tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-45604730123656980082024-03-05T11:57:48.983+00:00AGILE TRAINING ~ CONSULTANCY ~ COACHINGHi I'm Christian, A massive and enthusiastic fan of Agile methodologies, Lean economic theory and systems thinking!
Through my company I operate as coach, Scrum Master and interim manager. Passionate and experienced agile coach, Well versed in agile methodologies, Agile adoption & transformational change
Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comBlogger15125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-3606683311086453792018-03-04T11:08:00.001+00:002018-03-04T11:08:40.452+00:00I'm moving...... to www.christianmiles.com/blog<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Well after about 8 years with Blogger I've finally decided to move hosting platforms!<br />
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The blog will be moving to my companies website <a href="https://www.christianmiles.com/blog" target="_blank">https://www.christianmiles.com/blog</a><br />
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-36617434133503300632017-04-22T09:27:00.000+01:002018-03-10T10:29:38.387+00:00Why do agile IT 'projects' fail?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I'm slowly moving all my blog posts and materials to the one one platform..... <a href="https://www.christianmiles.com/">https://www.christianmiles.com</a><br />
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To find the blog post you were looking for<br />
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<a href="https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2017/04/why-do-so-many-agile-it-projects-fail.html">https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2017/04/why-do-so-many-agile-it-projects-fail.html</a><br />
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comLondon, UK51.5073509 -0.1277582999999822351.1912379 -0.77320529999998222 51.8234639 0.51768870000001777tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-33241788950577986242017-02-04T11:40:00.000+00:002018-09-16T08:14:46.445+01:00Clean language for Agile Coaches!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This blog post has now moved, Please check out the below link.....<br />
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<a href="https://www.christianmiles.com/blogs/clean-language-for-agile-coaches">https://www.christianmiles.com/blogs/clean-language-for-agile-coaches</a></div>
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-65468046526100363592014-12-21T11:28:00.001+00:002020-05-12T13:41:13.380+01:00Agile teaching games - The dysfunctional daily stand-up...... Game!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This is a brilliant little game I love playing with both new and experienced agile teams... Unfortunately I can't claim any credit as I never came up with it!</div>
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Preferably it's best to play with a team who are already doing some level of agile practices and are already doing the daily stand-up.</div>
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Ask for one volunteer in the group to play Scrum master and give the rest of them a card with one of the following 'secret' objectives on, It's important that team members don't discuss their hidden role before hand :-</div>
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<li>Arrive late.</li>
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<li>Hidden impediment: Mention an impediment/blocker but don’t be obvious about it</li>
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<li>Noisy chicken: start by saying, "I’m only an observer" and then report on things the group doesn’t care about.</li>
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<li>Silent chicken: as an observer, just say "pass" or "I’m just observing" when it’s your turn</li>
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<li>Ask a clarifying question on somebody else’s turn.</li>
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<li>Ramble on until you’re asked to move on.</li>
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<li>Try to sidetrack the meeting.</li>
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<li>Try to solve somebody’s problem.</li>
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<li>Start a side discussion.</li>
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If possible it's often helpful to have a few members of the team just watching/observing.</div>
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Once everybody has their card get the Scrum master to call the daily stand-up (For more on how a daily-standup should be ran... check out my previous <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-daily-stand-up.html">blog</a>) </div>
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After the stand-up hold a group discussion and see how many of the 'dysfunctional' practices were spotted and discuss how many of them they see day to day in their stand-ups.</div>
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I find it a brilliant little game to just re-focus people's minds and to highlight to scrum teams what the stand-up is all about and perhaps more importantly not about!</div>
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comUnited Kingdom55.378051 -3.4359729999999912.188224499999997 -86.05316049999999 90 79.18121450000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-29102417319962229782014-11-02T16:54:00.000+00:002018-03-10T10:28:53.177+00:00The 5 Core Values of Scrum <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I'm slowly moving all my blog posts and materials to the one one platform..... <a href="https://www.christianmiles.com/">https://www.christianmiles.com</a><br />
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To find the blog post you were looking for<br />
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<a href="https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2014/11/the-5-core-values-of-scrum.html?rq=5%20core">https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2014/11/the-5-core-values-of-scrum.html?rq=5%20core</a><br />
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-20899282183791621512014-01-02T17:46:00.000+00:002014-12-11T17:19:09.020+00:00Operation DevOps - A secret undercover mission? or a way to optimise delivery?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Hi Guys,</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes - still defiantly sticking with the 'Hi guys' introduction! Recently I've been attempting to write a number of small articles to demystify some of the populate buzz words used in IT Today. A sort of quick guide to surviving in IT.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit72yDvmZgkmdG0xO6akhGQB2WnKX5iwGgRwxx1vQGeqqUhbTSP_rCtBQ139QmCEWH1yFkh2h6C-doiu7QyTjRFwc0LhCFm3HwzFQEZBL29Cf85ZlfGZU7cBfq28B91wya-34NEFTl8o4/s1600/0%252C%252C16510052_303%252C00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit72yDvmZgkmdG0xO6akhGQB2WnKX5iwGgRwxx1vQGeqqUhbTSP_rCtBQ139QmCEWH1yFkh2h6C-doiu7QyTjRFwc0LhCFm3HwzFQEZBL29Cf85ZlfGZU7cBfq28B91wya-34NEFTl8o4/s1600/0%252C%252C16510052_303%252C00.jpg" height="179" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've recently applied to get involved with the LinkedIn self publishing platform and over time hope to make a number of these articles available via LinkedIn... but until then feel free to connect with me on inkedIn <a href="http://uk.linkedin.com/in/christianleemiles/" target="_blank">uk.linkedin.com/in/christianleemiles/</a><br /><br />Back to the point! In my opinion DevOps sounds like some secret undercover military operations unit! In reality the truth as ever is much more boring.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If your already familiar with an agile methodology you may be aware of DevOps or perhaps some of the questions that start to arise as you progress through your Agile adventure....</span><br />
