Tenille Hoppo

Senior Demand Generation Manager

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Agile Best Practice

Velocity Starts with Alignment

Real progress starts with alignment. Build team clarity, plan together, and let velocity take care of itself.

View all Workflow Product Agile Best Practice Company Jira Engineering

Agile Best Practice

Agile Team Trends 2026: Research Insights on Collaboration, Planning, and Delivery

Survey of 419 engineers and PMs reveals gaps in sprint planning, estimation, and retrospective follow-through. Data-backed predictions for product teams in 2026.

Agile Best Practice

The Three Phases of RTE Maturity

Release Train Engineers needs evolve through three distinct phases as organisations mature with SAFe. Understanding these phases helps you set realistic expectations, choose the right tools, and build practices that actually stick.

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Product

Easy Agile apps on Forge: What this means for you

Easy Agile apps are moving to Atlassian Forge in 2026. Learn what’s changing, what isn’t, and what admins need to know.

Workflow

When the Numbers Don't Matter: Why Teams Miss Deadlines Despite Perfect Estimates

Most teams spend hours in sprint planning, but still miss commitments. Discover why coordination matters more than estimation accuracy for predictable delivery.

Product

The Small Habits that Build Better Teams

Many teams run retrospectives, but not consistently. Learn how small, regular habits like connected retros help teams improve. Try Review by Easy Agile - free in Jira.

Workflow

Why Team Planning Will Feel Harder Than It Should in 2026 (and What To Do About It)

What sprint planning challenges will persist in 2026 and the best practices that improve team alignment, team collaboration, and steady team planning.

Product

Look Back, Leap Forward: Introducing Review by Easy Agile

When teams can create a safe space for challenges, improvements and wins to be shared, change happens.

Workflow

Practical ways to take the awkward out of your next retro

Awkward retros are common. Discover practical ways to make them safer and more effective. Try Review by Easy Agile, a free retro tool in Jira.

Agile Best Practice

Velocity Starts with Alignment

Real progress starts with alignment. Build team clarity, plan together, and let velocity take care of itself.

Product

Learn together. Deliver more with the Easy Agile Learning Hub

The Easy Agile Learning Hub is here to help you learn, align, and deliver with confidence. It respects your time and your context. It turns shared learning into shared results.

Workflow

Facilitator tips: how to deal with common retro problems

Discover practical facilitation tips for common retro challenges. Try Review by Easy Agile - free in Jira.

Workflow

Sprint Retrospective Templates to Help Run Better Sprints

The five most popular sprint retrospective templates with agendas, prompts, and facilitation tips.

Workflow

Agile Estimation Techniques: A Deep Dive Into T-Shirt Sizing

A practical guide to T‑shirt sizing in agile, when to use it, how to run it, how it relates to story points, and pitfalls to avoid.

Agile Best Practice

The Planning Emergency Room: Diagnosing and Treating 5 Critical Goal-Setting Pains

Turn goal-setting chaos into delivery success. Fix team alignment issues, priority overload, and planning disconnects with these 5 proven methods.

Company

Atlassian data centre EOL app guide: Moving with confidence

Atlassian sets Data Centre EOL: 28 Mar 2029. Migrate early for savings & cloud-only AI, scale, security. Free Cloud Concierge till Jan 2027.

.png)](/content/blog/goal-setting-align-team-strategy-to-delivery-make-plans-ship/index.html)

Agile Best Practice

How to Make Plans That Actually Ship

Why plans slip and the rhythm that fixes it, outcome, objectives, Business Value, dependencies, and a short weekly review.

Product

How Strategy Roadmaps Turn Strategic Visions Into Action

A strategy roadmap closes the space between big ideas and daily work. It shows how to execute a strategy, turning vision into action, and highlights which key results matter and when to expect them.

Product

How to Keep PI Objectives Visible in Jira from Planning to Delivery

Why PI objectives drift after planning and how to keep them visible, measurable, and aligned from planning to delivery.

Product

How to Prove Your Progress in a PI Sync

How to tracking progress in Jira with evidence: link work to objectives, see real-time status, spot cross-team blockers with Easy Agile Programs.

