Monthly Archives: May 2007
Allow the Work to Happen
Even though my last day at Vianet was last Friday, I’ve been coming in to entangle my personal internet in their tubes. There’s a lot of coordination back to the States to ensure everything is hunky-dory and I have found Skype to be invaluable, as well as the free connection in the office. Looking over at the highly visible sprint burndown and release takeoff white board, I noticed that nobody had plotted story points finished for the week. Asking around it was discovered that 5 points had been finished. There is a very daunting 31 points remaining. Daunting because the … Continue reading
My last line of code
if (empty($ranges)) { $this->redirect(‘visit/’.$user->getAttribute(‘locationId’)); } After 12 years, this could be the last line of commercial code I write. A little PHP I pair programmed with John. икони
Yahoo! Agile Coach
When I went down to Auckland for some training I didn’t think I’d come back with a job. I had seen a link from an agile website that Yahoo was looking for an Agile coach, but the job had been taken down long before the training. During lunch the second day I mentioned the posting to the head of the department, a Kiwi named Gabrielle Benefield, and wondered if there was still a need on her team. She seemed a little surprised to hear that the job posting had been removed, and was kind enough to talk to me about … Continue reading
Definition of Done
It is often heard that the objective of a given sprint is to deliver potentially shippable software. A team can agree on what this means generally for any feature to be ready for prime time. But how does the team know when a specific feature is done? The answer starts in sprint planning. Usually when a feature is being planned, the Product Owner will give a brief summary which is written down, and then further explanation of the User Story. Immediately the developers will start asking each other what it will take technically to accomplish the feature. These discussions can … Continue reading
My First Facilitation Success
Because I feel responsible for bringing Scrum to my current company, when someone asks me a question about how to do something, I feel compelled to tell them. After all, I am the expert. Without even realizing it I was giving the answer before letting someone think about how they would answer the question. After my Scrum Master Certification I became determined to change my ways. It wasn’t long until a team member asked me for some help trying to get a large amount of work to fit in one 2-week sprint. He was working on changing some complex screens … Continue reading
Certified Scrum Master
On the 2nd and 3rd of May I went down to Auckland for a class to get certified as a Scrum Master. Thought it might be advantageous since our team has implemented Scrum on my behest and I appointed myself scrum master. At the time I started at the company the things were a little messy (PDF). The reaction I could feel was going to be somewhat extreme and I thought I better try and change direction sooner rather than later. The reaction I got was a lot different than I thought it would be. I was worried that the … Continue reading