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<span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">With more and more developers doing 'Agile' in some form or other, some of them began to ponder what do customers really want? business functionality over cool features perhaps... rapid iterations and deliveries to market?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">Operation teams or application support have also been thinking the same (And I'm fairly sure Project managers have for years!)... I'm going to be honest... I've worked in small companies especially software houses and this is much less of a problem - but large organisations really suffer with this especially with internal IT departments... and This is where DevOps comes in!</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">So how about a question for you... If your doing Scrum and working in Sprints could you release workable code every month? Every two Sprints? Perhaps every Sprint?</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">How can your process be optimised to assist this? if your already familiar with XP (extreme programming) your probably doing automated builds, automated testing etc - you've automated some of the mundane time consuming process's.... look at your own systems where are delays... is it in coding, testing or your release process? Is your CAB (Change Advisory Board) fit for purpose? does it add real value or is it a paper work box ticking exercise? is is really enhancing the product for your client and building in quality?</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">I've worked in IT since the mid 90's and I've seen a lot of ideas come and go - or usually the same ideas re-packaged (don't tell anybody) ! but I've always taken a very pragmatic approach to software and software delivery - in my opinion DevOps is a way to be more nimble, perhaps for IT to gain relevancy with it's users/customers.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">IT can very easily be seen as nothing more than an irrelevant overhead, out of touch and full of excuses! With DevOps IT can become involved early in the process and throughout the process.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #231f20;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">So what is DevOps? in reality it can be thought of as umbrella name encompassing lots of ideas - but at it's core it about removing the </span></span></span><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #221f1f;"><span style="line-height: 22px;">silos that all large organisations have, removing bottlenecks, and eliminate inefficiencies — whilst working to a higher quality. If your doing Agile and or Lean none of this should be too foreign to you! Look at your retrospectives the transparency that Agile gives you - can you use those same ideas on an organisation? or is that a bit scary?</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #231f20; font-family: Open Sans, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 24px;">I'll try and do an article soon covering implementing DevOps into a 'large' organisation and some of the pitfalls along the way!</span></span></span><br />
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-8005282061038883132013-10-06T17:20:00.000+01:002018-03-08T14:31:51.184+00:00Is SAFe the next big thing?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
If your into agile project management you've probably heard of SAFe - The Scaled Agile Framework.<br />
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I'm hearing about more and more companies that are applying the principles so thought it probably about time that I wrote a brief dummies guide to it :-)<br />
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The dictionary definition reads... The Scaled Agile Framework SAFe™ is an interactive knowledge base system for implementing agile practices at enterprise scale. Does that clear it up?<br />
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One of the problems I've often seen is how do you scale up agile? Scrum and Kanban works great in teams of up to about 8 people (give or take) or the two pizza rule... If you can't feel the team with 2 pizza's it's too big.... Or you have a greedy team.<br />
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However many large organisations may have teams of 50+ developers working on products and this is where the SAFe framework really comes in.<br />
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Put simply SAFe is a framework template designed to allow for agile practices to be scaled and importantly it's a framework that covers the entire organisation - Its roughly operates on three levels.....<br />
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<b>1. Portfolio Management</b><br />
<b><br /></b>The individuals working with Program Portfolio Management are responsible for Governance, Program Management and Strategy and investment funding.<br />
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They are responsible for delivering the strategic themes and are stewards for the portfolio vision - determining value streams and allocating budgets to release trains,<br />
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<b>2. Program</b><br />
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A group of multiple agile teams - 50+ people working to deliver functionality together... This is also known as the Agile Release Train (More on that later).... They deliver PI (Program Increments) - usually across 5 Iterations (by default but as ever this can be changed)<br />
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A PI will start with the entire train hearing the Vision - Each team then goes away to plan how they will deliver their section in individual teams.<br />
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The release train engineer (see below) and Scrum Master meet twice weekly to discuss progress with stakeholders.<br />
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<b>3. Team</b><br />
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As per conventional Scrum/Kanban/Scrumban delivering code via cross functional teams in iterations - coached and supported by the Scrum master<br />
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One of the big selling points about SAFe that isn't really mentioned much is that that SAFe finally talks about the role of management in Agile.. Something which in my view has been lacking until now.... Why does that matter? Well from an agile adoption perspective I've often observed that management feels a little left out with the Agile process.... It alienates them!... True hardcore agile has no place for management! And for some reasons this doesn't fit well with management (turkeys don't vote for Christmas)<br />
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So where traditionally the agile process has been led my a bunch of agile evangelists (such as myself) SAFe acknowledges that for the process to be successful within an enterprise scale organisation the management, leaders and executives need to be trained and be the advocates!<br />
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<b>The Agile Release Train or ART</b><br />
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Well it wouldn't be agile with out some new cool terms would it!<br />
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The 'Train' Leaves and arrives at stations to a time-table.... which is fixed and reliable.... Meaning that Software packages/releases are delivered to a given timetable and the depart frequently!!!<br />
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The 'Train' will hold all 'Cargo' - Code, documentation, etc<br />
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Everyone who's needed to be on the train... is dedicated to the train! (Multiple agile teams each working to deliver their section of the Programme increment)<br />
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Perhaps some of the most important concepts are that dates are fixed (The train timetable is you like)... but as in conventional agile the scope is variable. Time tables might be drawn up a year ahead.<br />
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Why train? Well if your going somewhere by plane you need to look up flight times, book tickets in advance and if you miss your plane.. Well your in trouble! Trains on the other-hand are frequent... if you miss one train you catch the next one! This make it's 'easier' to explain to stakeholders that missing a release isn't the end of world.... as another train will be along soon!<br />
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<b>The Architectural Runway</b><br />
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No more big bang implementation of epics! Instead the enterprise commits to features delivered in the main code-line via release trains.<br />