Agile Best Practice

We Simplified Our OKRs - and Got Better Strategy, Alignment, and Execution

Learn how Easy Agile restructured its OKRs for strategic focus, cross-team alignment, and real-time tracking - powered by Easy Agile Programs.

Agile Best Practice

The Hidden Costs of Agile Anti-Patterns in Team Collaboration

The hidden inefficiencies caused by common agile anti-patterns and how teams can break free for better collaboration and delivery.

Workflow

What sprint planning challenges will persist in 2026 and the best practices that improve team alignment, team collaboration, and steady team planning.

Workflow

Practical ways to take the awkward out of your next retro

Awkward retros are common. Discover practical ways to make them safer and more effective. Try Review by Easy Agile, a free retro tool in Jira.

Workflow

Facilitator tips: how to deal with common retro problems

Discover practical facilitation tips for common retro challenges. Try Review by Easy Agile - free in Jira.

Workflow

Sprint Retrospective Templates to Help Run Better Sprints

The five most popular sprint retrospective templates with agendas, prompts, and facilitation tips.

Workflow

Agile Estimation Techniques: A Deep Dive Into T-Shirt Sizing

A practical guide to T‑shirt sizing in agile, when to use it, how to run it, how it relates to story points, and pitfalls to avoid.

Workflow

12 Steps to Build a Successful Agile Workflow in Jira

Follow this how-to guide to building and implementing an agile workflow in Jira. In this article, we’ll cover what an agile workflow is and define the steps for its creation and its principles in depth.

Workflow

Scrum Workflow: Roles, Stages, and Automation Options

While agile methodology aligns with Scrum, Kanban, and Lean, here, we’ll focus on what a Scrum workflow is and how this methodology can support organizational teamwork.

Workflow

The Ultimate Guide to PI Planning [+Free Template Inside]

PI Planning is key to scaling agile, so we’ve developed this guide and free PI Planning template to help you run successful planning sessions, and build your confidence for your next scaled planning event.

Workflow

The Ultimate Guide to User Story Mapping

We’ve put together this ultimate guide with all the info you need to get up to speed on the latest user story mapping definitions, techniques, and tools. Let’s start with some basics

Workflow

The Ultimate Agile Sprint Planning Guide

How do you feel when someone mentions “planning”? Do you look forward to the opportunity or does the thought of making a plan send you running for the hills?

Workflow

How to Simplify Your Workflow With Visual Task Management

How organized are your Jira boards? On the scale of “well-thought-user-stories-beautifully-prioritized-by-customer-value” to “the-digital-equivalent-of-a-90’s-era-laminate-desk-cluttered-by-sticky-notes-and-old-coffee-cups”, where do yours sit?

Workflow

How to use dependencies to improve the flow of work

Success for agile software teams revolves around collaboration, flexibility, and efficiency.

Workflow

How to use story points for agile estimation

Story points can be a little confusing and are often misunderstood. Story points are an important part of user story mapping, and many agile teams use them when planning their work.

Workflow

How to Write User Stories in Agile Software Development

Sometimes the idea of writing user stories can seem like another "thing" on top of an already busy workload. But for software development teams who are looking to lead their own improvement and deliver software that works for their customers, writing effective user stories is the first step.

Workflow

Collaboration redefined: 8 Strategies to Propel PI Planning

PI planning is a powerful event that helps teams align around goals, business objectives, and customer needs. Traditionally, this quarterly gathering brought together large teams of more than 100 people, including software developers and stakeholders, to complete essential planning.

Workflow

How to set your Agile teams up for success

Agile is about empowering teams to take ownership, feel truly engaged, and foster a culture of collaboration.

Workflow

From surviving to thriving: remote PI Planning with Easy Agile Programs

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversations.

Workflow

SAFe Program Board 101: Everything You Need To Know

“The people who plan the work do the work” is the unwritten rule of the Scaled Agile Framework.

Workflow

Should you form cross-functional agile teams?

