Earlier today, I jokingly asked Tom Danielson of Team Garmin-Transitions for some advice on training for the Mt. Evans Hill Climb. Tom holds the record for the Mt. Evans Hill Climb (as well as the Mt. Washington Race to the Clouds) so I figured he’d know best. His response to me via Twitter was classic and I thought I’d share it with anyone else out there training for Mt. Evans: So, there you have it, some sage advice from the climbing master! Similar Posts: 2010’s Goal or What Did I Get Myself Into? The Fake Tour de France Video My Favorite Training Videos
Agile
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Chris Spagnuolo's Edgehopper
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Sage Advice from a Climbing Master
6 Feb 2010 | 1:10 pm -
2010’s Goal or What Did I Get Myself Into?
2 Feb 2010 | 11:01 pmI just made a race commitment earlier this week and entered the 2010 edition of the Bob Cook Memorial Mt. Evans Hill Climb…YIKES! I’ve been wanting to race this one for a few years now, but something always got in the way (little things like a herniated disc). Well, provided I stay healthy until July, I’ll be climbing to the top this year on North America’s highest paved road…hopefully. It’s strange but the second I pushed the submit button on my entry, I felt butterflies in my stomach and my legs suddenly felt really tired! I think my body was asking “What the… -
The Training Cave
1 Feb 2010 | 11:01 pmIt’s Groundhog Day here in the U.S. and Canada and we’re all waiting for the little prognosticating rodent to stick his head out of his burrow and let us know how much longer we’ll have to endure riding indoors this winter! I’m hoping not too much longer! But, in honor of Punxsutawney Phil’s moment in the sun (or hopefully not), I thought I’d share some pictures of what my training cave looks like. If you want to spread the winter cheer, poke your head out your burrow and let me know what’s in your training cave or better yet, send along some pix and I’ll post them… -
By the Numbers: January
1 Feb 2010 | 4:20 amWow, January has flown by already! I mentioned earlier this month that I was using Daytum to to do some basic tracking and sharing of some of my daily personal stats, so, here is my January by the numbers. And yes, it was a very “indoor riding kind of month” around these parts. Similar Posts: The Training Cave 9 Ways to Stay Fit this Winter My Favorite Training Videos -
Cyclemeter iPhone App Giveaway
31 Jan 2010 | 11:33 amMe and my friends at Abvio are teaming up this week to give away 10 FREE copies of their latest iPhone app for cycling, Cyclemeter 2.0. Cyclemeter is iPhone-centric. No Web site logins, no uploads, no ads. Your iPhone has all the cycling data you want, right when you want it. Click on the button above to take the full Cyclemeter Tour. Entry Requirements To enter for a chance to win, just head over to Abvio’s Cyclemeter website and take the Cyclemeter Tour. Then come back here to Zen on Two Wheels and leave a comment on this post telling us what you liked most about the app before…
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Agile Blog
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Some Silly Advice
26 Jan 2010 | 3:53 amI’ve noticed a piece of advice repeated in many Agile blogs, articles, and books. Seeing it makes me roll my eyes until it hurts. (Why I would hurt myself on purpose will be the subject of another post, on a blog reserved for psychotherapists.) Even my very most favorite Agile book, “Scaling Lean & Agile Development” by Craig Larman and Bas Vodde, has a section in there with this advice. I saw it in Jim Highsmith’s new book, too, although by the time he’s done discussing it he does make a couple of good points. It’s an old piece of advice that pre-dates Agile. What is this old… -
Moving Beyond Pull Systems Requires a Culture of Innovation
21 Jan 2010 | 3:33 amHow to Foster A Culture of Innovation “It took me more than 53 years to understand that culture isn’t just important, it is everything.” -Lou Gerstner In the coming decade, software and product teams must provide the critically needed innovative approaches to organizations throughout the world. The visual metaphors and practical, hands-on ideas in these posts will give executives, managers, and engineers ways to speed up this evolution. Starting on Monday. To make and maintain a culture of innovation requires a team to consider that task as a part of their work, complementary… -
Define Kanban in 130 Characters or Less — Can You Do It?
20 Jan 2010 | 3:24 amRecently, I was working on an introductory presentation about Kanban. A “thorough” Google search revealed how drawn out and convoluted many Kanban explanations can be. Was there one true answer I was missing? Something nice and succinct like, say, a tweet on twitter? Acting on this and laziness, I decided to pose the following question to twitter: I was so surprised by the number of great responses that I’ve decided to compile and share them with you here: giff24: #kanban 130 chrctrs? PLS!!! I dnt hve time or patience 2 rd that much erwilleke: #kanban combines systems… -
“Why Lean and Agile Go Together” on Forbes.com
13 Jan 2010 | 4:18 pmLooking for the perfect trend article to pass on to your executives about Agile development? Check out Dan Woods‘ well-researched, executive-level article “Why Lean and Agile Go Together” on Forbes.com Jargon Spy. Dan describes how the Agile impact in software is similar to the Lean impact in manufacturing of the 90’s. I initially struggled with the analogy until I realized he is not saying that software development is like manufacturing. He is saying that the concepts and techniques applied in Lean manufacturing are coming to large-scale software development. I… -
“Telling” and Agile Enterprise Adoptions Do Not Go Together
11 Jan 2010 | 8:24 amI have been back in the Fifth Discipline Fieldbook this week thinking about strategies for creating a shared vision to 2020 at Rally. With our newest round of funding, we will be growing rapidly in multiple locations and beyond the max tribe size of 150-170 people. (Dunbar’s Number) Over that last year, we grew the business well but without advancing our total headcount numbers. Now with headcount growth slated in the field and in two development centers, we need a stronger foundation to steer our growth. Doing this work, hit me with a BFO (Brilliant Flash of the Obvious) that is…
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Managed Chaos
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Agile India 2010 Conference Slides are available
29 Jan 2010 | 9:03 amMumbai Conference & Bengaluru Conference. Stay tuned for the Videos. We are working on them. If you are not following us on Twitter (@agileIndia) please do so. Its easy to make all important announcements there. -
Craftsmanship in designing Error Messages
28 Jan 2010 | 8:44 pmAlso if you see their URL: http://www.mailchimp.com/maintenance_in_progress/we_are_down.phtml Very intent revealing. Great thinking has gone behind this. Now this is what I call craftsmanship. -
Conferences could be lot more Greener
28 Jan 2010 | 1:38 amRecently at the Agile Mumbai 2010 and Agile Bengaluru 2010 conference, we tried to make the conference as green (environment friendly) as possible. Following are the things we tried: We did not hand over any conference program, printed hand-outs & slides or any other printed material (except for what the conference sponsor handed over). All this info is already available on our website. To make it convenient for the conference attendees, we took 3 large (A2 size) printout and stuck it outside each hall (track). We also skipped handing over notepads & pens. I my experience very few… -
Post-Modern Agile
27 Jan 2010 | 12:27 pmBeyond dogma, beyond ceremony, beyond logical & rational bull-shit, detaching self from cutting edge agile practices to embrace, scale & sustain essential agility. From Fail Safe experimentation to lots of Safe Fail experimentation. From Objectivity to Subjectivity to Relativity to Uncertainty. From Structure to Chaos. From Illusions to Idealism to Realism. Beginner’s Mind, here I come…. -
What did you learn at Agile Mumbai and Agile Bengaluru 2010 Conference
24 Jan 2010 | 8:37 pmLoading…
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Scrum 4 You
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Trainings im März | CSM Wien, Zürich und Professional ScrumMaster in Wien
8 Feb 2010 | 7:19 amIm März 3 CSM Termine - allen voran das deutsche CSM Training mit ScrumCooking in Wien am 15+16.3. Gefolgt von 2x Zürich: am 11+12.3. CSM in englischer Sprache Boris Gloger mit CST-Anwärter Ralph Jocham und am 29.+30.3. CSM in deutscher Sprache Boris Gloger mit CST-Anwärter Josef Scherer. Das der Auftakt unseres neuen Professional ScrumMaster® Programms in Wien: 4+5.3. TeamEntwicklungsTraining [...] -
Presenting | Fearless Talks
7 Feb 2010 | 10:42 pm15 in before my talk in Dornbirn I was in panic! A super cool room, more than 100 people, the best media technology support I ever had and I had not prepared a presentation on slides. My idea was to do a dialogue with the people, but the room… In “Confessions of a Public Speaker” [1] [...] -
Mr. M on bor!sgloger | Managers job!