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It may be the case that epics need to be delivered piecemeal on over many release trains,.... Or the functionality delivered but hidden until complete - allowing for incremental code changes and testing to take place behind the scenes until the functionality is exposed.<br />
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The Architectural runway is very much the concern of the 2nd tier in the framework and is such a big subject I'll write a blog article purely on this subject.<br />
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<b>We have some new cool roles</b><br />
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<li>The Release Train engineer - Chief Scrum Master for the train a bit like a programme manager</li>
<li>Release Management - Plans the scope of the release and has governance authority</li>
<li>DevOps - This is another big concept (<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/operation-devops-secret-undercover.html">Read the blog)</a>: Integrated with the train and development teams - they facilitate the set of releases. </li>
<li>Business Owners - Have ultimate responsibility for outcomes</li>
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SAFe is a massive subject and I've only covered a few of the highlights... When I get time I'll come back and explain each process in more detail.</div>
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<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/christianleemiles" style="-webkit-transition: color 0.3s; background-color: white; color: #009eb8; display: inline; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 19.6000003814697px; outline: none; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none; transition: color 0.3s;">As always... Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn</a></div>
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comUnited Kingdom55.378051 -3.4359729999999912.1996745 -86.05316049999999 90 79.18121450000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-75896804349543787132013-05-09T23:11:00.001+01:002013-05-09T23:11:12.370+01:00Death by Power Point!Hello loyal readers - I'm not going to apologise again for the time between posts.... it's my blog and if I want to be lazy I will be! It has been another busy few weeks (Ok that's an excuse) but please keep reading and I promise the quality will improve soon!<br />
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Anyway - I've just completed a two day training course ran by profesional presentation specialists <a href="http://www.younevercantell.co.uk/" target="_blank">You Never Can Tell</a><br />
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The course covered many aspects of presentational and communication techniques and I'd highly recommend it to anyone! I honestly feel this is a skill sadly lacking in many parts of society today and especially if I dare say.... without upsetting too many of my colleagues.... the IT community.<br />
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I've been meaning to enrol upon such a course for a very long time to brush up on my technique and explore some new ideas especially as although perhaps not popular to say... I have a real hatred of Power Point!!<br />
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<rant>This revelation might shock some of you (especially with myself being a member of the IT fraternity) but honestly Power Point is responsible for some absolutely shocking, terrible and mundane excuses of a presentation..... and I really am being kind with that statement, lets be honest how many of you reading this have had to endure slide after corporately branded slide with some poor presenter standing there reading the text out to you? why bother with the presenter? we could all just sit there read the sides for ourselves and be off in the half the time!<br />
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Why do companies insist on Power Point? I honestly dont know - perhaps it's because it allows senior managers to assert censorship - perhaps it's a genuine lack of imagination by those in charge? but I do suspect a change in thinking is overdue.</rant><br />
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Now that I've got that off my chest.... When I was studying at University I'd supplement my Student grant (Yes I'm old enough to have received a grant) with teaching part time for my local college. I remember being absolutely terrified before my very first lesson - which I think was a couse teaching Windows 3.1 to 'Mature' students' (all women if I remember correctly and one interesting proposition! ) at Bedworth college.... well who wouldn't be terrified visiting Bedworth???? (Apologies that joke probably won't travel too well around the globe!)<br />
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Anyway, back to the story.... I taught for several years until I left university and entered the world of 'real' work! This is where I found the skills I'd acquired as a lecturer gave me a leading edge in many of the more 'softer' areas of the job... I was able to communicate with management and very importantly customers with more ease than the average developer... I was a natural in training sessions being able to emphasise and communicate well and I also found I was able to mentor other members of staff very successfully.<br />
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Early on in my career I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to mix within my business, to talk to different levels of management and mingle with the various users. I am forever grateful of that wonderful experience - today too many people are pigeon boxed and only 'allowed' to use a very small subset of the skills they could offer an organisation. <br />
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Being in IT and software development like so many fields being an expert is usually enough to ensure your in demand - but if like myself you want to really set yourself apart from the masses and be able to offer additional services to your client than perhaps just for once rather than looking for the next technical subject master to study why not consider working on those softer skills that make you a more rounded individual? honestly you'll be amazed at the doors it opens!<br />
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<br />Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-72844717765427850402013-02-02T16:00:00.000+00:002018-03-12T08:51:50.049+00:00SAFe - The Scaled Agile Framework..... Idiots guide! <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Sorry but this blog post has moved!<br />
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<a href="https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2014/10/is-it-safe.html?rq=idiots">https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2014/10/is-it-safe.html?rq=idiots</a></div>
Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-28155071506833497842013-01-01T12:48:00.000+00:002018-03-12T08:54:35.587+00:00The Information Radiator<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm sorry but this blog post has moved!!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I'm moving all my web content (Or as much a I can) over to <a href="http://www.christianmiles.com/">www.christianmiles.com</a></span><br />
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The post you're looking for is at....<br />
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<a href="https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2014/06/the-information-radiator.html">https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2014/06/the-information-radiator.html</a></div>
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comUnited Kingdom55.378051 -3.4359729999999912.1996745 -86.05316049999999 90 79.18121450000001tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-13436696319504969452012-08-04T22:55:00.000+01:002019-02-07T10:34:53.496+00:00#techie Unless your interested in maps and calculating distances..... ignore this one!<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bit of a techie one this but I thought I'd add it in case somebody found it useful!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I've been doing a bit of work with Google Maps and <a href="http://www.openstreetmap.org/" target="_blank">http://www.openstreetmap.org/</a> an open data source project which I have a lot of respect for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">I won't go into details but I've needed to calculate distances between two points based on there coordinates and some of this has to be done on a database server...... So I've put together this very quick SQL function which returns the distance between two coordinates in God's own measurement, no not cubits, miles!</span><br />
