more than 90 days ago.” Agile retrospectives should produce many of these.

First Get It Working, Then Make it Look Good

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I recently completed a winter survival course where we built shelters in just ten minutes with only the contents of our packs. The pack I brought was nearly empty, so I made a tent out of my parka. It was ugly, but it could have saved my life. How does this apply to software? When building a feature, first get it working, then make it look good.

How I Make Sure I Understand a Feature Before Building

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

I think the most important factor in consistent delivery is understanding the work. When you understand the work, you build what the stakeholder wants, better and faster.

Why I Don't Point Agile Bug Tickets

Mon, 07 Feb 2022 00:00:00 +0000

When I create Agile bug tickets, I leave the story points blank. Why? Two reasons: pointing bugs creates the wrong incentives, and bugs are hard to estimate.

My Development Roadmap

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve been working on a development roadmap for my projects, and wanted to share my process. Consider this my recipe to turn an idea into software.

Don't Build Every Feature

Mon, 19 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a detail about Today I Learned some might find unusual: we never added a way to delete posts from the site. Why ignore a basic CRUD feature? We didn’t ignore it. It was intentionally omitted.