5 Feb 2010 | 9:52 amIn my last post I talked about the “How to structure a company?” and I just raised some questions. No answers where given. David Koonz mentioned in his comments companies like Gore, and Semco. And I agree, these companies seem to have solved the questions about how to structure a company. The research Boris did about [...] -
5 min on Scrum | Retrospectives| 10 Ideas
4 Feb 2010 | 5:36 amPeter Stevens wrote a nice blog entry about Retrospectives [1] that is worth reading. I wanted to use seed to give you 10 ideas to improve your retrospective. Change the standard format from time to time. Introduce new questions, or different colors. Run the retrospective in a park or a garden, not in the office. Read a book about [...] -
Seth Godin | The Tribes We Lead
3 Feb 2010 | 5:22 amUsing Scrum means you commit to constant change and improvement. As mentioned in earlier articles, a ScrumMaster usually is not in any kind of authoritative position to lead his team. He is leading because he is focused on the best interest of the team, the company, the product owner, the customer … usually everybody involved. [...]
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Agile Software Development Made Easy!
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5 Reasons Why Agile Development Must Be Driven from the Top
8 Feb 2010 | 8:00 amAgile development is often initiated by the development team itself. Whilst they may find some good advantages, the most profound benefits of agile software development will not be realised unless it is driven from the top.Here's why:1. Multi-disciplined teamsOne of the key concepts of agile development is the idea of multi-disciplined teams - "one team". An agile development team needs all the skills necessary to complete its task from cradle to grave. From initial request to delivery to market, the team should be able to deliver without reference to another team.Having multi-disciplined… -
Special Offer! Get My Agile eBook And Presentations For Just $10 For 1 Month Only
2 Feb 2010 | 1:31 amHi everyone! I've been really pleased with how well my eBook has beeen selling. I normally sell it for $25, but I've decided to do a special offer for 1 month only. It's a kind of belated new-year sale I suppose you could say!Throughout February, you can now get my 55-page eBook - Agile Software Development Made Easy! - for just $10.I've updated all my posts in the series '10 Key Principles of Agile Software Development' and 'How To Implement Scrum in 10 Easy Steps'. I've brought the text up-to-date with my current thinking, and in a few cases I've expanded on the points on my blog. I've also… -
Pair Programming - An Extremely Agile Practice
31 Jan 2010 | 4:17 amPair Programming. It's probably one of the most extreme practices of eXtreme Programming (XP). It's an area of agile software development that polarises opinion.The concept is simple enough. Two developers work side by side on the same piece of work, sharing a keyboard and screen and working together to produce the code.The main advantage of pair programming is usually cited as improving quality, which also improves productivity further down the line.Another advantage is spreading knowledge, as at least two people will know each area of the system. And it can also help with skills development… -
Agile Visitors in 2009
30 Jan 2010 | 1:44 amHi everyone! This blog just seems to keep on growing! It's a bit belated, but I just had a look back at last year's stats...2009 brought over 750,000 page views from 200,000 people! That's astonishing to me - it's so good to think that this blog might have helped so many people.Thank you all for visiting!Kelly.Photo by Sreejith K -
'All About Agile' is no more!
26 Jan 2010 | 4:34 amBack in September, I renamed this blog from 'All About Agile' to Agile Software Development Made Easy!If you are one of the many people kind enough to link to my blog on your home page, but you're still listing me under the old name, please would you update the link text to Agile Software Development Made Easy!That would help me with Google and obviously it's better to use the new name. Much appreciated!Kelly.
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Agile Thinkers: Members Blog Posts
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Agile Organizations
Principles over practices The agile methods and practices are built on a common philosophy and common principles for good system development. These principles are described in the agile manifesto. When agile methods and practices are implemented, it’s often from the wish of a more efficient development process, but equally often without knowing if the organizational conditions for such a renewal are present or wanted. Often we see that agile attempts, typically in larger organizations resulting in resistance against, isolation of or even expulsion of the attempt. Agile methods have… -
How Agile Practices address the Five Dysfunctions of a Team ?
Since times immemorial, ideas, objects and experiences of grand stature and lasting economic, social and emotional value have been created by men and women working together in teams. Granted that some extraordinary work in the fields of arts, philosophy and sciences was done by truly exceptional individuals, apparently working alone, I suspect that they too were ably supported by other selfless and unsung individuals (in the backoffice, perhaps) who all worked together as a team. Right from the great wars, social upheavals, political resistance, empire building, freedom struggles and forming… -
Scrummy?
I came across this website completely by accident via stumbleupon: scrumy.com hell if the video doesn't convince you I don't know what will ;-) lol -
Survey: What are your thoughts on this recession?
Hello Agile Thinkers! Currently, Neuron Global is creating a Special Report on the Current Economic downturn. I am writing you today because we are still in the process of finding out what issues and fears are at the forefront of people’s minds and we very much need help in collecting this research. We aim to develop a timely white paper, available online, that answers critical questions like: 1. What lessons from economic downturns in the past can be applied to today? 2. What information do I need to know to survive & thrive in a prolonged recession? 3. What are things that I can do to… -
Self managing/organising teams: Hey Scrummaster, let the team decide!
A self-organizing team is a powerful concept. But what if the team collectively decides to go into a direction that you as a Scrum Master know for sure that they will hit problems. (or at least you think) F.i. they decide to abandon retrospectives. Will you respect their decision or will you try to change it? Would you go for option 1) respect the team or 2) try to convince the team away from their decision. May I ask you, intelligent agilist, to provide examples of similar conflicts you encountered in real life. If you solved the situation, please let us know how. If not, just post the…
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ScrumAlliance
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Can Scrum Support Six Sigma?
4 Feb 2010 | 6:38 amCan Scrum Support Six Sigma? By Heitor Roriz Filho, MSc, CSP Agile Coach AdaptWorks, Brazil hroriz@adaptworks.com.br INTRODUCTION This article discusses briefly how Scrum could support Six Sigma projects. Issues of whether Six Sigma is used sp... -
What does a ScrumMaster do?
27 Jan 2010 | 4:07 pmWhat does a ScrumMaster do? Dr. German Sakaryan CSP, CSM As a ScrumMaster, I was asked this question many times. Sometimes I had enough time to explain, sometimes not. But every time it was challenging to provide a clear picture of what a ScrumM... -
Power of the Post-it
25 Jan 2010 | 8:53 amPower of the Post-it By Aaron Conoly, CSM When it comes to Scrum, I'm a newb. I got my CSM certification last year and have been slowly learning how best to introduce Scrum to my organization. Recently, I started using Post-its to enhance how we... -
Promote the CSC Improvement Community
25 Jan 2010 | 8:19 am -
Transitioning to Scrum: Selecting the Product Owner
21 Jan 2010 | 7:16 amTransitioning to Scrum: Selecting the Product Owner By John Clifford, CSM, CSPO, CSP Construx Software, Inc. John.Clifford@Construx.com Many teams moving to Scrum have questions about the Product Owner position. Is the Product Owner a member of ...
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Agile Alliance: All
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Programs
1 Feb 2010 | 11:24 amThe Agile Alliance conducts much of its work via programs proposed by members. Some examples of past programs are topic-focused workshops, local Agile conferences, and academic research projects. Our current programs are listed below. The primary requirement for any program is that it supports the values, goals, and purpose of the Agile Alliance: a) To provide an unbiased forum within which the community can freely work to discuss, promote, and improve agile development processes; b) To encourage scientific research in current and potential uses of agile processes; c) To share information… -
Agile Alliance Home
4 Sep 2009 | 3:11 amWondering what agile software development is, start here. Agile practitioners can login to this site to find articles and keep track of agile events and news. Join the over 4000 supporters of agile development become a member Join now! Interested in learning more about participating in future Agile conferences, click here Agile 2010—Nashville, USA Previous Conference Sites -
Agile Development
13 Aug 2009 | 7:07 amDownload Agile Magazine The old Agile Times Download Sample AgileDevelopment Magazine was published by Agile Alliance on a quarterly basis from Spring 2006 until 2007 Summer. Its authors share successes and challenges with Agile projects, explain various methods and tools, and provide insights into new research. What is agile software development? AgileDevelopment was delivered quarterly as a downloadable PDF file. It doesn’t need to be printed out; you can read it easily on your computer screen. And you want to use it on your computer screen, because it is highly interactive. That… -
Public Resources
17 Feb 2009 | 12:32 amAgile Times Newsletter The Agile Times newsletter was our member newsletter written by and for members from 2003 to 2005. Past issues are available for download here. The newer e-magazine Agile Development for members only was produced through Summer 2007. Agile User Groups This page contain an index of independent agile user groups worldwide. Application forms for support for user groups can be found here. Carnival of the Agilists Agile happenings in the blogosphere. Agile Journal The Agile Journal publishes original content articles on a wide variety of Agile topics and is directed by Liz… -
Next To Map
19 May 2008 | 12:37 pmJoin the Agile Community With more than 4261 members located around the globe, the Agile Alliance is driven by the values and principles of the Manifesto for Agile Software Development We support those who explore and apply Agile principles and practices to make the software industry productive, humane, and sustainable.