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<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6114" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">set</span><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6113" style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6112" style="color: blue;">ANSI_NULLS</span> <span style="color: blue;">ON</span></span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">set</span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: blue;">QUOTED_IDENTIFIER</span> <span style="color: blue;">ON</span></span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6115" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">go</span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6081" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
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<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6080" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6079" style="color: green; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">-- =============================================</span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6075" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6074" style="color: green; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">-- Author: <Christian Miles></span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6069" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6068" style="color: green; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">-- =============================================</span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6067" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">ALTER</span><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6066" style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6065" style="color: blue;">FUNCTION</span> [dbo]<span style="color: grey;">.</span>[calculateDistanceBetweenCoordinates]</span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_5809" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: grey; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">(</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> @lat1 <span style="color: blue;">float</span><span style="color: grey;">,</span></span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6086" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> @lon1 <span style="color: blue;">float</span><span style="color: grey;">,</span></span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6087" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> @lat2 <span style="color: blue;">float</span><span style="color: grey;">,</span></span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6088" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> @lon2 <span style="color: blue;">float</span></span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6089" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: grey; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">)</span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6090" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">RETURNS</span><span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: blue;">float</span></span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6091" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6106" style="color: blue; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">AS</span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6092" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="color: blue; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">BEGIN</span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6093" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6094" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> -- Assumes the Radius of the planet (distance from the hot core to the crust) is </span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6094" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> -- around 3,959.6 miles</span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6094" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6097" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6096" style="font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;"> <span style="color: blue;">return</span> <span style="color: grey;">(</span><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6095" style="color: magenta;">ACOS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span><span style="color: magenta;">SIN</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span><span style="color: magenta;">RADIANS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span> @lat1 <span style="color: grey;">))</span> <span style="color: grey;">*</span> <span style="color: magenta;">SIN</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span><span style="color: magenta;">RADIANS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span> @lat2 <span style="color: grey;">))</span> <span style="color: grey;">+</span> <span style="color: magenta;">COS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span><span style="color: magenta;">RADIANS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span> @lat1<span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6104" style="color: grey;">))</span> <span style="color: grey;">*</span> <span style="color: magenta;">COS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span><span id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6098" style="color: magenta;">RADIANS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span> @lat2 <span style="color: grey;">))</span> <span style="color: grey;">*</span> <span style="color: magenta;">COS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span><span style="color: magenta;">RADIANS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span> @lon2 <span style="color: grey;">)</span> <span style="color: grey;">-</span> <span style="color: magenta;">RADIANS</span><span style="color: grey;">(</span> @lon1 <span style="color: grey;">))))</span> <span style="color: grey;">*</span> 3959.6</span></div>
<div class="yiv1348409395MsoNormal" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1360102553457_6099" style="background-color: white; color: #454545; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; padding: 0px;">
<br /></div>
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<span style="color: blue; font-family: "courier new"; font-size: 10pt;">END</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now unfortunately, or at least from a mathematical puritan perspective the plant Earth is not a perfect sphere.... in fact the radius ranges from around <span style="line-height: 19.1875px;">3,947–3,968 miles and in my opinion all the better for it! but it does mean that the distance it produces will be reasonably accurate but it's tolerance will vary depending where on the Earth your measuring!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 19.1875px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">Google does do an excellent API for calculating distances.... but if your using it behind a Firewall or restricting access to your site from outside you'll have to buy a licence..... and they also restrict what you do with the data.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">They also restrict the number of hits per second and per day you can perform without a licence (with a licence there's a charging model in place once you hit a limit) either way the API call does not work if you have to search across thousands or even millions of records!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">Written by </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 19.1875px;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 19.1875px;">Christian Miles</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 19.1875px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-90181390051120423642011-11-28T17:11:00.000+00:002018-03-05T11:49:22.571+00:00Agile buzz words!<meta content='0;url=https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2011/11/agile-buzz-words.html?rq=buzz/' http-equiv='refresh'/>
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One of the great things about agile is the terminology we use... Theres nothing better than grooming the backlog, updating the information radiator and attending all of our ceremonies!<br />
