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May 2008

The Archives

05.27.08

How do you know you’re Agile? Agile | (1)
That's the question I asked myself after reading this article over on the Energized Work blog - which I highly recommend to anyone interested in Agile software development. Is it when you picked a methodology like Scrum or XP and follow the associated principles? Is it when everyone in the development team has read the book Agile and Iterative Development: A Manager's Guide? Is it when you feel totally powerless when asked to get back to a more traditional approach like Waterfall? According to the above mentioned blog post, "more than practices are required to be agile". In essence, doing daily stand-ups, ...
05.27.08

Iteration Zero and Scrum (Sprint Zero) Scrum | (0)
Sprint Zero is a dedicated time given to a project team to prepare itself for the actual development of the product. Peter Schuh in his book "Integrating Agile in the Real World" says it this way: "An iteration zero does not deliver any functionality to the customer. Instead the project team focuses on the the simple processes that will be required for the adoption and use of most agile practices." I see several goals to a Sprint Zero, and this list not exhaustive: 1. Set the development environments for the entire team This post is a great example of what can be achieved to ...
05.23.08

Some Thoughts on Agile Retrospectives Scrum | (2)
Agile retrospectives are a key element of Scrum projects: they are _in theory_ the basis of the "develop and inspect" motto. I say in theory because I have yet to moderate a retrospective that was actually beneficial to the team. In short, it's either "everything went well" or ".............................". I am speaking here again in the case of distributed teams which is what I have the most experience with as far as Scrum is concerned. What are the challenges? 1. It's hard to get the team to speak up 2. It loses interest after a few sessions ("that retrospective again...") 3. Get the team ...
05.20.08

Managing your to do list with Gmail Productivity | (0)
Here is a little tip for managing your to-do list within Gmail. As Gmail is usually the place I go to first when online, I figured a way to get even more out of it than just email... The latest version of Gmail allows you to tag your emails with labels, which can help you organize them as you wish: from "important" to "Facebook invites" via "Holidays", the possibilities are endless... How do I turn Gmail into my favourite to do list manager? Very simple: 1. Create tags of the priorities you want to give to your tasks I have chosen "1 - To ...

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