In large, conventional organizations, multiple departments manage specific functions. Marketing, finance, HR and sales teams work in silos,

Workflow

Why You Should Use SAFe (and How to Find SAFe Training to Help)

In this article, you’ll learn about the benefits SAFe can offer your enterprise and how effective organizers lead and implement SAFe. You’ll also hear about training courses that can help.

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Product

Easy Agile apps on Forge: What this means for you

Easy Agile apps are moving to Atlassian Forge in 2026. Learn what’s changing, what isn’t, and what admins need to know.

Product

The Small Habits that Build Better Teams

Product

Look Back, Leap Forward: Introducing Review by Easy Agile

When teams can create a safe space for challenges, improvements and wins to be shared, change happens.

Product

How Strategy Roadmaps Turn Strategic Visions Into Action

Product

How to Keep PI Objectives Visible in Jira from Planning to Delivery

Why PI objectives drift after planning and how to keep them visible, measurable, and aligned from planning to delivery.

Product

How to Prove Your Progress in a PI Sync

How to tracking progress in Jira with evidence: link work to objectives, see real-time status, spot cross-team blockers with Easy Agile Programs.

Product

Rethinking our UI: How Easy Agile innovates for a better user experience

At Easy Agile, we’re constantly looking for new ways to improve our products, and one of the ways we foster innovation is through Dash Days

Product

Overcome common retrospective challenges with Easy Agile TeamRhythm

Retrospectives help create an environment where team members can freely share their wins and challenges.

Product

Easy Agile's getting onboard the Cloud Fortified train

Atlassian products set a strong foundation of security and reliability and it only makes sense that the apps that clip onto these products are just as safe and secure.

Product

The Top 6 Enterprise Project Management Software Options

There is a HUGE difference between managing a single project versus the kind of project management large organizations require for aligning multiple projects, teams, and departments.

Product

How to Improve Software Security: Start With These 6 Key Steps

Software security—it’s definitely not the sexiest of topics, but it’s an important one. When not prioritized, it can lead to devastating results

Product

Easy Agile Roadmaps: How To Create a Product Roadmap Template

Roadmaps help agile teams produce great products. They’re iterative, visual, collaborative, and they can be created directly in Jira.

Product

Better together: why we've put the user into User Story Maps

There are some things so obvious that you wonder why it hasn’t happened sooner or how you ever lived without it. This is how we feel about our just-launched integration between Easy Agile User Story Maps and Easy Agile Personas.

Product

Introducing Easy Agile Personas for Jira

According to HubSpot, 96% of growing companies say that customer satisfaction is a key driver of their success.

Product

How to create a Jira roadmap using Easy Agile Roadmaps [2021 update]

By creating a Jira roadmap you won’t need to track down that one you created in Google Sheets or PowerPoint (or did I create it as a table in Confluence?)

Product

Story Maps: A visual tool for customer focus

In this lightning talk, recorded at Facebook, John explores story maps as a way to figure out what your agile software development team should focus on (in order to satisfy customer needs).

View all

Agile Best Practice

The Three Phases of RTE Maturity

‍

Agile Best Practice

Velocity Starts with Alignment

Real progress starts with alignment. Build team clarity, plan together, and let velocity take care of itself.

Agile Best Practice

Turn goal-setting chaos into delivery success. Fix team alignment issues, priority overload, and planning disconnects with these 5 proven methods.

.png)

Agile Best Practice

How to Make Plans That Actually Ship

Why plans slip and the rhythm that fixes it, outcome, objectives, Business Value, dependencies, and a short weekly review.

Agile Best Practice

We Simplified Our OKRs - and Got Better Strategy, Alignment, and Execution

Learn how Easy Agile restructured its OKRs for strategic focus, cross-team alignment, and real-time tracking - powered by Easy Agile Programs.

Agile Best Practice

The Hidden Costs of Agile Anti-Patterns in Team Collaboration

The hidden inefficiencies caused by common agile anti-patterns and how teams can break free for better collaboration and delivery.

.png)

Agile Best Practice

Retrospectives That Drive Change: How to Make Every Sprint Count

Struggling with repetitive retros? This guide helps agile teams turn their reflections into results - with practical steps, examples, and a free template.