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But being honest - those of us in the agile arena do ourselves no favours talking about velocity and Kanban boards without first explaining some of these terms!<br />
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I expect the following blog to be more of a WIP (Work in Progress) page as I add new terms over time<br />
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Also check out.... <a href="https://www.christianmiles.com/faqs" target="_blank">https://www.christianmiles.com/faqs</a><br />
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<b>Acceptance criteria</b><br />
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Specific criteria identified by the customer/stakeholder/Product Owner/Team for each functional requirement. The acceptance criteria are written in simple terms and from a perspective of the user.<br />
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As a.....I want to..... so that I can......<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>Acceptance testing</b><br />
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Activity conducted to determine whether or not a system satisfies its acceptance criteria. <br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>Agile</b><br />
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A conceptual philosophy or mindset for undertaking projects. Agile is a framework that can be applied to numerous fields (not just software development)<br />
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Within agile exists different implementations the most famous being Scrum and Kanban<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-agile-manifesto.html?q=manifers">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-agile-manifesto.html?q=manifers</a><br />
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<b>BDD - Behaviour Driven Development</b><br />
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Behaviour driven development is a software development technique that encourages collaboration between developers, non-technical and business participants.<br />
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BDD focuses on obtaining a clear understanding of desired software behaviour through discussion with stakeholders.<br />
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<b>Burn-down Chart</b><br />
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A burn-down chart is a visual tool for measuring and displaying progress.<br />
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A burn-down chart is simply a line chart representing remaining work over time. Burn-down charts are used to measure the progress of an agile project at both a iteration (sprint) and project level - against the backlog and identified MVP.<br />
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<b>Daily Standup/Scrum</b><br />
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TheDaily Standup is probably the most famous agile ceremony, I've spoked to teams numerous times who 'believe' their agile simply because they are doing this one activity!<br />
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The daily standup should occur everyday at the same time and lasts around 15 minutes or less.<br />
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Each team member should come prepared with the following information:<br />
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<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>What did I do yesterday</li>
<li>What am I planning to do today</li>
<li>What impediments do I currently have?</li>
</ol>
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-daily-stand-up.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-daily-stand-up.html</a><br />
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<b>Done</b><br />
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Also referred to as “Done Done”, this term is used to describe all the various tasks that need to happen before a story is considered potentially releasable.<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/is-it-done-done-done-or-not-sure-whats.html?view=classic">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/is-it-done-done-done-or-not-sure-whats.html?view=classic</a><br />
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<b>Epic</b><br />
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A large and probably little understood story that needs to eventually be broken down into user stories.<br />
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<b>Kanban</b><br />
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Kanban based on the just-in-time delivery and optimisation of work flows is probably the 2nd most popular implementation of agile working.<br />
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It emphasises that developers pull work from a queue - The task travels horizontally through swim lanes (being pulled at each point) until reaching 'Done'<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/what-is-this-kanban-everybody-is.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/what-is-this-kanban-everybody-is.html</a><br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/kanban-its-not-just-boards-and-post-it.html" target="_blank">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/kanban-its-not-just-boards-and-post-it.html</a><br />
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<b>Lean</b><br />
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Another methodology borrowed from Toyota! Its a set of techniques and principles for delivering more values with the same or less resources by eliminating waste across processes<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/lsd-truth-about-lean-software.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/lsd-truth-about-lean-software.html</a><br />
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<b>Mob Development</b><br />
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A concept from eXtreme Programming, Similar to paired development but involves 3+ people working around one work station.<br />
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<b>Pair Programming</b><br />
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Pair programming is a development technique from XP (eXtreme programming) in which two programmers work together at one workstation.<br />
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One types the code while the other reviews each line of code as it is typed in. The person typing is called the driver. The person reviewing the code is called the observer (or navigator). The two programmers should switch roles frequently.<br />
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<b>Planning Poker</b><br />
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Also called Scrum poker, its a consensus-based technique for estimating, mostly used to estimate effort or relative size of tasks in software development.<br />
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<b>Product Backlog</b><br />
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Acts as a repository for requirements targeted for release at some point. These are typically high level requirements with high level estimates. The requirements are listed on the backlog in priority order and maintained by the product owner.<br />
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<b>Product Owner</b><br />
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The Product Owner represents the voice of the customer and is accountable for ensuring that the Team delivers value to the business.<br />
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The Product Owner is responsible for writing customer-centric items (typically user stories), prioritizes them, and adds them to the product backlog.<br />
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Scrum teams should have one Product Owner.<br />
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<b>Retrospective</b><br />
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A team meeting that happens at the end of every development iteration to review lessons learned and to discuss how the team can be more efficient in the future. It is based on the principles of applying the learning from the previous sprint to the upcoming sprint.<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-retrospective-have-you-tried.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-retrospective-have-you-tried.html</a><br />
