Jeremy Jarrell • Wednesday, June 14, 2017 • Productivity

Finding the Right Amount of Backlog Refinement

Many product managers struggle with getting the right level of detail in their backlog. If the backlog is too vaguely defined, then your team picks up stories that aren’t immediately actionable, which can slow them down. On the other hand, if the backlog is too well defined, then it becomes rigid and fails to evolve as your product takes shape. Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Monday, June 12, 2017 • BuildTV

Women in Technology: Inside the Sisterhood Shaking Up Tech From Colleges to the Board Room

There’s been a lot of debate and controversy around the lack of women and minorities being represented in tech companies, from entry level to the C-suite and board room. However, what isn’t showcased is how there is sisterhood within tech, where women are helping each other out and enacting change at every level from schools to the board room. Read more...

Steve Lichtenstein • Wednesday, June 7, 2017 • Productivity

Lesser-Known Search Functions

When last we left our maiden voyage through lesser-known-but-crucial features of Tracker, we explored ways to make panels do your bidding. On this journey, we’ll examine the very nature of exploration itself—the search. Read more...

Jeremy Jarrell • Monday, June 5, 2017 • Productivity

Choosing the Best Slice of Your Story

Learning to split large user stories into smaller user stories is one of the best things a team can do to improve their workflow. Not only are smaller stories easier to understand—and therefore easier to estimate—but their smaller size makes them inherently less risky for a team to take on. Read more...

Dan Podsedly • Thursday, June 1, 2017 • Updates

Introducing Story Blockers

As the old proverb goes, “Even careful planning and good intentions can’t always prevent surprise impediments showing up in your backlog.” Old-timey proverb writers knew better than anyone the challenge of, say, starting a story only to realize it’s missing design assets, waiting on a response to a product question, or knowing your UI story can’t move forward without progress in an API story in another project. If only Tracker had a way to account for these interconnections and roadblocks and make them more obvious in your workfl— Read more...

Steve Lichtenstein • Wednesday, May 17, 2017 • Community

Product Stack Denver—Panel

As promised, here is video of the panel discussion from our Product Stack event in Denver last week, emceed by Jay Zeschin, and featuring Jim Semick of ProductPlan, Dan Podsedly of Tracker, Jess Sherlock of GoSpotCheck, Aaron Duke of CirrusMD, and Kevin Steigerwald of Notion. Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Tuesday, May 16, 2017 • BuildTV

How to Change Careers Later in Life and Transition Into a Technical Role

There are a lot of people who want to change their career later in life. They want to do more challenging work, earn more money, and have a better lifestyle. Given the growing need of technical talent in the US, it would seem like a technical career would be a great choice, right? Read more...

Sara Hill • Tuesday, May 16, 2017 • Updates

Updates to Story Activity

When you’re working with your team in Tracker, discussions can move quickly and cover a lot of ground. They evolve as people ask questions about the requirements of a story, share updates on their work, sync their git commits, add attachments, and more. Read more...

Steve Lichtenstein • Tuesday, May 16, 2017 • Community

Product Stack Denver—Keynote

Our first Product Stack event in Denver was a huge success! A large crowd of PMs and the PM-curious came out for a keynote from Jay Zeschin, CTO of Ello, as well as the full panel discussion. (There may have been some mingling and boozing as well; unconfirmed.) Here’s the full video of Jay’s talk about inflection points. Read more...

Jeremy Jarrell • Monday, May 15, 2017 • Productivity

The Daily Standup is a Planning Meeting—Not a Status Meeting

The Daily Standup is a core practice of successful teams and one of the first practices that most teams adopt as they seek to improve their collaboration. But despite its prominence, many teams struggle to grasp the point of this event. Read more...

Jeremy Jarrell • Wednesday, May 3, 2017 • Productivity

Three Ways Product Managers Can Help with a Great Iteration Planning Meeting

A great iteration planning meeting (IPM) sets the tone for the entire iteration. Your team leaves the session energized, excited, and with a clear picture of how to hit the ground running in the new iteration. But, what if things don’t go as well as you’d hoped? Then your team will leave the session tired and frustrated. They will leave without a clear idea of how to get started on their new set of work. They may even leave without any idea of what their goal for the next iteration even is. Read more...

Ronan Dunlop • Monday, May 1, 2017 • Productivity

Three Panel Tips That Will Make Your Work More Visible

One of the main reasons people enjoy and stick with Tracker is that at heart, we’re a relatively straightforward to-do app for software teams. By keeping the features you need to get your job done—and only the features you need—at the forefront of the app, we ensure that teams new and old aren’t confused or distracted by the tool that’s there to facilitate the work. Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Tuesday, April 25, 2017 • BuildTV

The Fastest-Growing Companies Start Really Slowly

If your company doesn’t produce a hockey stick graph for growth by the end of the first year, you’ve done something wrong. Don’t expect it to become one of the fastest-growing companies, just shut it down! Seems drastic, no? Sadly, that’s what many founders are led to believe. Read more...

Dan Podsedly • Thursday, April 20, 2017 • News

Introducing Tracker Enterprise

Pivotal Tracker powers modern software teams that are highly collaborative, cross-functional, and which ship continuously. It’s given countless companies the predictability and transparency they’ve needed to transform their development process and stay competitive in a world full of disruption. Read more...

Steve Lichtenstein • Tuesday, April 18, 2017 • Community

Product Stack Denver—An Event for PMs

We’re bringing the Product Stack to the mile-high city on May 2! Don’t miss this exciting product management event! The Product Stack is a coalition of product manager allies—from ProductPlan, Pivotal Tracker, and Notion—focused on helping PMs build customer-centric products through successful product planning, more efficient sprint execution, and clearer insight into the metrics that matter most. Read more...

Steve Lichtenstein • Monday, April 17, 2017 • Community

Case Study: 729 Solutions

729 Solutions originally began as a digital agency in the dot-com years, but under President and CEO/CTO Rob Fife, it’s morphed into a boutique agile shop that provides front-end UX/design and backend help to startups and Fortune 500 companies. Read more...

Steve Lichtenstein • Thursday, March 30, 2017 • Community

Webinar: The Best-Kept Secrets of High-Performance Development Teams

Ever wondered what separates high-performance development organizations from shops that struggle to maintain productivity? Read more...

Poornima Vijayashanker • Thursday, March 23, 2017 • BuildTV

Starting Up Outside Silicon Valley

Two common pieces of startup advice that get doled out are: 1) you need to be in Silicon Valley to start your startup; and 2) you need to cater to customers in the US market. Read more...

Steve Lichtenstein • Thursday, March 23, 2017 • Community

Product Stack LA: Panel Discussion

Last week, we shared an interview with Tracker’s GM, Dan Podsedly, at the inaugural Product Stack product manager event in Los Angeles. As promised, here is the full panel discussion from that night, hosted by Suzanne Abate of the podcast 100 PMs, and featuring ProductPlan’s Greg Goodman and Laure Parsons of Notion. Read more...

Ronan Dunlop • Thursday, March 16, 2017 • Community

Interview with Tracker GM at Product Stack LA

Pivotal Tracker, Notion, and Product Plan recently banded together to create The Product Stack. Our goal is to foster a community where product owners can stay on top of their trade by sharing the processes and tools they use—at every stage of the development cycle—to manage their product. Read more...