SD Times on Agile
The SD Times writes, At the five-year mark, the agile manifesto still stands, but adoption of agile methodologies is only now starting to be seen beyond project level.Tags: agile
Posted by Simon Baker @ permalink
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Tags: agile
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Relationships between the Agile values
In Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, Second Edition , Kent Beck defined the following 5 values:- Communication: Success is directly proportional to communication. All communications should be clear, open and honest because communication is important to creating a team spirit and promoting collaboration.
- Simplicity: Aim to find the simplest solutions possible because it's better to implement a simple solution today and enhance it tomorrow if required, than to implement a more complicated solution today which may never be used. Focusing on simple solutions to today's problems minimises the cost of change over time.
- Feedback: Insist on feedback early and often because it steers our efforts and enables us to adapt quickly. Iterative and incremental development enables the Consumer Experience Team to provide regular feedback about whether the software satisfies their requirements, and allows them to assess and reprioritise work.
- Courage: Have the courage to speak truthfully, to seek concrete answers, to take responsibility and to be accountable. Have the courage to develop software quickly, to make changes to existing software, and to discard failing solutions and seek better ones.
- Respect: Respect each person in the team and the contributions they make. Take the goals of the Consumer Experience Team seriously and demonstrate you care as much about delivering the project as they do.
The following diagram demonstrates the relationships that exist between the various values. The diagram is based on some text I read somewhere. When I find the original material I will reference it properly.
valuerelationships
Originally uploaded by sjb140470.
References:
[1] Kent Beck's Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change, Second Edition
[2] Scott Ambler's Agile Modeling: Effective Practices for Extreme Programming and the Unified Process
Tags: agile, agile values
Posted by Simon Baker @ permalink
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Patton on Self-organising
If you tell people where to go, but not how to get there, you'll be amazed at the resultsGeneral George S. Patton
Tags: agile, self-organising
Posted by Simon Baker @ permalink
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Empowered by living freedoms
Virginia Satir recognised that each person possesses a personal power, which she thought of as an energy to be used, channelled, and directed toward constructive or destructive ends. She said that owning your own power is the beginning of your becoming a choice-maker and becoming a responsible person. Living the five freedoms is the strongest position of personal power that you can have.I've taken Virginia Satir's five freedoms and Norm Kerth's freedoms for retrospectives and come up with a hybrid set of freedoms for collaborative, self-organising teams:
- The freedom to perceive things as they really are.
- The freedom to say what you think and share your feelings without fear of discrimination or retribution.
- The freedom to ask questions, to ask for information, to ask for what you want.
- The freedom to make decisions to do the right thing.
- The freedom to be creative, to take risks and make mistakes.
- The freedom to learn, to change, and to seek improvement.
References:
[1] Virginia Satir's Making Contact
[2] Norm Kerth's Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews
Tags: virginia satir, empowerment, agile
Posted by Simon Baker @ permalink
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Creative thinking
Lately, I've been having lots of fun with the Whack Pack from Roger von Oech. My girlfriend recommended it when she saw the innovation games from Enthiosys. I've been reading a lot about creativity, empowerment, and ba and was curious to try out the Whack Pack. The Whack Pack contains a set of cards and a hand-book with exercises. Each card describes a technique for stimulating creative thinking by helping you to release, what Roger von Oech calls, mental locks. There's also an additional set of cards targetting innovation. If you're interested in thinking more creatively I heartily recommend the Whack Pack. I've summarised some of the techniques below to give you a flavour of what's inside.The key to thinking creatively is to forget what you know. Education has taught us that there's one right answer. This is wrong. There's always more than one right answer. One right answer gives us only one course of action, and that's risky in a world that's constantly changing. Never stop at the first right answer, find others for options and comparison. We're also taught that right answers are good and wrong answers are bad. Wrong again. Part of thinking creatively is about trying different things. First one approach. If that fails, try another approach, and then another, and so on. Don't be afraid to fail. If your imagination is to run free you must welcome errors because they indicate that you are diverging from thinking more of the same.
Knock your thinking out of the norm by challenging the rules, breaking the rules. Don't let your imagination be constrained by them. Similarly, don't let your thinking be contained within your area of expertise. Develop the attitude of an explorer and be prepared to discover new ideas wherever your mind takes you. Go mad. Play the fool to provoke wacky ideas. These can stimulate your imagination and provide stepping stones that lead you off the beaten track to places rich with new ideas.
Roger von Oech describes two phases in creative thinking: An imaginative phase followed by a practical phase. During the imaginative phase he says you employ soft thinking, which is metaphorical and playful, to generate ideas that are different. In contrast, during the practical phase you employ hard thinking, which is logical, precise and consistent, to evaluate and execute ideas. Don't curtail your imagination by thinking logically too soon. Give your artistic side a chance before judging your ideas. Playing with ideas is fun. And having fun is contagious and motivating. Incubate ideas for a while before evaluating them. Back-off from the idea by putting it on the mental backburner. Let your subconscious work the idea, put it into perspective, and find new connections and stepping stones.
Don't forget to put your ideas into action. If you don't they're worthless.
Tags: creative thinking, lean, scrum
Posted by Simon Baker @ permalink
