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View Article  Planning Poker stalemate
A problem that can often occur in planning poker is a stalemate situation - i.e. the same cards are played by each player for more than one round without a consensus being reached   more »
View Article  Agile Estimating and Planning by Mike Cohn
If you're involved in planning and managing software development read this book and it will alter your mind.   more »
View Article  Java for ColdFusion Developers - Eben Hewitt
so rare and in such high demand - you'll be lucky to get it for less than £70. The sign of a very, very good book I'd say   more »
View Article  Effective use of the ? Card in Planning Poker
If anyone plays a ? card this should be taken as an indication that they have something important to say and therefore should be given the floor first in that round...   more »
View Article  Calling all Self Organising Teams - state your intentions please!
As part of what ever self organising means - and I accept that it’s widely debated - surely a team would be expected to provide some statement relating to its function that allows its co-operatives to have confidence in it.   more »
View Article  Card Conversation Confirmation - How to add a Confirmation note
Once a User Story has been added its possible to start entering Confirmation notes immediately   more »
View Article  Card Conversation Confirmation - How to add a Conversation note
Once a User Story has been added its possible to start entering Conversation notes immediately   more »
View Article  Testing is so much more than “does the code work”
With an Agile approach testing becomes a constant activity that is all about asking a whole range of questions and keeping them front of mind at all times   more »
View Article  Has the Schedule been Anchored?
As a general rule in planning its good to employ practices that mitigate against presumption influencing reality and this is well illustrated by the success that Planning Poker can bring to the software development process.   more »
View Article  Advice for an Effective Daily Stand-up (scrum)
Introducing the daily stand-up to a team has its challenges so this article offers advice on how to facilitate that change and make the scrum more effective.   more »
View Article  Software Development Lifecycle in a Nutshell (part 5) – Governance - Completion of Artefacts Introduces Agile Benefit
In previous articles in this series I’ve discussed how to pull together a simple agile approach based around Card Conversation Confirmation. In part 5 I want to illustrate how this can be introduced in a traditional lifecycle.   more »
View Article  How to be an Agile Project Manager
So what is it that is so complex about answering this question? Well - maybe the traditional project management role needs to be adapted to fit the agile world - the old dog needs to learn new tricks perhaps.   more »
View Article  Software Development Lifecycle in a Nutshell (part 4) Key Performance Indicators
If a team wants to become agile it must have a reason for wanting to do so - there must be something not going to plan - something broken about the process - or just a desire to perform better - the team can only know if this is a success by measuring it - just a little.   more »
View Article  People or Processes?
Rizwan.Tayabali recently posted a blog on waterfall v agile which I interpreted very much as process v people.   more »
View Article  How do you know if you're agile?
From day 1 – why do you decide to become agile – because it will bring benefits – how will you know these have been realised – you will need to measure them – which should be straight forward assuming its some measurement you’re not happy with that made you decide to become agile to fix it in the first place.   more »
View Article  Tools for managing the product backlog
I would point out that the product backlog isn't much more than a list - and is only going to be as complicated as you make it   more »
View Article  Agile Work Flow for CardConversationConfirmation.com
I'll be planning to release the first full version in late June early July and this will contain the first deployment from the 'Add work flow basics to CCC' project. Before I start the development I'll post so that you can see what I've got in my sprint and why I left some things until later.   more »
View Article  Bug Fix - adding new themes
A bux fix has been released on the beta version of CardConversationConfirmation.com today.   more »
View Article  Software Development Lifecycle in a Nutshell (part 3) Agile Work Flow
Next comes Work Flow; the processes or the stages, indeed the lifecycle of a User Story from its initial conception to its deployment on the production platform.   more »
View Article  Use Structured User Stories for Agile Benefit
Using structured user stories in the form AS A, I WANT TO and SO THAT offers a greater agile benefit to the data that represents the requirements without adding in too much additional data to supply the structure - it gets the balance just right on ceremony.   more »
View Article  Card Conversation Confirmation - How to add a New User Story
After adding a new project or selecting an existing one the screen prompts the user to add the first user story.   more »
View Article  Card Conversation Confirmation - Agile Tool
This weekend I've released the first beta version of my new agile tool at CardConversationConfirmation.com - and its completely FREE to use.   more »
View Article  Managing Third Party Dependancy in a Sprint
... a challenge when there are dependancies on another team, in another organisation, who are not running an agile project. How should these types of dependancies be managed effectively while maintaining an agile sprint orientated approach at home?   more »
View Article  Software Development Lifecycle in a Nutshell (part 2) Card Conversation Confirmation
There are many software development teams who are working in an ad-hoc way and are desperately looking for improvements in the processes that define their working lives and their business - here will be benefits for the developers, the management and the customer.   more »
View Article  Software Development Lifecycle in a Nutshell (part 1)
Card Conversation Confirmation is described by Ron Jeffries as the three critical steps of User Stories. If there are any development teams looking for that magical balance between cycle and ceremony in their processes Card Conversation Confirmation is at the heart of the answer. Add into this Planning Poker and you've got all you need to implement a lean software development team - its a Software Development Lifecycle, in a nutshell. Hopefully this can be read as a journey of self discovery for the team and the individuals that make it up too.   more »
View Article  Don't have time for a daily stand up? Draw a Comfort Line
Agile teams should strive to ensure the daily stand up is firmly established as their focal practise - but that can be a challenge and while it is something else more amenable needs to take its place.   more »
View Article  Lighten the load of the retrospective
Recently I went to a retrospective that was very well run with a simple change to approach. The team in question was in the habit of de-prioritising the retrospective. This probably came about because it was a rather dull affair - everyone sitting looking solemn at a projector screen while the project managers read out everyone's feedback and occasionally a subject would be raised that would lead to a 'hot topic' discussion.   more »
View Article  Test Driven Development - the benefits are not in the detail
TDD (Test Driven Development) is a highly disciplined technique for producing high quality software, but it's possible to get benefit from its basic principles without following the practise to the Nth degree.   more »
View Article  Planning poker for senior management
The customer usually wants to see a plan as early as possible - it’s a reasonable request and its perfectly ok to do this providing the communication of the plan and its risks is carefully articulated and the pros and cons of the method are clearly understood by all. The key to mitigating the cons coming into play is to have a poker game with the senior management from both the customer and supplier.   more »
View Article  Is it better to be collaborative or independent in the creation of test scenarios?
Satisfaction criteria certainly must be agreed between customer and supplier but should that agreement extend to the detail of test scenarios and scripts?   more »
View Article  Standard Deviation Buffers for better schedule and estimate management.
Clients who want to be confident about a schedule to deliver an agreed set of functionality on time and within budget will benefit from the development team implementing standard deviation buffers...   more »
View Article  Beating Last minute change
When a developer recieves a brief that isn't detailed enough its no surprise - we can't necessarily expect the business to fully understand how to articulate its requirements to a technical team. But when the business suddenly realises there's an important detail they didn't mention before just when the developer is proudly admiring his wonderful work on the last day of build - you can't deny him is startled expression. Especially as its communicated as "I have an urgent business critical change that must be delivered on the planned deployment date come what may."   more »
View Article  Making a commitment versus setting an expectation
In Mike Cohn's book Agile Estimating and Planning there is a chapter entitled "Why Planning Fails" which cites estimates becoming commitments as one key reason for this...   more »