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<b>Scrum</b><br />
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Scrum is a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value. It is based on the adaptive and iterative methodology of software development.<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-ten-must-dos-of-scrum.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-ten-must-dos-of-scrum.html</a><br />
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<b>Scrumban</b><br />
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Scrumban is a mix between Scrum and Kanban.... There is some debate in certain agile circles as to the existence of Scrumban!<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/scrum-kanban-what-about-scrumban-anyone.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/scrum-kanban-what-about-scrumban-anyone.html</a><br />
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<b>Scrum Master</b><br />
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The Scrum master is accountable for removing impediments to the ability of the team to deliver the sprint goal/deliverables. The ScrumMaster is not the team leader but acts as a buffer between the team and any distracting influences. The ScrumMaster ensures that the Scrum process is used as intended. The ScrumMaster is the enforcer of rules. A key part of the ScrumMaster’s role is to protect the team and keep them focused on the tasks at hand. The role has also been referred to as servant-leader to reinforce these dual perspectives.<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/christian-miles-csm-certified-scrum.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/christian-miles-csm-certified-scrum.html</a><br />
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<b>Spike</b><br />
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A short, time-boxed piece of research, usually technical, on a single story that is intended to provide just enough information that the team can estimate the size of the story.<br />
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<b>Sprint / Iteration</b><br />
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A fixed duration period of time where user stories are chosen to work on. The term Sprint comes from the Scrum methodology and is analogous to the term Iteration. A sprint is defined as a 2-4 week increment of software development activities that delivers working software and the end of the increment. External influences are not allowed to change the requirements of the stories being worked on.<br />
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<b>Sprint Backlog</b><br />
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At the beginning of each sprint, the team has sprint planning with an end result being a backlog of work that the team anticipates completing at the end of the sprint. These are the items that the team will deliver against throughout the duration of the sprint.<br />
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<b>Sprint Planning</b><br />
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Is a pre-sprint planning meeting attended by the core agile team. During the meeting the Product Owner describes the highest priority features to the team as described on the product backlog. The team then agrees on the number of features they can accomplish in the sprint and plans out the tasks required to achieve delivery of those features. The planning group works the features into User Stories and assigns Acceptance criteria to each story.<br />
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<b>Sprint Review</b><br />
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Each Sprint is followed by a Sprint review. During this review the software developed in the previous Sprint is reviewed and if necessary new backlog items are added.<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-retrospective-have-you-tried.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-retrospective-have-you-tried.html</a><br />
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<b>Story Points</b><br />
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Unit of estimation measuring complexity and size.<br />
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<b>Task</b><br />
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A user story can be broken down in to one or more tasks. Tasks are estimated daily in hours (or story points) remaining by the developer working on them.<br />
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<b>Taskboard / Storyborad /Kanban Board/Information Radiator </b><br />
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A wall chart with cards or post-it that represents all the work for in a given sprint. The notes are moved across the board to show progress.<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-information-radiator.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-information-radiator.html</a><br />
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<b>Team</b><br />
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The Team is responsible for delivering the product. A Team is typically made up of 5–9 people with cross-functional skills who do the actual work (analyse, design, develop, test, technical communication, document, etc.).<br />
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When forming teams it's generally considered wise to use the 2-pizza rule.. IE. teams should not be so big that they cannot be fed with 2 pizzas.... Which probably means a team of 2 developers :-)<br />
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The team should be self-organizing and self-led, but often work with some form of project or team management.<br />
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<b>Test Driven Development</b><br />
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Test-driven development (TDD) is a software development process that relies on the repetition of a very short development cycle: first the developer writes a failing automated test case that defines a desired improvement or new function, then produces code to pass that test and finally refactors the new code to acceptable standards.<br />
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Test Driven Development (TDD) is described in this Wikipedia page for full description<br />
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<b>Time-boxing</b><br />
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Time-boxing is a planning technique common in planning projects - A period of time is agreed on and work stops once that period of time has elapsed.<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-time-box.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-time-box.html</a><br />
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<b>User Story</b><br />
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A user story is a very high-level definition of a requirement, containing just enough information so that the developers can produce a reasonable estimate of the effort to implement it. A user story is one or more sentences in the everyday or business language of the end user that captures what the user wants to achieve. A user story is also a placeholder for conversation between the users and the team. The user stories should be written by or for the customers for a software project and are their main instrument to influence the development of the software. User stories could also be written by developers to express non-functional requirements (security, performance, quality, etc.)<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/how-to-write-good-user-stories.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/how-to-write-good-user-stories.html</a><br />
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<b>Velocity</b><br />
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It is a relative number which describes how much work the team can get 'done' during a time-box.<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/velocity.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/velocity.html</a><br />
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<b>Vertical Slice</b><br />
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A really important concept with agile... development effort should be focused on delivering features rather than horizontal layers of code which provide no business advantage.<br />
