Comments for Agile Advice - Working With Agile Methods (Scrum, XP, Lean)

Comment on Book Commentary by Arjan`s World » LINKBLOG for September 20, 2008

Arjan`s World » LINKBLOG for September 20, 2008 — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 14:12:17 +0000

[...] AGILE Project Management with Scrum -A book by Ken Schwaber - Jim Heidema [...]

Comment on Jeff Patton Talk and Training by Jason

Jason — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 00:53:18 +0000

Myself and a few team members were able to make it out to the workshop and we all learned quite a bit, though our product owner wasn’t able to make it. Today we put a couple of teachings into practice and our product owner was sufficiently wow’d with the result.

Comment on Command Scrum - Productivity at What Cost? by Jason

Jason — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 15:16:40 +0000

I think this is a great approach. I don’t think it breaks the self-organizing team aspect of Scrum at all. Let’s face it, some folks need a kick in the can sometimes and I think this approach gets the point across very quickly which helps the team become self-organizing much faster.

Like you said, you need a great coach to approach it this way and I would add that it takes a certain type of personality to make this work. An external coach would be my choice, I think a Scrum Master trying this approach would burn out pretty quickly.

Comment on Command Scrum - Productivity at What Cost? by Richard Lawrence

Richard Lawrence — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:26:07 +0000

It may be more a matter of writing tone or coaching style than substance. I think it’s appropriate for the coach to recommend an initial set of practices since they have much more experience with what works in what context. I’ve been able to persuade most teams I coach to try a core set of practices for at least a few sprints before considering adapting away from them. But it was persuasion, not compulsion.

Comment on Jeff Patton Talk and Training by dwhelan

dwhelan — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 16:32:40 +0000

Thanks Mishkin for posting this.

As an FYI. The URL to the free 90 minute talk is http://www.communitech.ca/en/events/event_list.aspx and click on “Embrace Uncertainty: Strategies for an on-time delivery in an uncertain world”.

Comment on Finally - a solid metric for code quality. by silvonen

silvonen — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 07:21:40 +0000

This reminds me of the “Scheiße metric” that I invented with our German linguists when we developed proofing tools for Microsoft in the 1990s… I think I used it to measure the morale of the team, though.

Comment on Agile Management Tools by mswiatek

mswiatek — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:48:31 +0000

Hi!
I think you could add http://www.bananascrum.com/
To try it follow this link: http://demo.bananascrum.com

Comment on First Day of Agile 2008 Conference by Nick

Nick — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:02:37 +0000

Hi, be sure to check out the agile2008 friendfeed room at http://friendfeed.com/rooms/agile-2008 People are posting pictures, short summaries of sessions and more.
Enjoy the conference!

Comment on Crystal Clear - A Book on Small Teams by Crystal Clear - A Book on Small Teams (pt. 2) | Agile Advice - Working With Agile Methods (Scrum, XP, Lean)

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 08:45:38 +0000

[...] a book review on Crystal Clear: A Human-Powered Methodology for Small Teams by Alistair Cockburn. Check out the first part of my review. I have read Chapter 1 entitled Explained (View from the Outside). It was a very interesting chapter [...]

Comment on Four Methods of Perfecting Agile by admin

admin — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 22:15:23 +0000

Measuring completeness is impossible no matter what method one is using unless you are building something that will _never_ be changed in the future… which as we all know is just not the way software systems work.

That said, from a project perspective, progress is easy to measure in agile methods using velocity and a release or project burndown chart. Basically, the work that the team does and will do in the future is measured in size and value and then chunked up into Sprints (iterations/cycles). At the end of each cycle, the team delivers something potentially shippable and there is a certain amount remaining. This remaining amount can be tracked cycle by cycle to produce a burndown chart. The slope of this chart will allow you to determine the point where it will get to zero remaining work and this is your progress measurement.

Also, as for dedicated teams, you are partially correct: agile works best with dedicated teams… but that is true for any method! Dedicated teams are superior to shared team members under all circumstances when measuring for value delivered over time. I challenge you to work the numbers to see what I mean!