Kirk Thoughts

These are notes and video taken from the highly entertaining Agile 2008 session Effective Pairing: Good, Bad and the Ugly. Thanks to Ryan Hoegg, Lasse Koskela, Dave Nicolette, Brett Schuchert for letting me capture them on video. These four guys acted out personalities, scenarios and pitfalls that can occur with pair programming, each skit followed by a room discussion on how to address the issue(s).

I did manage to write down a few of the tips mentioned:

• Problem: experienced dev takes over pairing work to meet deadline. Keep track of the number of times that one developer takes control of pairing situation to meet a deadline.
• Promote code team ownership, skill team ownership. Anyone can change (and hopefully improve) any code in the project. The team must take responsibility for improving each other’s skills. Find the time to help someone get better, otherwise one dev becomes an island of knowledge. Tomorrow never comes!
• Isolated problem or ongoing? Observe if the situation is part of a pattern or a one-time event.

Part One (12 min)

Part Two (26 min)

Part Three (26 min)

These are notes from Jeff Sutherland’s Agile 2008 presentation “Money For Nothing and Your Change For Free: Agile Contracts“. Jeff summarized his talk in this way:

“The “Money for Nothing” strategy works when customers want fixed price estimates for the entire contract up front. The Agile contract allows termination of the contract early when the value of features drops below an ROI criteria. The contract allows the customer to save 80% of their remaining funds by giving the Agile vendor 20% of the remaining contract value in return driving the margins of an Agile contractor from 15-20% up to 50-80%.”

From Scrum Butt to High Performing Team

Jeff began his presentation by talking about the Nokia Test For Scrum Certification, which Nokia uses to measure their team’s level of agility (see questions and scoring method in slide show below). Jeff had everyone in the room score their own team. I rated ifPeople in general at a 5 out of 10, which is just above the starting average. Anything 8 and under is in the ScrumButt category.

Why is this important? Teams that score high tend to be the high performing teams. They also generate much higher revenues, based on Jeff’s analysis:

• Great Scrum: 400% revenue increase
• Good Scrum: 300%
• Pretty good Scrum: 150% - 200%
• ScrumButt: 0 - 35%

Jeff also compared agile to waterfall teams, suggesting high performing agile teams can outperform waterfall teams by a 5-6x margin. The problem is, contracts that are time and materials don’t reward high performance. T&M is low risk and low margin, you only get paid for the hours you put in, even when you take far less time than your competitors. Fixed price contracts aren’t any better, with vendors trying to out-discount each other. Many vendors only making money if the project is late and over budget due to change requests and building functionality that users do not want.

Money For Nothing

What if there was incentive for projects to end early? The Money For Nothing clause does this. Here is how it works:

1. Use standard fixed price contract, with time and materials for changes.
2. Insert Money For Nothing clause
   1. Only operational if customer follows Scrum rules
   2. Mutually agreed estimates for all work items, otherwise contract reverts to time and materials (thus incentive to agree)
3. Customer decides when value of continuing project higher than cost to do so.
4. Supplier allows termination of contract at any time for 20% of remaining contract value.
5. Supplier assumes risk of late delivery of mutually agreed work.

Change For Free

Next, add incentive for the customer to follow Scrum process, and to be aware of impacts of changes to the release plan by adding a Change For Free clause:

1. The customer must execute this option by working with the Scrum Team every Sprint.
2. Failure to do this voids this clause and the contract reverts to time and materials.
3. Changes are included with these rules
   1. Changes in priorities are free if total contract work is not changed
   2. New features may be added for free at Sprint boundaries if low priority items of equal work are removed from contract
4. Requirements of customer:
   1. Features are prioritized by business value and implemented in order of maximum value
   2. Users follows project closely and work with the Product Owner to produce a quality Product Backlog

Embedding Scrum Incentive Into Contract: I Like (A Lot)

One of the reasons I went to Jeff’s session is we’ve struggled with some clients to get them engaged with the Scrum process. Yes, we do need to do a better job of explaining the process up front and what is expected of them. Defining roles and responsibilities right into the contract gives them proper visibility. Having incentives for the client to *want* to work in Scrum style increases the likelihood that they happen.

