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Justin K. Peterson, MBA, PSM

Your team is "busy" but are they shipping?

Published 19 days ago • 1 min read

Your tech team is 100% at capacity. They are busy in meetings, working on tickets and refactoring code. But, at the end of the month...zero new value has been shipped to the customer.
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You are not running a high-velocity team. You are running a high-activity busyness center.

Fluent PM Playbook #18: The Sprint Goal Fix

As a Professional Scrum Master (PSM), I don't just manage the backlog. I enforce a Sprint Goal.
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A Sprint Goal is a single, non-negotiable and business-focused objective for the next two weeks. It's our contract.
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My playbook:
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1. One Goal, Not Ten: We don't try to do 10 different things. We do one thing 100%.
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2. Ruthless Focus: Every single task, meeting and conversation is measured against one question: "Does this get us closer to the Sprint Goal?" If the answer is 'no'...we kill it or put it on the back burner.
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3. Ship or Fail: At the end of the sprint, we either shipped the goal or we failed. There is no almost.
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This system makes it impossible for the team to be busy on the wrong things. It forces the team to deliver one valuable and shippable thing every single sprint.
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Stop asking your team: "What is everyone working on?" You will just get a long list of tasks.
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Start asking: "What is our single and non-negotiable Sprint Goal and will it be 100% shipped by X?"
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One question manages activity. The other drives results.

You're burning money on "wasted work." You feel the friction, but you can't measure the cost.

Stop guessing. I built a 60-second calculator to find the real number.

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P.S. It's free. No email required

Justin K. Peterson, MBA, PSM

I Help Global Teams Ship Projects On Time & On Budget

Stop Managing Chaos. Start Shipping. Most PMs just track tasks. I build the playbooks that bridge C-Suite strategy with tech execution. The Fluent PM Playbook is where I give you those exact plays. For free.

Read more from Justin K. Peterson, MBA, PSM

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You just left a strategy meeting. You used words like synergy, disruption and pivot. So what's the problem? Your execution team just heard: "Go waste 5 days figuring out what the boss meant." The space between the boardroom and the backlog is where the budget bleeds. Fluent PM Playbook #24: The Buzzword -> Blueprint Fix As a TEFL-certified communication expert, I don’t let strategy stay abstract. I force it into the Buzzword -> Blueprint formula. A buzzword is a vague wish. A blueprint is an...

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