The Agile Canvas
2015 Jack Ricchiuto | TheAgileCanvas.com

What we do in the Canvas is

Capture everything that comes up as an intention, question or sprint item
Identify and work on our most important intentions 
Get every intention and question timestamped
Translate every intention and question into a sprint item
Get every sprint item assigned and done every 2 weeks

Intentions: What would we love and need to be possible?

  • Identify anything we consider a success and progress indicator, in as much detail as we can

  • Include as intentions anything we would consider a strategy, objective, mission, goal, priority, value, milestone, metric, expectation, wish, dream, agreement or requirement; describe each as a noun and frame each as project, event or agreement

  • Translate complaints and criticisms into intentions

  • Timestamp intentions with estimated doneness timeframes and adjust timeframes as necessary

  • Always work on the top intentions that have the most resources, payback and urgency

 

Questions: What do we need to research and decide?

  • Identify anything we think we need to research (discover/verify) and decide (agree on), and state each as a question

  • Include as questions anything we would consider unknowns, ambiguities, assumptions, tensions, concerns, worries, issues, conflicts and problems

  • Translate concerns and assumptions into new questions

  • List new facts from conversations, research or decisions under their respective questions

  • For new facts that come up without new questions, post the new questions they address

 

Sprints: What can and will we do in the next two weeks?

  • Identify anything we need to do and get done to make our top intentions possible

  • Include as sprint items any kind of researching, deciding, communicating, inviting, designing, building, testing and launching that can close out our questions & achieve our stories in order

  • Translate ideas and suggestions into sprint action items

  • Estimate effort time for each item and if any item takes more than one sprint, sprint-size it into smaller chunks so everything assigned in a sprint can be completed within that sprint

  • Meet every two weeks to detail next sprints based on the actual effort time available for each sprint; plan out as many sprints as we can

 

Process guidelines

Make sure everything gets recorded on the Canvas and everyone records their own ideas, before or after they voice them. Make sure everyone has some feedback on their contributions. Engage everyone's strengths and passions.