In a project most of the stake-holders are only interested in the amount of work completed and if things are on track. In a Agile/SCRUM environment the best tool for showing this is the burn down chart. These are extremely simple to create with any Spreadsheet software, I commonly use both Excel and Google Docs for this. I will try and outline a simple way of doing this below: Continue reading
I have been giving this presentation as a introduction to project managment with a focus on introducing companies to the basic concepts of Agile. The presentation is aimed at PM Newbies and explaining agile to the managment teams more than the developers.
This is possible one of the most concise videos on SCRUM from Hamid Shojaee of Axosoft.
I just seen this video from “Global IT Consultancy” Thought Works it just made me laugh.
I have used user stories for some time to develop products and am currently using this process in developing several products it is good to be able to outline the process quickly. To do this I use a simple construct and process to help to in-bed this practice. I will quickly go through this process.
This is a video of Dave Astels speaking at Google Tech Talks in March 2006, This is interesting as it focus on Behaviour Driven Development. A subject which I am looking in to more and more and is beginning to have a larger impact on the software projects I am working on. Watch the video and see if this is something that is worth focusing on.
Mary Poppendieck a well know voice which has influenced software development is known for her books such as “Lean Software Development: An Agile Toolkit” which are fundamental reading for people looking to understand software development from an agile perspective.
I found this presentation to Google Tech Talk where Mary Poppendieck talks about the role of leadership in software development.
Had a long day at the end meet up with Fellow IBC member Brendan Walsh when among many things we ended up discussing the culture that exist with in software companies and the internal value sets that grow up around that.
Brendan has worked in training and the development of client focused cultures for a long time, I won’t win any friends by elaborating on that too much. while I revel in the culture that has grown up around developers being valued based on their creativity and in many cases pure Genius that has in so many software cultures created an almost “Rock Star” type of environment.
The key to building a good software development team is to focus on the development of the staff. In most software teams many learning opportunities are removed to focus on the commercial or time-line of the project. Practices such as the two weekly demo or paired programming are drop to free up more time. Agile is full of learning opportunities which will improve the individuals, team and then the software they produce. lets look at benefits to learning and the software created by Pair Programming in more detail.
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The importance of the retrospective cannot be underestimated it in many cases is the worst performed element of the agile practices. I am currently researching different project managers and facilitators retrospective practices.
I am currently documenting my thoughts on this but I during my research I found this video from Google Tec Talks.
RT @ianburgess Facebook as a Collaborative Knowledge Management System http://bit.ly/c748hE #UOKM
@DiscoverTheKey love the new brand, good to see its all working for you coffee soon? Working on "Makeup of Consultancy Industry" for Edinburgh Uni MBA consultancy panel tomorrow.
