YakShaver.ai – using AI to create the perfect task, PBI or work item in 30 seconds
Back when Scott Hanselman was a Microsoft RD, we got into a long conversation about ‘Shaving the Yak’. Yak shaving is when you get sidetracked by a series of small tasks that you spot along the way while trying to accomplish your main goal. I think most developers find it easy to fall down rabbit holes as they discover bugs along the way.
As developers, we come across this a lot, where a straightforward task unexpectedly spirals into a complex chain of semi-related or unrelated issues. It slows us down a lot and can be frustrating. It also fixes a lot of bugs along the way. In the perfect world, the reporting of the issue would be second, so you can stay on task.
Enter YakShaver.
At SSW, we’ve experienced this problem firsthand thousands of times and developed an awesome AI tool to mitigate it: YakShaver.
In the below, Uly can show you how it works in about 1 minute.
What is YakShaver?
YakShaver is an AI-powered tool that allows people to report bug or feature in seconds. Importantly, it instantly puts it in the right backlog with the video and acceptance criteria, repo steps etc.
No more long emails that take forever to write, that you forget to include a screenshot and URL of the problem. YakShaver lets you quickly record a short video or voice snippet, capturing the problem clearly and accurately. It then uses AI to automatically transcribe the details into structured, actionable tasks, PBIs, or backlog items, routing them straight to the right team/backlog. Less yak shaving, more coding. It’s as easy as:
- Record a video – if you find a bug or have an idea, you record your screen and voice with any app you like.
- YakShaver watches your video, turns what you say into text, and figures out what’s happening
- YakShaver creates a task, bug report, or feature request in your favourite system (Azure DevOps, GitHub, etc). It then sends emails. It will include a great title, description, and tasks, plus the original video for additional context.
✅ Done – 30 seconds and you’re free to move on. 🎉
Benefits for Developers
We’ve been using it for 6 months, and the SSW devs say it’s faster and produces a clear work item, reduces interruptions, and saves the Product Owner from coming back to them because they can hear it from the horse’s mouth. It also means they no longer need to ‘step over’ problems to stay on task. They just record a quick video and move on. No context switching, no meetings, no emails or PBI templates.
Benefits for Business People
For our managers and Product Owners, I have mostly seen them use YakShaver to record features – YakShaver allows them to dump any ideas straight from their brains to the backlog. They don’t get the usual clarifying call because the devs can see what they were experiencing. With YakShaver you also get happy devs – that is important to managers for retention and productivity.
If you have a large team, you don’t need to know who is in charge of any project; you just tell YakShaver the issue, and it does the hard work for you, it finds the right person or team.
Here is what we’re seeing for the last 6 months of adoption:
Want to know more?
I’m loving YakShaver, and I often find myself recording many ‘shaves’ in a day. Communication between Product Owners and Developers is very important to me, and this tool solves that. I recently shared how YakShaver smooths out Scrum team conversations at NDC Oslo and our local User Groups. Check out my talk here:
If you wanna check it out for yourself, join the waitlist:
https://yakshaver.ai/
Can you imagine yourself recording a bug, and that’s all? Let me know in the comments! 👇🏻