Agile Best Practice

How to Create a Team Charter: Template and Guide for Engineering and Product Teams

Learn how to create, embed, and evolve a team charter. Align purpose, roles, and behaviours to help your team thrive - onboard faster and work better.

Agile Best Practice

Why Collaboration Gets Harder as Teams Scale

Discover why communication, planning, and alignment often fail as teams grow, and how to fix it across product and development functions.

Agile Best Practice

Agility Starts with People: Inclusion, Learning Styles, and Psychological Safety

Explore how psychological safety, team inclusion, and diverse learning styles fuel high-performing teams. Learn how to support every team member, foster continuous improvement, and create inclusive workflows that empower everyone.

Agile Best Practice

Why Your Retrospective Isn’t Broken - But Your Follow-Through Might Be

Tired of talking in circles? Learn why most sprint retrospective action items don’t lead to change and how to build a system for follow-through that actually works.

Agile Best Practice

Essential Checklist for Effective Backlog Refinement (and What To Avoid)

Let's talk about the backlog refinement process, once known as backlog grooming. You might know the Pareto principle and the philosophy of doing 80% of the work with 20% effort. It sounds wonderful, right?

Agile Best Practice

How To Avoid These 6 Agile Planning Mistakes

Agile planning is a critical phase of the agile process, as it determines the team’s priorities and sets the tone for the work to come.

Agile Best Practice

How to Approach Your Agile Release Plan for Successful Development

Find out what goes into creating a planning meeting and how to set your Scrum team up for successful product releases.

Agile Best Practice

Agile in 2025: Expert Predictions and Industry Trends

What's next for Agile in 2025? Industry experts and the Agile community reveal 8 key trends, from the evolution of agile roles to business-wide transformation. Get actionable insights.

Agile Best Practice

Foundations of Customer-Centric Agile

Transform your agile practice with customer-centric development. Learn the six core principles of customer-focused agile and how to implement them for better outcomes.

Agile Best Practice

Mastering User Story Mapping for Customer-Centric Product Development

Learn how user story mapping can transform your product development process. Explore how to visualize customer journeys, prioritize features effectively, and ensure your team builds products users actually want.

Agile Best Practice

The Problem with Agile Estimation

Estimation is a common challenge for agile software development teams. The anticipated size and complexity of a task is anything but objective; what is simple for one person may not be for another.

Agile Best Practice

Powering Alignment and Empathy in Agile Teams

Aligning agile teams around user needs results in software that resonates with users and fulfills business goals. Successful software delivery relies on continuous alignment and empathy with customer needs, so that users are satisfied with the software you deliver, and see the value offered by your organization.

Agile Best Practice

Why Leading Agile Teams Focus on Customer Value

Let’s take a look at 7 reasons why it’s good to have a healthy level of customer obsession in your agile teams.

View all

Company

Atlassian data centre EOL app guide: Moving with confidence

Atlassian sets Data Centre EOL: 28 Mar 2029. Migrate early for savings & cloud-only AI, scale, security. Free Cloud Concierge till Jan 2027.

Company

Easy Agile is now SOC 2 Type 1 and 2 certified

We are thrilled to announce that Easy Agile has successfully achieved SOC 2 Type II compliance, a significant milestone in our unwavering commitment to maintaining high standards of security and privacy.

Company

Ownership at Easy Agile

Nick and I started Easy Agile after returning home to Australia from living and working in San Francisco where we witnessed the good and not-so-good sides of startups.

Company

Easy Agile X JXL, better together

When working in Jira, lots of users struggle organising their data at scale and even resort to exporting it to a Google sheet, MS Excel spreadsheet or Smartsheet to make sense of it.

Company

My journey from psychologist to software developer

We’re checking the surf and haven’t talked in a while. Two sets of eyes locked on the ocean, is it worth paddling out this windy winter morning?

Company

How we work at Easy Agile

Easy Agile’s purpose is to find a better way to work. Back in 2018 we consciously acknowledged that what got us here👇🏼, won’t get us there 👉🏼.