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Scrum Log Jeff Sutherland
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Excel Spreadsheet for Hyperproductive Scrum Teams - very cool!
30 Jan 2010 | 9:43 amScrum Metrics for Hyperproductive Teams: How They Fly Like Fighter AircraftJeff Sutherland and Scott DowneyAgile 2010 SubmissionScrum teams use lightweight metrics like story points, the burndown chart, and team velocity. The inventor of Scrum was a fighter pilot and used the burndown chart to help teams land a sprint properly. Recent work with hyperproductive teams shows they are like modern jet fighters in two ways. They have engines that produce velocity—alignment of the team, and team spirit. And they carefully measures aspects of performance to make slight adjustments in flight. -
Role of the Manager in Scrum
24 Jan 2010 | 4:45 amPete Deemer, our Business Manager at the Scrum Training Institute, has written an excellent article on the role of the manager in Scrum.---------Like me, you probably get asked the following question quite often: "What's the role of a manager in Scrum? I'm a manager, and since I'm not mentioned in the definition of the Scrum roles, and the team is self-organizing, does that mean I'm supposed to just... disappear?" I recently wrote a short guide to answering this question. A couple other CST's have stumbled upon it in the last few weeks and emailed me to say they found it quite useful,… -
Agile 2010 Abstract Posted: Hitting the Wall!
24 Jan 2010 | 3:48 amHitting the Wall: What to Do When High Performing Scrum Overwhelms Operationsll-at-once Scrum implementations require total commitment to change, high level management participation and aggressive removal of impediments. In July of 2009, Pegasystems (NASDAQ:PEGA) deployed 27 Scrum teams in the U.S. and India in less than two months and global continuous integration became a top priority impediment. To avoid “hitting the wall” before the first major Scrum release of their enterprise software applications, a Scrum SWAT team engineered a continuous integration environment for hundreds of… -
Iterative vs. Incremental Development
13 Jan 2010 | 10:51 amDrawing by Jeff PattonWhat is iterative and what is incremental development? Even the experts are confusing themselves when describing it. Perhaps our language is an inadequate reflection of reality.Jeff Patton thinks software should be built the way an artist works. The artist "iterates" on the whole thing and the potential of the whole picture is visible in every iteration from the initial sketch to the final painting. The complete work comes gradually into focus. Patton calls this "iterative" development.However, this is exactly what Mills and Brooks call "incremental" development. They… -
HICSS 2010: Schedule of Agile Papers
31 Dec 2009 | 12:19 amFree download of IEEE library of HICSS papers from previous years!HICSS has an agreement with IEEE for free download of all published papers. Click on link above.HICSS-43 Agile Papers ScheduleTrack: Software TechnologyMinitrack: Agile Software Development: Lean, Distributed, and ScalableCo-Chairs: Jeff Sutherland and Gabrielle BenefieldJanuary 5-8, 2010The Grand Hyatt Kauai Resort & Spa, Kaloa, Kauai, HawaiiHICSS-43 offers a unique, highly interactive and professionally challenging environment that attendees find "very helpful -- lots of different perspectives and ideas as a…
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WordPress Tag: Agile
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5 Guiding Principles for a Modern Recruitment Business
8 Feb 2010 | 6:26 amI love working as part of the Stopgap Group, not least because it’s a values driven business that places the welfare of its people and the quality of service given to clients and candidates at the very top of its priorities. Consultants have always been rewarded on feedback – since the day the business was launched 17 years ago – and we always look for consultants with who have compassion, a real interest in people and a genuine desire to make a difference, rather than just sales skills. We’re empowered too, and all encouraged to contribute to the future direction of the… -
Great slide shows from Pathfinder
7 Feb 2010 | 10:00 pmI came across these two great presentations about Agile on the Pathfinder blog, which is something I -
Learning and improving: The tricky deployment
7 Feb 2010 | 10:00 pmThe weekend just ended and I almost didn’t see it. I’ve been in a non-stop mode since Friday when we began the deployment process of a really large project into the staging environment for stakeholders UAT. Our original estimates, back on Friday, were 2h for merging, integrating, validating and communicating the end of the process. However, when we finally communicated the end of the process on Saturday at 1:30PM CST, about 30 hours had been spent by each of the almost 7 developers working throughout the weekend. Lot went wrong – and there’s a lot to learn from it. The… -
Emergent Requirements in Civil Engineering
7 Feb 2010 | 3:03 amI often talk about how requirements emerge in software projects – how we initially express what we think is needed and over time the real understanding comes to light. This approach is so common because so much of what we do in software projects is exploration – we don’t know what we don’t know and we’re finally acknowledging the uncertainty that surrounds much of software development. This is far from a new approach, over 20 years ago the Barry Boehm coined an acronym “IKIWISI” – it stands for “I’ll Know It When I See It”… -
Open agile = Scrum meets 7 habits?
6 Feb 2010 | 10:43 pmAfter having experimented with waterfall, MSF for Agile, scrumbut, scrum and now kanban, I’ve still not gotten hooked on one of these methods. What I don’t like with scrum is 1. the terms – business people don’t understand what a scrum master is, etc 2. Incapacity to react to quality issues, changes in the sprint. When I read Henrik Kniberg’s excellent work on Scrum and during Mike Cohn’s product owner training, it became all but too clear that scrum has a hard time reacting to bugs and quality defects. Not to mention sudden changes to priorities. 3. Problematic when the resources…
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WordPress Tag: Scrum
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Agile Development (Theory in practice) : James Shore and Shane Warden
8 Feb 2010 | 5:16 amDuring a trip, I’ve read this book. I think it’s a very good book to start with when you plan to implement agility in your team. Both as a developer or a Product. Was chatting with a friend of mine some days ago, on the ‘where to start’. Indeed it’s difficult. You may be frighten to introduced agility as a whole, but it’s the best solution. Remove all your usages, challenge your team. But this required both a hightly motivated team, and a good Agile/Scrum practitioner to ask for help on a regular basis. So, I’ll try why I love the book : Reminder… -
Learning and improving: The tricky deployment
7 Feb 2010 | 10:00 pmThe weekend just ended and I almost didn’t see it. I’ve been in a non-stop mode since Friday when we began the deployment process of a really large project into the staging environment for stakeholders UAT. Our original estimates, back on Friday, were 2h for merging, integrating, validating and communicating the end of the process. However, when we finally communicated the end of the process on Saturday at 1:30PM CST, about 30 hours had been spent by each of the almost 7 developers working throughout the weekend. Lot went wrong – and there’s a lot to learn from it. The… -
Open agile = Scrum meets 7 habits?
