Wednesday, December 18, 2013

An Agile Holiday

Merry Christmas(Or Happy Holidays, depending on your preference). There is a little Christmas treat for you in today's post. A look at Mike Cohn's Christmas list for Scrum Masters and our first look at one of my favorite agile/life blogs - The Hacker Chick Blog. Also, Wall-Skills, a peppy single page pamphlet-style image collection. Have a jolly time reading my friends.

Playing The Scrum Master Role
http://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2013/december/playing-the-scrummaster-role
Summary -
Francesco Attanasio from Ericcson write about the Scrum Master role over at scrum alliance. He lays out the key expectations of the role and how it is a full time job on the team. There is an interesting picture that outlines typical scrummaster tasks for a two week sprint. It feels a little forced to come up with 80+ hrs of work for the scrummaster. I dont agree with the resulting distribution of hours as a scrum master(or the two other incarnations of the same role under other agile methodologies that I have played) does a lot more and does not usually spend his/her time on the same set of tasks every sprint. Francesco stresses the importance of the scrum master as a coach and why it is important for this not to be a rotating responsibility.
Favorite Snippet - 
 "I know that if we, as a family, need to eat good food, my wife, the best cook, is the one for that role. Yes, it is possible to rotate the job of ScrumMaster, but, like Mike Cohn, I would recommend doing it only rarely and temporarily."

Top Ten Gifts For The ScrumMaster In Your Life
http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/blog/top-ten-gifts-for-the-scrummaster-in-your-life
Summary -
Mike Cohn kicks off the Holiday season with a funny, yet interesting(and slightly self promotional) post about gifts for ScrumMasters. These include a Bullhorn, an Atomic Clock and my favorite - "We'll try anything for two sprints" certificate. It is a funny post but the three out of four links leading to Cohn's book or the MountainGoat website do act as dampeners.
Favorite Snippet -
" I guarantee your ScrumMaster would love a handmade note from the whole team saying, "We'll try whatever you want for two sprints." What a wonderful way to demonstrate your commitment."

Do One Thing Every Day That Scares You
http://www.hackerchick.com/2013/11/do-one-thing-every-day-that-scares-you.html
Summary - 
The Hacker Chick Blog is one of the most enjoyable reads of Agile-related blogs every time there is a post. Abby Fichtner, who also works with the Havard Innovation Lab, puts out some very fun and interesting material. Her latest post is about her experience at the 99U conference. Fichtner talks about how success affects creativity and even more about how fear holds you back. It is a very relevant topic for any of us who are adopting Agile or new agile practices. On the face of it things might look absurd, but then there is that famous Einstein quote.
Favorite Snippet -
"And so each day we decide. Do we do that which calls to us or that which the world seems to “want” from us? Albert Einstein once said that “if at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” But first, we must have the courage to trust in ourselves."

Agile Laws
http://wall-skills.com/2013/agile-laws/
Summary - 
Wall-Skills specializes in one page leaflet style pages that highlight details on specific topics. They have an Agile & Lean section that contains some pretty cool leaflets. The latest one summarizes the laws most quoted in and most pertinent to agile development. Whether you agree with broad agile premises or not, you would mast likely agree with these. They form the basis of a lot of the recommended practices and for most developers give more context to why a certain practice might work, or what was the reasoning behind the recommendation.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Agile Requirements - Writing, Grooming, Refining

This is where it starts, without well thought out and laid out requirements the story/feature/project can be a vague idea open to diversions, misinterpretations, unending iterations within the team and international conflicts. Let us explore some of the opinions and commentaries made recently on the topic of Agile Requirements. These individual posts explore practices that can range from a single acceptance criteria in a story to overall backlog refinement.