Company

A day in the life of Jamie

It's a Monday morning and I’ve just pulled into the Kiama train station carpark.

Company

Meet Atlas Authority - Easy Agile Partner

Atlassian alumni make up a part of the Easy Agile team, with several former Atlassian staff working within the Easy Agile business.

Company

Meet Design Industries - Easy Agile Partner

Design Industries are obsessed with improving the productivity of their Enterprise & Government clients. They do this by optimising their clients' usage of Atlassian tools and implementing best practices while ensuring the platform and apps remain highly available through their partnerships with AWS and Ali Cloud.

View all

Jira

Your Guide to Using Scrum and Kanban Jira Boards

Without intuitive software to guide projects, managers and team members can easily end up shaking their heads in utter confusion.

Jira

Step Up Your Jira Workflows With These 11 Best Practices

Our team has been using Jira workflows for years, and we’ve learned a thing or two along the way. Okay, we’ve learned a lot along the way. 😎

Jira

An Intro for Jira Administrators (Plus 8 Helpful Hacks and Tips)

Curious about what it takes to become a Jira administrator? Want to become one yourself? Or maybe you already are a Jira admin, but you’re constantly striving to learn more about your field. Either way, you’ve come to the right place!

Jira

Examples of How Jira Workflow Automation Helps Streamline Your Projects

Any organizational change is complex, no matter how big or small. Tracking workflows can also be a huge headache without software.

Jira

Jira Software Features for Product Owners and Development Teams

In this post, we’ll focus on all of the features available for teams using Jira Software. We’ll cover what’s included and how your team can make the most of Jira Software features and add ons.

Jira

Streamline Your Sprints With 9 Jira Automations

A sprint focuses on interaction and collaboration to produce working software. A team has to do a lot of work to maintain their sprint workflows in Jira.

Jira

4 Best Jira Add-ons To Support Your Projects

These apps help teams successfully carry on projects and deliver on time. In this article, we’ll go over our selection of Jira gadgets for workflow management, reporting, and project administration.

Jira

4 Easy Agile Jira Apps to Improve Your Jira Experience

A key principle of working in an agile way is flexibility. It throws away rigid plans and instead embraces an iterative process that evolves with the needs of the customer.

Jira

How To Use Jira To Support Your User Segmentation Strategy

It's common knowledge in the world of digital marketing and eCommerce that personalization results in higher conversion rates, more engaged users, and a better overall brand experience for your customers.

Jira

Easy Jira Project Management with Kanban

Scrum isn't the only agile software development methodology out there. 😲 If you're not familiar with Kanban, we promise we’re not going rogue — Kanban is agile.

Jira

The Best Jira Tutorials, Training, and Certifications

Read our list of recommended Jira tutorials, training, and certifications that will start you on the path to Jira mastery.

Jira

What Jira Roadmaps Can Do for Agile

In this article, we'll unpack the purpose of product roadmaps and whether they’re all the same, as well as why Easy Agile Roadmaps for Jira is the simplest roadmapping tool for Jira.

Jira

What is the difference between sprints and versions in Jira?

Anyone working in the agile environment would agree there are a million different terms to wrap your head around. As a marketer with no agile or software development experience, this is definitely true for me.

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Engineering

Time-Saving VSCode Shortcuts to Boost Developer Productivity

Essential Visual Studio Code keyboard shortcuts in a TypeScript setting to save time and code faster.

Engineering

How to Build Observability for Forge Applications

How we achieved observability on Forge, covering metrics, logs, tracing, and lessons learned along the way.

Engineering

4 hacks for writing frontend tests 10x faster (probably!)

We all know writing unit tests is important but sometimes it feels like it can take up more time than the feature work itself.

Engineering

Foo Bar Nah

I bent over my desk in frustration, suppressing the urge to scream so as not to upset the rhythmic clack-clack of my coworkers.

Engineering

How I got into web development

I fell into web development, that's how it feels without digging into the details. That does not sound like how you want to go about choosing a career but in reality, it was years of small decisions and nudges that I ended up doing work I really enjoy.

View all