6 Feb 2010 | 10:43 pmAfter having experimented with waterfall, MSF for Agile, scrumbut, scrum and now kanban, I’ve still not gotten hooked on one of these methods. What I don’t like with scrum is 1. the terms – business people don’t understand what a scrum master is, etc 2. Incapacity to react to quality issues, changes in the sprint. When I read Henrik Kniberg’s excellent work on Scrum and during Mike Cohn’s product owner training, it became all but too clear that scrum has a hard time reacting to bugs and quality defects. Not to mention sudden changes to priorities. 3. Problematic when the resources… -
Ordered systems: properties
6 Feb 2010 | 3:56 pmAs with an object existing as an index of a system, additional nodes, assets etc may affect the system directly or indirectly. For these the only reference thats needed is the system itself e.g. 011 = Root 011-21 = upperLeg 011-22 = lowerLeg 011.property[1] = polevector This is very rough atm, and currently called a ‘property’ of the system. Anything can be a property of a system including, nodes, controllers, values – it’s just something thats related to the system. Im assuming we can ask an object/controller/value etc if its the property of a system with x.isProperty… -
Daily Scrum: Focus on Completing Things
6 Feb 2010 | 7:00 amScrum is about achieving customer value. Each day must bring the team one step closer to their goal. They must achieve things. Stories and tasks must be completed. To get more focus on this matter the questions in Daily Scrum meetings can be adapted a little bit. Observing this team’s daily Scrums, I noticed that they talked a lot about what they did in the past 24 hours and what they would do in the next 24. Everyone seemed busy and could account for their time. But I had a hard time connecting their busyness to the work they’d committed to do in the Sprint. So, I suggested a slight…
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Atlassian Developer Blog
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Help! The JIRA 4 dashboard is slow on a mobile device!
28 Jan 2010 | 5:53 pmAt Atlassian, all developers end up doing a 2 week support rotation every now and then. It's a great opportunity to see first hand how all the buggy code I write as a developer ends up hurting customers and will hopefully provide an incentive to write less buggy code in the future ;). It is also a good time to come up with innovative little patches that help customers in the short-term, which can then be fed back into the product in the long run. This blog is about one such case. During my last support stint one of our JIRA Studio support engineers brought a support case to my attention where… -
The Atlassian Community IRC Channel
26 Jan 2010 | 10:00 pmTo help people connect with each other, we did setup a chat room at last years Atlascamp. 3 month have gone by since the event, but the chat room has still a number of active users and the discussions are not only entertaining, but often interesting and useful. We thought this was great way for people to exchange experiences and knowledge. Therefore we've decided to setup a public IRC channel for the Atlassian community. Hopefully it will help people to connect and get to know each other, so if you run into a problem in the future, you'll have a network of developers you can ask for advice. -
Come join us in an Atlassian Doc Sprint
18 Jan 2010 | 3:34 pmThe first Atlassian Doc Sprint will take place from Monday 22 to Wednesday 24 February 2010. It's happening in Sydney, in San Francisco and online. You are invited! If you can't join us in person, you can drop in on our daily webinar sessions, follow the buzz in our online chat room and subscribe to our email list. What is a doc sprint? It's an opportunity to develop some good tutorials quickly. A doc sprint is a short period of time when a group of people collaborate to write a specific set of documents. Our doc sprint will focus on plugin and gadget tutorials. We start with a good idea of… -
Welcome to Plugins Studio!
20 Dec 2009 | 11:09 pmGood news, everyone: the migration to PStudio is complete! It took about twice as long as I had estimated, so I'm right on schedule (in engineering-time). Before you go tearing off to check it out, please, I beg you, finish reading this post and read the documentation. Here's where things stand tonight (Sunday 20/12/2009): We're going to leave the old systems locked down for the time being. But consider the code-freeze tentatively lifted on the new system. Everything should be good-to-go in PStudio, but there's always the chance we'll discover some horrible screw-up over the next few days… -
Maintenance Window for Atlassian Developer Infrastructure
20 Dec 2009 | 11:06 pmUpdate 3: The migration is complete. Read the announcement here and the new PStudio how-to. Update 2: Unfortunately, the migration is not still complete. I've successfully moved about 220 projects. There are about 30 to go. These 30 are the ones that have more complicated SVN histories that prevent them from being moved cleanly. I'll be working on those tomorrow. I'm extending the maintenance window until tomorrow at 11pm. I'll update you again at that time. Update: The migration is not complete, so I'm extending the maintenance window until tomorrow at 6pm. I'll update you again at that…
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Agile Software Development
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Agile Java developer - Pillar Technology, Farmington Hills, MI
5 Feb 2010 | 1:27 amWe are currently seeking experienced developers that are passionate about : * Delighting customers, * software quality and development best practices, * unit test coverage and test-first work, * refactoring, * object-oriented design and design patterns, * continuous integration and rapid feedback fr ... -
Java Web Applications Developer - Rally Software, Boulder, CO
5 Feb 2010 | 1:19 amRally is the leader in Agile application lifecycle management (ALM). Rally's products were honored with four consecutive Jolt awards (the software industry's equivalent of the Oscar® award) 2006- 2009 and Rally currently supports more than 1,800 corporate customers and 75,000 users in 50 ... -
Keep the Balance - The Scrum Product Owner
3 Feb 2010 | 3:27 amThis article presents what are the Scrum Product Owner activities and how he has to keep the balance of interests between the Scrum team and the other stakeholders. Author: Marion Eickmann, CEO of agile42, www.agile42.com , first published in German in the IX-Magazin 8/2009 -
Faster, Slicker Performance from Gemini Issue Tracker 3.6
2 Feb 2010 | 6:22 amCounterSoft has announced the launch of Gemini 3.6, the latest version of its issue tracking software, providing teams around the world with clear and simple project management. Helping to keep projects on time, on spec and to budget, Gemini 3.6 features typical comprehensive issue and bug tracking ... -
Hansoft launches version 6.0
2 Feb 2010 | 4:30 amHansoft is now releasing version 6.0 with a number of improvements to simplify development complexity for the team, for QA and for the enterprise. This new version of Hansoft contains a number of important improvements to simplify development complexity for the team, for QA and for the enterprise. & ...
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AgileVoices.com
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A little madness: Pulse 2.1.16: Beta Tag Removed
8 Feb 2010 | 5:51 pmThe latest Pulse 2.1 build, 2.1.16, has just been finished. This build is significant in that it is the first non beta release of the 2.1.x series. This is particularly important for all those people that have been patiently watching the progress of all the new features in the beta, but unable to take the risk associated with running beta software.read more -
Agile Testing with Lisa Crispin: Book Report: Bird by Bird (on writing)
8 Feb 2010 | 5:16 pmEllen Gottesdiener (at least, I think it was Ellen – whoever it was, thank you!) recommended Anne Lamott’s book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life to me. Though it is more about creative writing, and though I found the author to be a bit of a kook at times, I’m taking away a lot of advice from it.read more -
Mark Needham: Functional C#: Extracting a higher order function with generics
8 Feb 2010 | 3:17 pmWhile working on some code with Toni we realised that we'd managed to create two functions that were almost exactly the same except they made different service calls and returned collections of a different type. The similar functions were like this:read more -
Mark Needham: Willed vs Forced designs
8 Feb 2010 | 2:48 pmI came across an interesting post that Roy Osherove wrote a few months ago where he talks about 'Willed vs Forced Designs' and some common arguments that people give for not using TypeMock on their projects. I'm not really a fan of the TypeMock approach to dealing with dependencies in tests because it seems to avoid the fact that the code is probably bad in the first place if we have to resort to using some of the approaches it encourages.read more -
Evolving Excellence: Toyota's Shop Floor Still Remembers
8 Feb 2010 | 2:14 pmBy Kevin MeyerWhile Toyota executives are scurrying around having lost their way, the employees at their factories are doing what Toyota does best: improving.read more
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ScrumPlant.com
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Agile Game Development : Congratulations Riot Games!