Summary -
In his post "Why Write Requirements" Scott Sehlhorst takes a step back from the "How" of writing requirements to the "Why". Sehlhorst lays out 6 major reasons for writing requirements and how they fit into the Agile sensibilities. His six biggies are as follows -

  • Understanding Your Market
  • Sequencing Delivery
  • Collaborating With Delivery
  • Managing Expectations
  • Improving Efficiency
  • Remembering Intent
Favorite Snippet -
"Teams that ignore opportunities to get smarter about changing needs will also, by definition, build stuff that isn’t needed."

Summary -
Griffiths talks about the starting from scratch projects where overall direction is not yet defined. He shows how the uncertainty allows for the ability to prioritize the highest business value items. Griffiths shows the positives and negatives of both traditional and agile requirements. It is a pretty unbiased look which recommends horses for courses, while giving a quick tour of the advantages of both approaches. He accepts that this is a "bipolar view of the world" while presenting the two ends of the spectrum.
Favorite Snippet -
" If you know you want a vacation at the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego and that ticks all your boxes then you can lock down the requirements early, book it and be done with it. If you are not sure if the twins will be joining you for a vacation and are looking for the best value 4 star hotel; you will want to keep your options open longer and have some flexibility to best satisfy your purchasing needs." 

Summary -
In his November 5th post at The Critical Path blog, Derek Heuther defines a new ceremony for agile teams called "Backlog Refinement". He recommends an activity in which representatives from the management team, product owners and agile team members get together to look at work that is scheduled for 1 or 2 iterations ahead. The general idea is to start from the bigger picture to prioritize the backlog and at the same time make sure that the stories have the correct Acceptance Criteria (aka Conditions of Satisfaction) and follow the invest model.
Favorite Snippet -
"Do not wait too late to add details, because the delay will slow the team down. Do not refine your stories too far in advance, because the details might get stale."




Summary -
Scott Amblers and associates' Agile Modeling is a great site for agile resources, especially for design and analysis. This essay describes 16 guiding principles of agile requirements. While it is a bit of information overload, it is a great post to revisit periodically. The best practices run the gambit from "Adopt Stakeholder Terminology" to "Take A Breadth First Approach". 
Favorite Snippet -
"...project stakeholders should be involved with modeling and documenting their requirements, not only do they provide information but they actively do the work as well."

Grooming The Backlog, Combing The Desert
http://jeffryhesse.com/blog/agile-mondays-grooming-the-backlog-and-combing-the-desert/
Summary -
Jeffry Hesse in his Agile Mondays series recently talked about backlog grooming. He attempts to, as Heuther does in his post, firm up the "sort of vague concept" of grooming the backlog. The act is defined as something that has been mostly the domain of the Product Owner, but should spread to be a team activity where the Product Owner is an integral part. Hesse promotes eliciting team feedback both on priorities and on story content. Hesse also provides a short list of questions that the team can be asked in order to make the act of Backlog Grooming successful. An important part of this post is the guidance regarding Technical Debt. Product owners can make the process of prioritizing Technical Debt much easier by explicitly asking questions about its existence.
Favorite Snippet -
"Continue to challenge the team as there is likely ALWAYS something that can be improved in your Product’s code. You as the Product Owner will need to ultimately weigh on if it will return the highest value to users/purchasers, but it is very important to chase these items out."


Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Welcome To The Roundup

Welcome to the Agile Roundup blog. A practitioners guide to opinions, observations and comments being expressed in the agile sphere by not just those who coach or consult on agile projects but also those who work in the trenches every day. The practice of agile, whether it is scrum, kanban or XP or any other exotic flavor of those always seems to evoke strong opinions,  ranging from dogmatic to pragmatic. This blog aims to provide a consolidated list of these opinions along with a short review of each to give you a preview of the posts.

Buffalo Roundup

Blogs like Mike Griffith's Leading Answers, Peter Saddington's Agile Scout and the agile biggies like Mike Cohn will be regularly featured. As an agile practitioner for almost 10 years, there will be some personal opining that I will indulge in, but this is mostly a round up of varying opinions in the agile sphere. Looking forward to sharing with, learning and hearing from all who stop by.