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<b>WIP</b><br />
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Also known as Work in Progress is any work that has been started but has yet to be completed.<br />
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All agile teams should impose strict WIP limits.<br />
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<a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/work-in-progress-limits.html">http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/work-in-progress-limits.html</a><br />
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<b>XP</b><br />
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Nothing to with a version of Windows! XP (eXtreme Programming) is a software development methodology intended to improve software quality.<br />
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Agile does not talk about how to implement software projects at the coding level but XP is a much favoured framework.<br />
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It advocates frequent "releases" in short development cycles (time-boxing) and using techniques such as paired programming, TDD, automated tested and continuous builds.<br />
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-79248706995848445772011-11-03T17:05:00.000+00:002014-12-23T07:19:30.943+00:00MX5 - A winter sports car?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">OK, this article might seem a bit strange when compared with the usual mix of loosely IT related stories you'll find on this site but I'm a very big MX5 fan, I've owned several over the last decade - The MX5 is the perfect plucky British sport's car, rear wheel drive, front-engine, perfect 50/50 handling, not a super-car by any means but perfect for throwing around country lanes, top-down on those barmy summer evenings.... even if they are actually built in Hiroshima.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">In the winter in snow and ice however - rear wheel drive and weighing roughly the same as Keira Knightley does make for rather interesting driving! which is why for years I've always switched to Winter tyres between November and March (as instructed to do so in the owners manual!)</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7c6Foxix9E1sAN_iEY6hxV7hhyOpM6zTp752tEK608hlw-mlFjDFVvNekqqv_EwsNda-IgBDcDVXJipiLlWe18Rp834Hl_Jf-nnxj0zNTb-V5Z5_YIP2fnSoCiZIWVEYXviGhYBT155Y/s1600/coopertire.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7c6Foxix9E1sAN_iEY6hxV7hhyOpM6zTp752tEK608hlw-mlFjDFVvNekqqv_EwsNda-IgBDcDVXJipiLlWe18Rp834Hl_Jf-nnxj0zNTb-V5Z5_YIP2fnSoCiZIWVEYXviGhYBT155Y/s1600/coopertire.jpg" /></span></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">So what are winter tyres and do they really work.... to be honest 'Winter tyre' is bit of a generic term, The tyres I use in the winter are mud and sand tyres with the snow flake symbol. They contain much more silicone than normal tyres which mean they stay flexible at cold temperatures unlike conventional 'summer tyres' which below 7c start to become hard. They have much deeper threads and are designed to be self cleaning of snow with a channel which collects compacted snow and throws it off! In fact the tyre is designed to keep hold of snow for one revolution (as fresh snow sticks to snow) and loose it before it's gets compacted on the second revolution.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Do they work... YES, I've driven in snow up-to around 8" deep and have found the MX5 handled better (in terms of grip) than my old 4*4.... the one problem is that the MX5 doesn't really have the torque to push through deep snow, well it's not designed for that purpose! but it did keep going where other bigger cars were abandoned! Braking is where they become unbelievably good.... they work in snow!! you put your brakes on and the car just stops, no drama or fuss it just stops! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The big question how much do they cost? well I brought mine from <a href="http://www.camskill.co.uk/" target="_blank">camskill</a> for around <span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">£160 for a set of 4!!!! (that was a few years ago and they have gone up) You then need to have them fitted or get a second set of rims. I have several sets of tyres anyway - some for racing and car control days, some for normal use and of cause the winter ones!</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 19.1875px;">However remember your only wearing out one set of tyres at a time so my 'summer tyres' last longer.... and I never worry about being able to get home... the mighty MX5 with winter tyres truly is invincible!</span></span><br />
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Written by<br />
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Christian Miles<br />
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-88139346587968144352011-03-29T19:11:00.000+01:002014-12-28T14:28:54.674+00:00The Sprint Goal<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Everybody needs to have goals these days…. Whether you want to or not! It could be as part of an appraisal process or a team at work… Often these are medium to long term aspirations which nobody ever checks the progress of! <br />
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However, For those that read my <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/the-ten-must-dos-of-scrum.html">The Ten must do’s of Scrum </a>one of the artefacts I list is the Sprint Goal This is one of those often overlooked aspects of doing Scrum but like time boxing it’s an excellent way to keep things targeted. <br />
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<b>Who sets the sprint goal? </b><br />
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Ideally the goal of the iteration should be set by the product owner ( PO), It’s their opportunity to set the agenda and to ensure that everyone understands what the focus of the sprint is. It’s also the responsibility of the scrum team to commit to the goal or if the goal is unobtainable within a single iteration to explain this to the PO. In determining if a goal is achievable the final say is with the scrum team and the PO should be respectful of their opinion (That doesn’t mean that the PO shouldn’t challenge the team however) <br />
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<b>Determine the stories that deliver the goal </b><br />
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One of the agile ‘games’ I like to play when facilitating a sprint planning session is to get the PO to come to the ceremony with the goal already thought out and written on an index card. <br />
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I then stick that card to the board and get the team to look at the user stories and pick only those that supports the goal of the sprint. <br />
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Whilst this is typically the domain of the PO – I like to mix things up from time to time and it’s good to get the scrum team involved and thinking about the product – However, The PO always has the final say and veto powers! <br />
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Once we’ve agreed what user stories support the goal we then prioritise the user stories… I like to keep this activity ‘real’ and ‘physical’ so I get the team to move the user stories around on the board – Sometimes I get the PO to set the sequence… But another nice ‘game’ is to split the user-stories up between the team members and get each person to pin the story where they think it belongs. Once the user-stories are sequenced we discuss and re-sequence as required but again the PO gets the final say. <br />
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<b>So what makes a good Sprint Goal? </b><br />
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When I was in the murky world of management I was responsible for doing appraisals and discussing/setting an individual’s goals… These goals had to be S.M.A.R.T: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time bound. <br />
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Well the time-bound part is easy – all sprints should be time boxed and the goal is relevant for the duration of the sprint. <br />
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In the early days of a project the goals might address uncertainty and investigating the domain – as time goes by the sprint goal should be targeted towards completing the most relevant features required to deliver the product vision. <br />