7 Feb 2010 | 10:42 amRiot's League Of Legends Sees Over 1 Million Downloads.read more -
LitheSpeed's LitheBlog Exploring Lean and Agile: Outcomes = Testable GoalsBy David Bulkin
6 Feb 2010 | 5:50 pmThis post fleshes out one aspect of my -
LitheSpeed's LitheBlog Exploring Lean and Agile: Outcomes = Testable Goals By David Bulkin
6 Feb 2010 | 5:50 pmThis post fleshes out one aspect of my -
Customer Oriented Software Development - Henrik Larsson: Daily Scrum: Focus on Completing Things
6 Feb 2010 | 7:00 amScrum is about achieving customer value. Each day must bring the team one step closer to their goal. They must achieve things. Stories and tasks must be completed. To get more focus on this matter the questions in Daily Scrum meetings can be adapted a little bit. Observing this team’s daily Scrums, I noticed that they talked a lot about what they did in the past 24 hours and what they would do in the next 24. Everyone seemed busy and could account for their time. But I had a hard time connecting their busyness to the work they’d committed to do in the Sprint.read more -
Agile Game Development : Product Owners and Innovation Games(r)
5 Feb 2010 | 10:36 amA product backlog needs to be well thought out. Are we prioritizing the right features? Are the features really what our customers want? Are we missing anything?The least effective product backlogs come from limited viewpoints or from seemingly endless boring meetings dominated by a few voices. They result in one-dimensional backlogs whose vision isn't understood or shared by the team. This impacts the potential of what a game can be.read more
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From the Editor of Methods & Tools
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The 10 Best Software Development Conferences Videos of 2009
1 Feb 2010 | 5:10 amYou didn’t have the time or resources to travel last year and regret that you have missed some conferences? Now you can find a lot of complete conference sessions recording on the Web. My title has obviously a little bit of marketing twist, but I share with you a fair and diversified selection of excellent conferences presentations videos. Here is my list “in no particular order” as they say on TV. What they Don’t Teach You About Software at School: Be Smart! This is a keynote given by Ivar Jacobson at Jazoon. One of the most popular buzzwords in software development is… -
Changing Perspectives
26 Jan 2010 | 12:41 am“In the early days of our industry, programmers wrote in assembly code, selecting registers in which to place variables and managing memory explicitly. If we had magically provided these programmers with a Smalltalk compiler, they might have asked, “How does this help us select registers? How do we allocate memory?” They might have concluded, “”We don’t want no stinkin’ Smalltalk!” Old and new programmers are still writing programs, but the technology to achieve the goal has changed. When a new technology is sufficiently different, you… -
Linkopedia January 2010
25 Jan 2010 | 12:50 amBlog Post: High quality in application development without unit testing Blog Post: The Problem with User Stories Blog Post: Getting Real: the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals Blog Post: A complete blog engine using Django in 60 minutes Blog Post: UI Test Automation Tools are Snake Oil Article: Love and Marriage: CMMI and Agile Need Each Other Article: Speaking the Java language without an accent Article: DSL Evolution Tool: GMetrics provides metrics for Groovy source code Tool: Google’s framework for writing C++ tests on a variety of platforms… -
Review of 2009 for Software Development: Many Acquisitions and a Funeral
21 Jan 2010 | 7:27 amLast year has certainly been busy for the software development tools industry. We have seen many companies merging together and also the funeral of one of the oldest brand in the software development industry. Bye, Bye Borland After the sale of its development tools division to Embarcadero in 2008, Borland kept only the tools dealing with requirements management and software testing. This didn’t improve its financial situation and finally Borland sold itself to MicroFocus. This was a sad end for a brand that accompanied software developer for more than 25 years. Software requirements… -
Agile Project Management
19 Jan 2010 | 12:47 amThe fact that this book is already at his second edition after a first publication in 2004 says something about its value. In one of his definition of Agile, Jim Highsmith says, “Agility is the ability to balance flexibility and stability”. I will say that his book balances nicely high level thinking and a pragmatic approach. The book provides a framework for running agile projects and gives also insight in some more neglected related topics like managing projects portfolios or measuring the success of Agile projects. The author starts by defining what Agility is and emphasizes…
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Richard Lawrence
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Debugging Cuke4Nuke Step Definitions
12 Jan 2010 | 6:52 pmAt a client today, we were doing some tricky automation with WatiN (against Telerik controls) in Cuke4Nuke. We wanted to dig into what WatiN was finding in the browser. The obvious move was to fire up the debugger. But with Cuke4Nuke, this is trickier than you might think. The Cuke4Nuke gem includes a release build—no debug symbols. Plus, the process isn’t around long enough to attach to if you use the cuke4nuke executable. We probably could have figured it out, but it wasn’t worth the trouble. Since we weren’t debugging the Cucumber side of things, we didn’t need… -
How to Remove Duplication in Cucumber Tests Using Scenario Outlines
4 Jan 2010 | 9:09 amGojko Adzic has a new blog post demonstrating the new table parameter support in Cuke4Nuke. Table parameters are an important part of Cucumber. They’re great for setting up data and asserting that lists are what you expect. But I use them much less often than the other kind of table in Cucumber, scenario outlines. Scenario outlines are the solution to repetitive Given-When-Then scenarios. Extending the WatiN example in my previous screencast, we might find ourselves writing scenarios like: Scenario: Search - richard lawrence Given I'm on the search page When I search for "richard… -
The Latest on Cuke4Nuke
30 Dec 2009 | 9:42 amThis morning, I released version 0.3.0 of Cuke4Nuke. With this release, Cuke4Nuke supports almost everything you can do with Cucumber in Ruby or Java, making C# a first class language for Cucumber. (The only missing features are small things like tags on Before and After hooks and a richer Table object.) Check out the Cuke4Nuke wiki for instructions to install and get started with Cucumber in .NET. To see it in action, check out my screencast on Cuke4Nuke and WatiN. Related posts:Debugging Cuke4Nuke Step DefinitionsCuke4Nuke: Cucumber for .NET TeamsScreencast: Testing Web Applications in .NET… -
Growing DONE—How to Make the Definition of Done Work for Your Team
21 Dec 2009 | 3:34 pmEffective agile teams get things done. They build software day after day that’s not just “code complete” but really shippable. And when their product owner says, “ship it,” they can get their shippable software into production at the drop of a hat. The Definition of Done can be a powerful tool to make these things happen…If it’s used right. Most agile teams I see have one of four relationships with a Definition of Done: They don’t have one They have one but don’t really use it They have one but can never satisfy it They have one, satisfy… -
Screencast: Testing Web Applications in .NET with Cuke4Nuke and WatiN
3 Dec 2009 | 7:53 amYesterday, I released Cuke4Nuke 0.2.2, which added WatiN compatibility and an example of how to use the two tools together. Here’s a short screencast in which I walk through the example: Resources from the video: The Cuke4Nuke Wiki with installation instructions WatiN Source code from the example The new Ruby installer Related posts:The Latest on Cuke4NukeWeb Testing for .NET Teams: WatiN or Watir?Cuke4Nuke: Cucumber for .NET Teams
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Agile Web Operations
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Pragmatic Personas: Concrete Examples of Your Users
2 Feb 2010 | 1:46 amJeff Patton’s talk at agile 2009 about Pragmatic Personas is quite interesting. I’ve seen talks about personas way back at agile 2007 already, but, at that time, I found them quite “bulky” to use. In pragmatic personas I see more value. What is a Pragmatic Persona? Jeff defines a pragmatic persona by having a name like “Jeff, UX Expert”, describing the current situation of the persona, an about section describing goals and needs of the persona and a section describing how our application could add value for the persona. Baldin, the homeless dude Situation:… -
Tailoring Your Munin Installation
21 Dec 2009 | 12:31 pmAfter following Dan’s tutorial on installing munin on your servers, you already get the benefits of munin’s default plugins. You have graphs showing your CPU, RAM, I/O, as well as MySQL, Exim, and quite some other stats. But most of the time you run some additional software which you also want to montior. Install Some Custom Munin Plugins In our case, we have a full Ruby on Rails stack featuring nginx front end web server, HA Proxy load balancer, a cluster of thin instances for the Rails application, memcached for caching page fragments and a MySQL database backend. No matter how… -
Sub-optimization Kills Customer Value
15 Dec 2009 | 12:22 pmWhen we start optimizing our processes, it happens quite often that we only optimize our area of influence instead of addressing the whole process of creating customer value. When we’re responsible for a software development or an operations team, we tend to optimize the process of our team. We adapt agile practices and our teams performance seems to skyrocket. But even if we’re that successful, it might do more harm than good. We might flood the QA team with features, which they have to sign off, creating overload on their end. Or our operations environment might be the greatest… -
Agile Is About Feedback, Not About Fancy Practices
9 Dec 2009 | 8:13 amToo often people complain that to become agile they need to start using iterations, fancy story points and time boxes even though it simply does not fit the way they work. But, that’s not true. Agile is much simpler than that. And much harder. In essence, agile is about fast feedback. But the feedback needs to be relevant. Real Customer Value The most important thing to make feedback relevant is to get it from the right people. Especially in design questions, everyone seems to be an expert. But, in the end, only the end users count. Are they able to get value out of using your product? -
