Tag Archives: Agile
Creating the Motivation to Pair Program
My first immersion in to Scrum occurred at StorePerform. We produced workflow solutions for big box retail stores. The company retained an external coach on contract and we attended training, which eased and accelerated the transition. Throughout the time we practiced unit testing and had a continuous integration server running. Keeping the Build Running Code coverage for us ran at about 30-35% and we had a company policy to keep it over 80%. We used a code review system to ensure, among other things, that unit tests were created. The team agreed that fixing a broken build was highest priority. … Continue reading
Ten Tales of Positive Change – Introduction
Reading that AgileScout is looking for case studies and not just the theory of Agile, I thought I might start posting these stories from my career. These come from an IEEE paper that was first published for Agile2011. The paper is too long for one blog post. Leaving the tales as close to the original as I can, I am posting each one as a separate article. Ten Tales of Positive Change Is it possible to make a difference? Or at least enjoy the interactions more? These tales relate successful attempts at making improvements. They are my experiences working in software … Continue reading
Eliga’s Death Star Café Wins Progress Award
FOR IMMEDIATE HOLONET DISTRIBUTION ELIGA’S DEATH STAR CAFÉ WINS PROGRESS AWARD Replacing the Officers’ Mess, Organic Café Wins Cultural Award from the Coalition for Progress In the Officers’ Mess, fights were becoming commonplace. Many officers complained of the poor food quality, slow service from the slaves, and lack of credits for change. Rumors flew that the Mess had an atmosphere rivaling that of Chalmun’s Spaceport Cantina on Tatooine and Eliga Erutluc knew it wouldn’t be long before someone was killed. He quit his job as a hypermatter core specialist to serve organic meals from a pop-up kiosk outside the Mess Hall. Eliga felt that serving higher-quality meals … Continue reading
What’s going on?
When I ask someone “How’re you?” the response I usually get is, “fine”. If I ask “What’s up?” the response is, “not much”. These questions prompt rote responses. I can detect a little of how someone really feels in the inflection of the answer. There’s a subtle but important difference between “not much…” and “not much!”, but I am interested in knowing more than if you might be bored at the moment. For me, “What’s going on?” is the question that garners more than a habitual answer. In most instances, it triggers someone to tell me like it is. Not … Continue reading
What do you think the INVEST acronym is for #Agile User Stories?
This is a question I asked recently of a newly-formed Scrum team in a User Story Writing workshop. It occurred to me to not just blurt it out and to let them offer suggestions instead. They were very willing to contribute and I’d like to share the answers they came up with: I Improve, Innovate, Integrate, Intent, Invent, Interesting, Initial N Navigate, New, Novel, Negotiate V Viewable, Viable, Value E Effective, Easy, Evaluate S Stable, Scope, Simple, Satisfied, Success, Scalable T Testing, Time After a couple of rounds of shout-outs I asked if they’d like the answer, and they kept … Continue reading
Barely Sufficient Scrum
What’s the simplest thing that can possibly work and still be called Scrum? What Scrum “says” you have to do comes up plenty with teams I work with. Many have a difficult time remembering all the rules and get hung up in what they are. Or people blame Scrum for various reasons, like it insists on all these meetings or doesn’t allow for any up-front nor long-term thinking. That self-organization means hands-off. What are the rules, or the constraints of Scrum for teams to evaluate themselves against? What can people remember easily? It’s something I tried to discuss a bit … Continue reading
Applying to Become a Certified Scrum Trainer
The Scrum Alliance is accepting new applicants to become Certified Scrum Trainers (CST) and I’ve decided to throw my hat in the ring. If you would like to know why I am applying, please feel free to read my letter of intent. Tobias Mayer has a post on the new CST application process, including a link to the full process description.
Kool-Aid, Dogfood or Champaigne?
The saying, “you drank the Kool-Aid” may be a derisive way to say someone has been indoctrinated. Similar to a Borg-related “you will be assimilated“. Admitting to drinking the Kool-Aid seems synonymous with “going native“. I think it’s worse than that. It’s forever linked to the Guyana Tragedy for me and is tantamount to committing suicide. The concept of dogfooding I understand and I am a fan. Both of the verbification of nouns and of using your own product. Just not of the words. Similar to not wanting to be a pig, I do not want to be a pig … Continue reading
Joining the community of thinkers
I am a member of a community of thinkers. I believe that communities exist as homes for professionals to learn, teach, and reflect on their work. I challenge each community in the software industry to: * reflect and honor the practitioners who make its existence possible; * provide an excellent experience for its members; * support the excellent experience its members provide for their clients and colleagues in all aspects of their professional interactions; * exemplify, as a body, the professional and humane behavior of its members; * engage and collaborate within and across communities through respectful exploration of diverse … Continue reading
Kanban is the Agile way of saying “Phase Gate”
So that we can easily find ways to constantly improve while collaborating effectively and sustainably, I like kanban as a tool which shows what constrains transforming concepts into cash. I believe it allows us to see the whole system and our part in what to do to help in the transformation of the system into a better one and our ideas in to innovation. It seems to me there would be greater benefits for all involved. For software a kanban tool must be highly visible, with a policy to strictly limit work in progress and a policy to only accept … Continue reading