Choosing a methodology
Understand what each built-in methodology controls and how to switch later.
What a methodology controls
When you select a methodology for a project, Skopo configures:
- Work-item types — the kinds of items your team creates (for example, stories and bugs in Scrum, or requests and expedite items in Kanban).
- Workflow states — the columns on your board, including WIP limits and allowed transitions between states.
- Board and sidebar views — only the views relevant to your methodology appear in the project sidebar.
- Rituals — the recurring meetings or cadences your team runs, complete with agendas, preparation steps, and structured outcome capture.
- Artifacts — typed records such as sprint goals, pitches, experiments, or definitions of done.
- Metrics — the health signals and flow measures shown in Insights, derived from your team's actual work events.
Methodology configuration is a versioned snapshot stored with your project. Changing the global catalog definition does not silently update existing projects.
The built-in methodologies
Skopo ships with seven built-in methodologies:
- Scrum — time-boxed sprints, a product backlog, sprint planning, daily standups, review, and retrospective. Suited to teams that want predictable cadences and regular delivery commitments.
- Kanban — continuous flow with explicit WIP limits and pull policies. Suited to teams managing variable demand or support work.
- Shape Up — fixed-time cycles, appetite-driven pitches, and a betting table. Suited to product teams that want to set scope, not estimate it.
- Extreme Programming (XP) — iteration-based delivery with engineering practices such as TDD, pair programming, continuous integration, and collective ownership. Suited to teams prioritising code quality and rapid feedback.
- Scrumban — a hybrid of Scrum cadences and Kanban flow control. Suited to teams transitioning from Scrum toward continuous delivery.
- Dual-Track Agile — parallel discovery and delivery tracks with experiment-to-delivery conversion. Suited to product teams running continuous product discovery alongside delivery.
- Basic — a lightweight project type with minimal structure, for work that does not fit a formal methodology.
You choose a methodology when you create a project. The new-project wizard shows a description of each option, including the work-item types and views it enables.
Changing later
You can migrate a project to a different methodology after creation. Skopo shows a preview of all mapping changes — work-item type mappings, workflow state mappings, artifact changes, and metric resets — before applying anything. Migration is an explicit two-step action: preview, then apply.
Work-item identity is preserved through migration. Every item keeps its ID and history; only type labels and status mappings change.
To start a methodology migration, open Project Settings and scroll to the Methodology setup section.