Sprinkle – Automated Infrastructure for the Rest of us
25 Nov 2009 | 3:03 pmAutomatically setting up and maintaining my servers is a must for me. Only if everything I install and configure on a server is scripted I’m sure I know what’s there and that it stays that way. Having automated infrastructure enables me to schedule a critical setup change at 3 am and be on the safe side even though my brain might already be half asleep. After having written a ton of capistrano tasks (and creating a mess with it), looking into puppet and chef, writing my own tool (carpet), my colleague finally gave Sprinkle a try. Sprinkle is based on capistrano and uses the same…
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About Scrum
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Scrum Project Planning Board
20 Jan 2010 | 12:08 pmHere is a sneak peek at Axosoft's OnTime V10 Project Planning Board that is especially useful in Scrum: OnTime 2010 WEB Planning Board OnTime 2010 WINDOWS Planning Board You can learn more about Axosoft's OnTime here: OnTime Overview >> -
Scrum on Demand: Getting Started with Scrum
6 Oct 2009 | 2:00 pmSo you are sold on Scrum, but having a hard time getting started, right? There are a lot of questions on your mind: How do I convince the team to use Scrum? How long should our sprints be? How should we handle bugs? What if our estimates are not accurate? How do we handle items with dependencies across sprints? What tool should we use to track everything? How do I get my team trained on Scrum? We'll tackle each of these questions in this article. How do I convince my team to use Scrum? Remember that "using Scrum" mostly means the following things: Making a list of things that you… -
Axosoft Offers Free "Scrum with OnTime" Web Class
2 Mar 2009 | 10:00 amSince the release of OnTime 2009, Axosoft has been offering Scrum with OnTime, an hour-long instructor-lead, web-based class. Previously, to attend the class, you had to be an Axosoft customer with OnTime 2009 and maintenance. However, for a limited time, this class (OT-302 Agile / Scrum Methods in OnTIme) is being offered free to anybody who is interested in learning how to implement Scrum using OnTime. With the new OnTime 2009 Express pricing of just $5 for 5-user teams, this product, combined with this free class, is the ultimate antidote to recessionary budget constraints! As a… -
How Axosoft Published 5 iPhone Apps in 30 Days
19 Feb 2009 | 2:18 pmIn The Developer's Incentive to ship, I talk about how at my company, Axosoft, we drive and motivate our software engineers to ship software. Besides the standards of a good work environment, free snacks, drinks and state-of-the-art equipment, we also do something that's a bit out of the ordinary: After every major release of our flagship software, OnTime, we take 30 days to do fun side projects -- preferably ones that are challenging. So when we released OnTime 2009 in the first week of January, our dev team was anxious to get going on their side projects. In our first side-project meeting,… -
Scrum Priorities and Buckets
2 Feb 2009 | 8:30 amMore than once, I've heard Scrum Masters express the importance of prioritizing a product backlog in the exact order of priority -- so if you have 100 items in the backlog, the product owner ought to prioritize them from 1 to 100. The argument is that this level of prioritization provides the following benefits: Makes sprint planning that much simpler...the team can take the top priority items for the next sprint If any items are left off in order to complete a sprint on time, the team will know the items that were left out were of lower importance than the items they included. While those…
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The Agilebuddy Blog
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Technical stories - are they included on the backlog?
20 Jan 2010 | 8:20 pmIf you're not already a member of the Scrum development group on Yahoo, you really should join. There's a fortune of information changing hands and you can learn so much from the interactions. Just recently there was a huge debate on the topic of technical stories. The underlying question the team debated was should technical stories appear on the backlog. If they are on the backlog, it means the technical stories are to be prioritized by the PO. This may not be such a good idea considering that PO's are generally going to be biased towards prioritizing features and functionality... -
What's the ideal sprint length
8 Jan 2010 | 8:08 pmIntroduction I may have blogged about this previously. I have written so many blogs, I can't recall any more. However questions regarding Sprint length surface on the forums regularly. As per usual, the answers one must give always depends on the context and every context is different than the next. So let me start with the context - this is an excerpt of a post on the scrum development group on Yahoo. Incidentally, Yahoo groups is a good place to hang out. You learn a lot from all the questions and the different contexts facing teams around the world. The... -
Sprint start and stop days - what's best
6 Jan 2010 | 6:34 pmFirstly, let me state that it is imperative that sprint lengths remain consistent. By all means experiment with 1 week, 2 week or 3 week sprints but once you have figured out your sweet spot, stick to it. This is important to setup a rhythm in the company. However, the question is what days are the best days during the week to start and stop sprints. Until now, I have been a big fan of Monday starts and ending Fridays. It seems to be a natural cadence and the days are logical transition points. However, this week, there was discussion... -
What is a Spike in Scrum
16 Nov 2009 | 12:07 pmThis question comes up time and time again and the Spike is often confused with the Tracer bullet. Adam Sroka posted a great explanation of the difference between the two on the Yahoo Scrumdevelopment group . So I am quoting Adam verbatim here - thanks Adam."The Pragmatic Programmers described something called a "Tracer Bullet" which: 1) Is an experimental solution that cuts through all the "layers" of the architecture. 2) Is not necessarily time-boxed. 3) Is not intended to be thrown away. Eric Evans talks about "Thin, vertical slices," which are the same… -
Do you even need a product backlog?
9 Nov 2009 | 10:09 amA great question was posted on scrumdevelopment group, worthy of discussion. The question posed ... Summary Their business moves very quickly and, more often than not, any stories that enter a sprint will have been thought up and written up maybe only two or three days before a meeting of the stakeholders and the product owner to decide what the priorities are. Anything that doesn't make it into the list for them to estimate and add to the sprint will go on the product backlog, but will generally not be looked at again for a while, if ever. Question To...
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Agile Bob on Making Agile a Reality
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The ScrumMaster Diaries: #3 – Becoming a CSM
25 Jan 2010 | 3:30 pmDear Diary, I completed day 1 of my 2-day Certified ScrumMaster course today and I’m feeling a little bit overwhelmed. I didn’t have any idea there was a prerequisite of reading a particular book. Luckily not a lot of other people knew about that either so I didn’t look too stupid. Nothing we covered today was particularly difficult, it was just new to me. A whole lot of it seemed like common sense, but as was pointed out, common sense isn’t so common, especially in software development! I thought it was interesting to cover the history of agile and scrum and… -
The ScrumMaster Diaries: #2 – Making the Case to Become a CSM
18 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pmDear Diary, Tomorrow I am going in to speak to Henry about becoming a Certified Scrum Master. I’ve done more reading about it and it appears there are more than 60,000 people in the world who have done it before me. Those kinds of numbers have to help me with my argument. I also know the popular abbreviation is CSM. Apparently I just have to attend a specific course for 2 days then pass a test and I get certified. Who knows, maybe I’ll be certifiable instead! Ha, ha! The good news is we can’t get a whole lot worse than we are right now, so I hope Henry is open… -
Agile Book Review: Succeeding with Agile by Mike Cohn
14 Jan 2010 | 9:45 amI’m going to give you the punch line first: this is definitely the best agile book on the market today! If that is all you wanted to know, then you can leave now. If you want to know why I believe this, then feel free to read on. In the next few paragraphs I’ll explain why I give this book the highest possible marks. It took Mike Cohn over 2 years to write this book. It was definitely worth the wait. The book is written in a very easy going, conversational style. Unlike most technical books it is extremely easy to read. It is also different in one other major way: it… -
New to agile? Lean principles can help!
13 Jan 2010 | 10:45 amEver see a trash can look like that? I know I have – plenty of times. I have 3 kids so I sometimes even see it in my own house! It is amazing how kids can walk right past a full trash can and decide it is not in their best interest to empty it out! But I still love them Anyway, back to the point of this blog post… Too often our process, even our agile process, of software development looks like that trash can, and like my kids we all walk right past it without emptying it. We tend to forget some of the basics about agile because we are focused on the process and doing… -
The ScrumMaster Diaries: Chapter 1 – We stink
11 Jan 2010 | 12:00 pmDear Diary, This is Nick. I’ve never been much of a writer before, but I made myself a New Year resolution to try to keep an ongoing diary so I could look back in a few years and see how things have gone. Right now I’m hoping it will be a happy thing to see. I’m just not so sure it will be. Today was a pretty rough day at work and it is making me wonder if I made the right choice by going to work for WidCo 6 months ago. The good news is we all have a week off and we aren’t even supposed to think about work. The bad news is thinking about work will be…
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Tom Gilb & Kai Gilb's blog
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TOM'S POSITION ON REAL SOFTWARE ENGINEERING: IT IS NOT ABOUT PROGRAMMING!
