Agile on Marat Kiniabulatov | Agile Coach, OKR, PMO

Product Engineer в гибридных IT-командах: паттерны перехода 2025-2026

Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Как внедрить роль Product Engineer в гибридных командах, где стеки не пересекаются. Конкретные конфигурации для Java+Data, Card Processing+COTS и путь от системного PE к LeSS.

The Triangle of Team Efficiency: Goals, People, Flow

Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

An effective team achieves business goals, sustains its people, and delivers predictably. Three pillars — one triangle. Based on 7+ years of data from 75+ teams.

Zero Bug Policy: From 77 Bugs to 18 in One Month

Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

77 bugs in the backlog. 60 of them without any due date.

One month later: 18 bugs. Every single one with an ETA.

No magic. No crunch. Just a policy.

The Problem

How were bugs prioritized before?

Three criteria:

Who screams loudest — the most frustrated stakeholder wins
Which client has the biggest ARR — revenue drives priority
How urgent it sounds — panic is contagious

The result? A chaotic queue, broken promises, customer-facing teams losing trust in engineering, and engineers trapped in constant context-switching.

Boosting Efficiency with WIP Aging Insights and Tools

Wed, 29 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

When examining real workflow data, there’s a common pattern: clusters of tasks that have aged significantly, some clearly stagnating beyond ~~recognition~~ acceptable timeframes. These cases point to one of the most important yet very often overlooked metrics in flow management: WIP Aging.

WIP (Work In Progress) Aging measures the elapsed time that a work item has spent in active progress but remains incomplete. This metric serves as an early warning system for workflow problems, helping teams identify where work gets stuck before it significantly impacts delivery timelines. Unlike cycle time, which analyzes completed tasks retrospectively, WIP Aging provides real-time visibility into current work, making it the single most actionable metric for proactive flow management.

Monte Carlo Simulation: Forecasting Throughput and Project Timelines

Tue, 16 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

TL;DR: Forecasting team Throughput is super-easy and much more reliable than traditional methods, if you limit your work in Progress. Reliability confirmed by research data.

We’ve already extensively covered Throughput (one of the flow metrics), how to analyze Throughput data from 3 key angles. And why it’s better for forecasting than storypoints.

Now let’s get to essentials and practical questions that our management looooves to ask: “When will you guys finish this project of X items”?

3 key data slices to understand your team's Predictability through Throughput (pun intended).

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Today we’ll talk about Throughput metric. Why is it so important, how to read it’s patterns and what to be cautious about.

Premise

Imagine walking into a bar on a Friday evening, exhausted, and ordering a beer flight. The bartender thinks:

“Over the past hour we completed 12 orders; there are 4 in progress; this will be the fifth. Your flight will arrive in 20–25 minutes.”

There are no subjective complexity estimates - only historical data to forecast wait time. Wouldn’t it be great if an IT team could plan as simply, honestly, and predictably? ~~Ha-ha, you wish~~

5 Reasons Why Your Story Points Aren't Working (And What to Do About It)

Thu, 26 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Over seven years of running Story Points workshops, I’ve seen the same pattern: teams learn the technique, apply it for a few sprints, then gradually drift back to old habits. At my current scale — 47 teams, around 400 people in IT — 60% use Story Points, 40% don’t. What’s interesting: those 60% who do use them do it completely differently.

Even 3 months after the training, only 20-30% use Story Points correctly (as intended). The problem isn’t the tool itself, but how we use it and what we expect from it.

Product Operations: simple steps to build transparent Feature Pipeline to dramatically lower Lead Time

Tue, 07 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

(Experience from an AI-Based Fintech KYC SaaS Startup Focused on LATAM and Africa)

Your regular challenge: When Sales, Marketing and IT Speak Different Languages

Our SaaS startup served emerging fast-paced fintech markets (it still is). Speed + compliance were existential. Since most startups live on venture capital with limited runway, every delay in shipping value to the market means lost clients and regulatory risk. It also a huge roadblock on your path to become self-sustainable. So you need to be super frugal and efficient.

My experience in preparing to PSM II (Professional Scrum Master) certification

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hey everyone, here’s my list of resources and literature for getting prepped for the PSM II examination. I would be tremendously happy if you share yours :)

*Sidenote: if you are “certificates are overvalued” type of person - I’d agree. This is especially true when it comes to CSM / PSM I - because that certification only mentions that you have been introduced to the basics. However, when it comes to PSM II you need to rely on your experience as a Scrum Master. No more “shu” (of shu-ha-ri), just your experience and daily understanding of agile values. *

Trust Stories - Growing trust in distributed teams (RU)

Mon, 08 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Last week me and Alex Pikulev of Agilix recorded Trust Stories podcast episode, on Growing Team Trust in Distributed Teams. Courtesy of In Teams we Trust websit e

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pq82aFap1rc

Main bullets are:

Growing trust in distrubited teams is hard, but nevertheless as important as in co-located team.
Team itself creates an atmosphere of trust in itself. Our task, as a scrum master, coach, manager - is to help and highlight needed areas.
XP and especially Pair Programmingи helps in growing trust.
Intrateam trust, from the informal side (skype beers, navigating as a guest to your colleagues in other locations, bike fixing via the webcam, ordering stuff on flea market in your city and sending it over to a colleague) helps a lot.
More freedom for the team, for collaborative work and motivation. More trust! Work harder on understanding the context and value of features implemented.

More details (rus) / tg channel : https://t.me/inteamwetrust_rus/35 Video: https://youtu.be/Pq82aFap1rc

Workflow for the Requirements in the Distributed team

Thu, 24 Aug 2017 00:00:00 +0000

This is basically the anatomy of a distributed team, working on requirements. Key point here is that this is the process working for us, in current configuration, and it’s effective.

Disclaimer: Every organization is different: from internal structure to how it communicates with the outer world. So no workflow is a silver bullet.

*Disclaimer 2: SkuVault is an ever-improving team of ~50 people, distributed across 10 timezones, 2 different versions, and serving loyal clients worldwide 24/7. Learn more about Communication in distributed teams: Messenger & Rules, or *Why we ditched Scrum, in favor of Kanban in JIRA

Year Retrospective @ SkuVault

Fri, 17 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Last year guys from SkuVault offered me an amazing opportunity to help the company manage a growing development team, create organized schedule, establish workflow that reflects the company goals .

For those who don’t know - SkuVault is a Warehouse Management System (WMS). Like a swiss army knife, SkuVault manages and syncs your inventory across e-Commerce platforms, POS, Logistics and Warehouses, providing accurate quantities in order to prevent out of stocks. Headquartered in Louisville, KY - SkuVault helps to manage the inventory for hundreds of clients all across the globe.