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Ensuring that your goals are specific and measurable is essential for determining success and should form part of your definition of done for the sprint. <br />
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Don’t create goals that are vague and just read “Create a prototype of the forecast report” instead try “Create a paper prototype to demonstrate the forecasting reports to the chief management accountant” This helps to ensure that the goal is relevant and measurable.<br />
Scrum is all about rapid feedback. The delivery of the sprint should be demonstrated in the Sprint review to the relevant stakeholders and PO – Or better yet get the PO to demo to the stakeholders – Doing this helps to break down barriers and encourages a more collaborative approach. <br />
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<b>In Summary </b><br />
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Having a sprint goal encourages focus and facilitates teamwork towards a single well understood goal, appraisal of the sprint is easier and stakeholder engagement and satisfaction should improve. <br />
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But probably the most important advantage of all… When the ‘big boss’ asks what you’re working on – you have a clear defined answer to respond with… rather than babbling on until their eyes glaze over and they walk off!<br />
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4560473012365698008.post-68719116989355420152010-12-30T18:20:00.000+00:002018-03-05T11:51:54.458+00:00The ten must do's of Scrum<meta content='0;url=https://www.christianmiles.com/blog/2013/02/the-ten-must-dos-of-scrum.html/' http-equiv='refresh'/>
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It's a bit risky having a ten of anything these days.... There was a time when a title like the 'Top ten movies' or 'Top ten reasons your career is going wrong' would have sold, but recently I've noticed a definite trend towards the number five '5 Must have's on your CV' if you don't believe me go check out LinkedIn you'll be sure to find a top 5 story but never a top 10.... It seems a little like dumbing down to me!<br />
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However if you're doing Scrum there is in my opinion 10 must do's! actually perhaps 11 or 12.<br />
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Five of these are meetings (sometimes given the rather grand title of ceremonies) and six are artefacts.<br />
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<b>So, What are the five meetings:</b><br />
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1. Sprint Planning - Takes place at the start of each sprint, The team meet with the product owner to discuss the next set of highest priority items from the 'Product backlog'.<br />
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The result of this meeting is a 'Sprint Backlog' which contains the stories broken down into tasks, the team agree with the product owner the commitment for the sprint and a sprint goal. This ceremony should be time boxed and as a rule of thumb 2hours for every week of a sprint.<br />
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2. Daily scrum - Also known as the 'Standup' and possibly the most famous of the Scrum meetings. The team meet for a maximum of 15 minutes per day with the scrum master and answer three very important questions:<br />
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1. What did I do yesterday?<br />
2. What will I do today?<br />
3. What problems or issues do I have<br />
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These questions are so important that I have them printed on a card and passed around the group to keep things focused - <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/the-daily-stand-up.html">The daily standup</a> or <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-dysfunctional-daily-stand-up-game.html">The Dysfunctional Standup Game</a><br />
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3. Sprint Review, AKA the demo - This takes place at the end of each sprint. The team meet with the product owner and stakeholders to demonstrate the working software produced during that sprint - <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-sprint-review-meeting.html">The sprint review</a><br />
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4. Retrospective - Occurs at the end of each sprint, I usually do mine on the second Thursday of the Sprint (partially down to meeting room availability) The team meet with the scrum master and look at what went well and what could be improved - <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-retrospective-have-you-tried.html">The Retrospective </a><br />
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5. Product Grooming - This a chance to meet up with the product owner and 'groom' the back log. The Product owner is responsible for developing the high-level stories to describe the product vision and maintaining the backlog - But I find it good to run story writing workshops with the team to further break them down and to estimate stories using planning poker or at a high level - <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/affinity-estimation-and-back-log-all-in.html">Affinity estimation</a> This can be one meeting per sprint but I find it works better to have several meetings a sprint, some with the product owner, team or a mix of both.<br />
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<b><br />And the 6 the artefacts:</b><br />
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1. Vision Statement - Every organisation needs a Vision Statement these days and a project is no exception! It's vital for everyone involved to know what they are aiming for. It should be simple and straight to the point but describe the product vision and what's be aimed for in the next release - <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/the-product-vision.html">Product Vision</a><br />
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2. Product Backlog - This is the list of all the known requirements for the system. This list must be prioritised and estimated - The product backlog is always in flux and can be changed and re-prioritised as the project needs.<br />
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3. Sprint Goal - The Vision for the current sprint and an agreement between the team and the product owner - <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/everybody-needs-to-have-goals-these-days.html">Sprint Goal</a><br />
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4. Sprint Backlog - The team break the product backlog stories down into tasks to be completed this sprint.<br />
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5. Impediments - I still call mine a risks register (I know of some in the Agile community who'd have me shot for borrowing the term!) All things that are slowing you down or stopping the development process are identified and prioritised. This can be at daily scrums or in team retrospectives but I usually find it best to keep up to date daily. <br />
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6. Sprint Burn-down - A visual representation of the teams progress for the sprint. This allows the team, scrum master and other interested parties to see the current progress. I also usually keep a Product burn-down.<br />
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And thats it The 10 must do's! or is it 11? Although I actually have 12 but I didn't want to call this article the '12 Must.....' well you get the idea why not!<br />
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7. I always maintain a Task board (or information radiator) – It allows me to be transparent with the team and stake holders and also serves to promote some interest by other teams - <a href="http://christianleemiles.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/the-information-radiator.html">Information Radiator</a><br />
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And there you have it.... The ten must do's of Scrum! Or was it 12 in the end?<br />
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Christian Mileshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17674158031611770268noreply@blogger.comUnited Kingdom55.378051 -3.4359729999999912.188224499999997 -86.05316049999999 90 79.18121450000001