30 Jan 2010 | 7:29 pmhttp://bit.ly/axtT9A www.semat.org My Position Paper for March Zurich Conference. Too many 'coders' involved! A select group of 'wise old men' (at least 'old') including me, is going to meet 17-19 March at ETH Zurich, to tackle the problem of making real software engineering happen. I am also going to hold some courses public in town that week too. We have failed miserably, and we have been the methods leaders, book writers, conference speakers for decades. Reading some other's position papers, I am already worried, as I initially was, that some of these people still do not see a distinction… -
Report with pictures from our Value Management experience workshop - building robots
10 Dec 2009 | 3:38 pmSorry about all these pictures, but I am very excited about this workshop ;-) This is the setup for each team. Prioritizing from Finance to Stakeholder Values to Product with Product Values to Sub-Products with Sub-Product Values to Solutions. to Evo Cycles. Then build the Solutions with sw and Lego. test with measurements missions. repeat. Here you see glimpses of the Value Decision Tables, and Solution description. Intense testing. Reality hits. Getting better and better for every cycle (with a few occasional setbacks:-). Every critical Product Value is quantified with Status and Goal… -
Part of a Set of slides on Project Predictability, for a Top Manager Presentation
7 Dec 2009 | 7:53 amPrinciples of Professional Change You have to define your critical organizational improvements quantitatively You have to judge all organizational strategies in relation to these critical objectives You have to roll out change early and often, and Measure the effect immediately You have to prioritize change strategies that really work, and kill off those that don’t, before scaling up Focus on Meta-Strategies: those that allow decentralized feedback and change during projects (like Evo and Spec QC) Project Architecture must explicitly address quantified project objectives All cost-driving… -
Business Values are always subjective, and almost always quantifiable: an angry answer to ...
5 Dec 2009 | 1:48 pmA BLOGGER, FOLLOWED BY A TWITTER AND RETWEET SAID TODAY ...... "Ppl talk a lot about business value, but they forget that for most people business value is totally subjective! (i.e. unquantifiable)" FROM Tom To the blogger/twitterer (who could be many of you out there, not least - your manager!) I think you need straightening out, regarding your terms and concepts. Of course, you don't have to get straightened out! :) 'Subjective' means, based on personal opinion, as opposed to more-objective observation "I think he is heavy". (subjective) "The Scale shows he is 100 kilos" (objective)… -
Agile is NOT a major solution to Bad Government or Private IT Projects!
4 Dec 2009 | 1:00 pmFrom: Tom Gilb tom@gilb.com Sent: 2009-12-03 10:14:10 CET To: Frederik Hermann Siegumfeldt frhs@itst.dk Subject: here is a summary of my 5 oral remarks after your talk at Agile 09 Copenhagen 2 Dec09 1. Agile is not any kind of main solution to the problem of failed or bad government projects. It has no track record of doing so Iteration (aka Evolutionary, US DoD Std 494, 1994, an Evolutionary standard, distancing itself from Waterfall) is a very useful principle, long before the 'Agile' era. But you must not confuse Rapid delivery cycle feedback, with Agile. Agile (like Scrum, actually does…
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Leading Agile
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Agilepalooza Atlanta!
4 Feb 2010 | 9:52 amHey everyone! VersionOne has finally decided to do an Agilepalooza in my hometown... and VersionOne's hometown for that matter... Atlanta, GA. The event is on February 26th and you guys have to come. This will be my third 'palooza and each one has been an excellent, excellent event. These guys bring in great speakers and deliver a lot of information for a really reasonable price, only $69. This is not a marketing event... it's not a sales pitch... it's not a product demo... it's a mini Agile conference right in your own back yard. We'll learn a lot and have a blast doing it, I promise!Right… -
Interesting Post... 1/24/2010 through 1/31/2010
31 Jan 2010 | 9:34 amPretty light week when it comes to Agile blogging, huh? Have we really said everything there is to say!? Maybe the conversation has moved elsewhere? Anyone know of new bloggers out there that I don't seem to be following? Maybe it is time for Jurgen to post another Top 200 list. Anyway.... if anyone knows where all the good conversation is going on, please clue me in ;-)Here is another installment of Interesting Post... Tackling LEAN change week 1 http://bit.ly/cX8ETRThe Impact Of Social Networking On Project Management http://bit.ly/amG8hUHow Not to Hurry http://bit.ly/9IXVYyDo I Need User… -
Explaining Agile
30 Jan 2010 | 7:49 amDoing what I do for a living, I find myself often trying to explain agile concepts to folks that are relatively new to agile methodologies. Sometimes this comes up when I am teaching a class, doing a conference talk, or breaking down some idea in a blog post. I thought I'd share my approach with you guys, and a little on how I think about this, and see if you guys have anything to add. Agile is a Family of MethodologiesOkay... so you are going to 'adopt agile'. What exactly does that mean? Well... if you are going to change how you are delivering software, it helps to start with an… -
Replacing the Iron Triangle of Project Management?
28 Jan 2010 | 7:36 amLast year sometime, I heard Jim Highsmith do a talk on replacing the traditional project management iron triangle with a new 'agile triangle' that is based not on time, cost, and scope... but instead, based on value, quality, and constraints (time, cost, and scope). This is a concept Jim introduced in the latest release of his book Agile Project Management: Creating Innovative Products. Something in the idea has been bugging me a little, so when I read Isreal Gat's post this morning, discussing ways to use Jim's agile triangle, it got me thinking. The general idea behind the agile triangle is… -
Pillar Technology is Hiring... Read This!
23 Jan 2010 | 7:41 amPillar Technology is ramping up several large projects in Columbus, OH and Detroit, MI. We are in need of a bunch of people and have opportunities at many different experience levels.We are looking to hire immediately and will entertain people who want to work 1099, W2 hourly, or become full time employees of Pillar Technology. Pillar's strength is the quality of our people and we are pretty selective about who we bring in. We are looking for people that are technically excellent, have great communication skills, and will fit in well to the Pillar culture.To be considered for our technical…
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The Agile Executive
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OpsCamp Through an Internet-scale Lens
8 Feb 2010 | 4:30 amLike Agile Roots in Salt Lake City in June 2009, OpsCamp in Austin last week demonstrated how powerful grass roots conferences can be. We might not have had big names on the roster, but we sure had a productive dialog on the tricky issues lurking in the cusp between software development and IT operations in Cloud environments. The conference has been amply covered by Michael Cote, John Willis, Mark Hinkle, and Damon Edwards (to name a few). This post restricts itself to commenting on one fundamental aspect of the cloud which IMHO does not get the attention it deserves. It might be implied… -
Agile Infrastructure
4 Feb 2010 | 3:15 amTen years ago I probably would not have seen any connection between global warming and server design. Today, power considerations prevail in the packaging of servers, particularly those slated for use in large and very large data centers. The dots have been connected to characterize servers in terms of their eco foot print. In his Agile Austin presentation a couple of days ago, Cote delivered a strong case for connecting the dots of Agile software development with those of Cloud Computing. Software development and IT operations become largely inseparable in cloud environments. In many of… -
Cloud Computing Forecasts: “Cloudy” Future for Enterprise IT
1 Feb 2010 | 3:30 amIn a comment on The Urgency of Now, Marcel Den Hartog discusses technology assimilation in the face of hype: But if people are already reluctant to run the things they have, on another platform they already have, on an operating system they are already familiar with (Linux on zSeries), how can you expect them to even look at cloud computing seriously? Every technological advancement requires people to adapt and change. Human nature is that we don’t like that, so it often requires a disaster to change our behavior. Or carefully planned steps to prove and convince people. However, nothing… -
Use the Agile Triangle Instead of the Balanced Scorecard
28 Jan 2010 | 3:30 amAs the name implies, the Balanced Scorecard strives to strike a balance between various performance measures. When Financial, Customer, Business Processes and Learning and Growth measures are presented together, as in Figure 1 below, the Balanced Scorecard allows managers to view the company from several perspectives at once. Figure 1 – The Balanced Scorecard (source: Trump University) Likewise, the Agile Triangle depicted in Figure 2, presents in a single ”dashboard” the three dimensions critical to Agile performance measurement – Value, Quality and… -
The Urgency of Now – Guest Post by Annie Shum
