Agile Bert joins the world of blog.

My far more technical compadre and fellow Agile Yorkshire attendee 'Agile Bert' (aka John) has joined the blogging world.

Will he become a prolific blogger?

Will he become a (thought) leader amongst men?

Why is he called Bert?

That last one actually has an answer: here

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Continuous (Self) Improvement

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” - Leo Tolstoy Introduction: Most people talk a great game about continuous improvement. And as a group, most of us truly agree with and see the benefits of, the concept as applied to our projects and teams. Sprint Retrospectives, Post Implementation Reviews, 5S, DMAIC, PDSA (not the dog people) and so on. But... Do you practice it personally ? I don't mean training courses, formal development plans and all the other bureaucracy that people step through stoically every year in a bid to get a pay rise. I'm referring to the small (but meaningful) improvements we can make every day. Or to work in an Agile principle: "At regular intervals, the team (of one in this case) reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly." Step 1: Feedback (aka input to the CI process): Of course, all improvements need to be identified i...

Definition of Done - An example

Done? To call a story 'Done-Done' we should refer to two things: the acceptance criteria for each story the team’s Definition of Done The DoD is defined by the team and should be updated whenever it seems appropriate e.g if there's a big change in the team or the work; or the team simply sees the need for a change. If you have project based teams, it's something to agree before timebox 1 kicks off. If you're more product based and continuously working through an ever growing backlog, slot it into a timebox kick-off, a retro (if that's where it was discussed) or just grab 10 minutes after the daily stand-up. An Example: Here's a basic example created by a team I was working with: ---------------------------------------------------------- A. Dev done ---- Code review done ---- Unit Tests written and passing ---- Integration tests written and passing B. Test complete ---- Manual Testing complete – Acceptance Met ---- Automation Tests written and ...

Agile Armchair Generals

If you're an Agile practitioner of any sort you will understand what I mean by Armchair Generals (if not, it may be an idea to check if you are one..). Apropos of nothing an email arrives that questions the management of your project in terms of whether it is properly 'Agile'. Feedback is, of course, a great tool. But it must always be understood within the context of the person providing it. So when the email lands questioning the type of contingency you've built into your project or the depth of analysis performed on your requirements set, ask yourself: 1. Has the questioner spotted something you and the team have missed? It happens. That's why independent reviews can be helpful. 2. Has the questioner misunderstood something about your project? If so, maybe your communications weren't quite clear enough or they've missed something - it happens, we're all busy. If the questioner has understood the topic correctly and is simply disagreeing ...

IT Project Management - life on the front line

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