26 Jan 2010 | 3:35 amFailure to learn, failure to anticipate, and failure to adapt are the three generic causes of military disasters. Each one of these three failures is bad enough. In combination, they can be catastrophic. Germany swiftly defeated and conquered France in 1940 due to the utter failure of the French army to grasp the nature of future war, to conceive the probable action of the German forces and to adequately react to the German initiative once it unfolded through the Ardennes. The patterns leading to the catastrophe suffered by the French are similar in some ways to the eco-meltdowns…
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Radyology
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Language of the year: 2010
14 Jan 2010 | 7:29 pmI learn a new language every year. This year, I had decided to learn a functional language. The contestants were many and varied, but I'm pleased to announce that the winner this year is... Haskell.I had seriously considered learning Scala. I'm planning on re-writing significant portions of infinitest-core in Scala as soon as I'm done working with my current client. So I knew I'd have a chance to use it. I still plan on writing a lot of Scala this year. Haskell, on the other hand, isn't as practical or widely applicable. Although I might find myself on a project using… -
Contract Tests in JUnit 4
28 Dec 2009 | 9:50 pmAs part of his talk on integration tests J.B. Rainsberger talked about how contract tests can be used to test the interaction between classes when using a mockist approach to developer testing. He wondered aloud if it would be possible to write these kinds of tests using abstract classes and JUnit 4. The answer is yes, with some caveats, as I demonstrate in the screencast below. Enjoy! EDIT: If the embedded screencast below doesn't work for you, try this link. -
Why I Always Ask To See Code
13 Dec 2009 | 3:42 pmThe quality of code is a reflection of the environment in which it was created. Chaotic environments usually create chaotic code. Professional environments usually create clean code. In my experience, it's one of the most reliable metrics that you can check before taking on a new client, employee or employer.So ask to see code. Scan through it. Try to build and deploy it. Try to write a test. It only takes a few minutes and you can learn a lot. -
Why I switched from TextMate to Vim
6 Dec 2009 | 6:57 pmIt wasn't because I was used to vim. I wasn't. In fact, aside from editing configuration files through ssh for the occasional sysadmin work I'm call upon to do, I'd hardly ever used vim before. I started to investigate vim because I had hit a productivity plateau with TextMate. I had learned the majority of the useful shortcuts. I had installed all kinds of bundles, and even made a few. But I still had moments where I thought to myself "I'm wasting time with this", and I had no clear way to make them better. I started to think that this was holding me back,… -
Kata:Ruby:Tail Recursive Prime Factors
5 Dec 2009 | 12:46 pmAt the request of a former employer here's a tail recursive version of the prime factors kata in Ruby. def generate(n, factors=[]) return factors if n == 1 new_factor = (2..n).find {|f| n % f == 0} generate(n / new_factor, factors + [new_factor]) end
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Agile Dad
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A New Year = A New You!
12 Jan 2010 | 4:14 amAt this time of year, each of us have made New Years Resolutions. Some of us want to lose weight, or eat less sweets. Some want to exercise more often, or just get in better shape. In the Agile community, I am asking you to consider a different type of resolution. It is all well and good for us to do any of the items listed above. They will each help us to become a better person. The question I have is what can you do to better implement Agile within your organization? Over the next few weeks, I hope to address topics regarding Agile adoption and what it should mean to you and your… -
Bring on 2010! - Happy New Year!
31 Dec 2009 | 12:57 pmAs we usher in the New Year, I felt it appropriate to thank all of those who have continued to support AgileDad, and Agile in general throughout the years!Although I do not hold a crystal ball, there are a few things I can promise you for 2010:1) The Agile Mentor Newsletter will continue to be the leading free source for Agile information and will be delivered monthly as it always has been!2) As Agile continues to morph and evolve, you have my word that the latest topics will be posted here and I will continue to reach out and support all of those who continue to support the Agile… -
T'was Agile
23 Dec 2009 | 7:12 amTwas the night before code drop and all through the landNot a person was coding, not even one handThe code was all tested and checked in with careEven the documentation was completed and thereThe PMO Director & VP of Dev were nestled all warm and snug in their beds. While visions of bonuses danced in their headsJoe closed his laptop and Sue hit the sackKnowing morning was near and they needed the napWhen from my pants pocket there arose such a clatterI reached for my I-Phone to see what was the matterOff to the office I flew like a Senior VPTore open my briefcase and fired up the PCWhen… -
Do You See What I See?
17 Dec 2009 | 4:03 pmAgile Project Management has finally started to grow up and mature. On the heels of multiple training and coaching engagements, one thing I have learned is that Agile has certainly made its way into enterprise level application development. Software development tools have evolved, people have changed the end delivery method for getting things done. One constant that has held true throughout the test of time is the capability to work in an environment where everything is visible. Many agile organizations struggle with the prospect that visibility and transparency may not help everyone see eye… -
Special Delivery - Delivering Agile Projects
10 Dec 2009 | 2:42 pmMany people in the Agile Software Development community believe that the problems they are facing within their organization are unique to them and their situation. After traveling the Globe and listening to groups of all shapes and sizes, I have determined that many of the roadblocks to successful Agile Development and implementation are similar in nature from one organization to the next.Today, consider it my gift to you to let you know that not only are you not alone in what you are facing, but many other organizations have taken steps to improve the software development process and the way…
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Learn Software Development
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What is a good time duration for a Sprint in Scrum ? 30 days ? 2 weeks ?
8 Feb 2010 | 12:12 pmAsking the above question is like entering a tricky arena. You just cannot make a good answer unless you know more about the environmental situation in which the project is being run. There are plus and minus points to having a shorter Sprint. For example, having a shorter Sprint leads to: - More time spent in Sprint Planning, Review and Demo for the Sprint Cycle. After all, if you have a week or 2 week Sprint cycle, there is a perception that you may be spending a larger portion of that time in terms of these meetings - A longer Sprint means that the team has enough time to do those… -
Scrum – More details about the Planning Poker process
6 Feb 2010 | 12:06 pmThe previous post (link) gave a brief introduction about what Planning Poker is, and what is the relevance to Scrum. This post has a bit more detail on the same subject, including conditions in which the Planning Poker is used, some of the related terms, and so on. The Planning Poker needs to happen as a part of the Sprint Planning, after you and the team have had a chance to go through the various queries on breaking down the features into tasks, as well as deriving the Sprint Backlog from the features contained in the Product Backlog. The Sprint Planning has a defined time-period, and the… -
Planning Poker and Scrum – a brief introduction
4 Feb 2010 | 11:41 amFirst a question. How many of you have heard of something called Planning Poker ? Not too many of you ? Well, that’s okay; in this and the next couple of posts, you will learn a lot more about what Planning Poker is, what it is used for, and so on. One of the most difficult parts in the Scrum model of development is to estimate the amount of effort needed to do the various tasks that are listed out in the Sprint Planning meeting. If this effort estimation is not accurate, at the time of the Demo at the end of the Sprint, the team would not have been able to complete all the items that… -
Scrum Tool: AgileBuddy (information along with reviews)
3 Feb 2010 | 11:35 amIn the quest to find good tools for Scrum (and when doing Scrum for the first time with a new team), it can be a difficult experience just finding the tool that will give you the least tool-side problems while implementing Scrum. As a part of this, I keep on hunting for new tools that make the Scrum process slightly easier, and search for reviews that other people have written on the same subject. Here is some information from the company site (link) as well user reviews: Agilebuddy is next generation Scrum project management software that lets you easily Create, Estimate, Plan and Track your… -
What is a Sprint Review meeting – some details
2 Feb 2010 | 11:23 amIn a previous post, I had mentioned about the 3 types of Sprint time meetings: Sprint Retrospect Sprint Review Sprint Planning Earlier, I have covered the Sprint Planning meeting in some detail, and in this post (and some future posts), I will cover the Sprint Review meeting. What does Review mean ? Review means looking at your status, typically meant to define a time when you measure against what you had targeted to do. In the traditional sense, You can have reviews that are very strict and formal, with sets of rules, or you can have reviews in a more informal manner, typically used among…