Extreme Data Point: Abandon Projects

Jeff ended the session by proposing that “projects are bad”. You know, the way most of us organize our work around teams. Apparently, this is a feeling shared by some other agilistas and companies, and more information will be published on this topic, hopefully later this year for further discussion.

Why are projects bad? Mostly because of tremendous start up / tear down costs. The new idea is to keep teams together, and have them all working on a continuous stream of work from a shared backlog. Work is then packaged up somehow into deliverables to clients. One way to do this approach is to productize architecture.

Okay, round 3 of the Agile 2008 session picks. Agile 2008 is the premier conference of the Agile world. There are about 400 different sessions to attend, which is why I’ve taken about 2 days to wade through all the options. Earlier I posted my faves for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Thursday

Early Morning

• New arrows for the Agile quiver: Now that the team’s head is in the game, how do you get their heart in? by Jim McCarthy. My focus thus far with Agile has been more on the mechanics, than on the motivation.
• Paving the Way for Agile Testing by Eric Jimmink. How quality starts by getting a better definition of Done, and improving teamwork in testing.
• User Story Mapping: Making Sense Out Of Your User Story Backlog by Jeff Patton. 3 hours of participants functioning in small teams to build a “story map” then learning to leverage that story map to tell bigger stories about their product, plan incremental releases, and thin releases down to more economical feasible sizes while retaining usefulness to users, and value to stakeholders. Yeah, getting lost in a mountain of stories is all too familiar.

Tough choices. Leaning towards Eric and the panel in the next session, otherwise user story mapping.

Before Lunch

• From High-performing to Hyper-performing Agile teams, panel discussion. Presentation of 3 unique case studies, by 3 top notch agile guys, each showcasing how to crank up the agile performance.I want to hear “techniques for working with many and varied clients simultaneously: how to maintain consistent and predictable velocity, how to scale teams without losing efficiency,and how to move developers fluidly between multiple teams and multiple products.”

After Lunch

• From Concept to Product Backlog - What Happens Before Iteration 0? by Gerard Meszaros, Janice Aston. “This tutorial provides an overview of what needs to go on “behind the scenes” between when a project is conceived and when development can start in earnest. It identifies the artifacts that may need to be produced, whether and when they should be produced, which activities can be used to produce them and who should be involved in those activities.” ‘Nuff said.

Late Afternoon

• Estimating Considered Wasteful: Introducing Micro-Releases by Joshua Kerievsky. No story estimates, no velocity calcs, no estimate reconciliation, multiple releases per week - what is going on here?
• Exploring User Stories Through Mind Mapping by Kenji Hiranabe, Takeshi Kakeda. I’m a huge fan of mind mapping. Looks like a technique I could use remotely, given I don’t meet face to face with clients much.

Friday

• Collaboration Explained - Tools for Facilitating Real Agile Teams by Jean Tabaka. She’s one of the best on this topic.
• Effective Pairing: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly by Dave Nicolette. I don’t code, but pairing is something teams I work with often have little experience with. Will likely go to this topic due to popularity by rest of my co-workers.
• Dude, Where’s Our Release Plan? by David Hussman. Release planning is underutilized / undervalued in our projects.

My last post covered sessions I’d like to attend at the Agile 2008 conference on Tuesday, the opening day. Here is the short list for Wednesday:

Early Morning

• Natural Laws of Software Development - Deriving Agile Best Practices by Ron Jeffries, Chet Hendrickson. Ron is another of those presenters I’m told one shouldn’t miss.
• Embrace Uncertainty: Why In Agile Development Knowing What You Want May Be An Impediment to Getting It by Jeff Patton. This one is super relevant, both for developers who crave details to get super precise estimates and tasks, and the client who wants certainty and clarity.
• Stop Thinking So Small with Agile by Ryan Martens, Jean Tabaka. Another JT talk that looks to nature as a guide to evolving Agile forward.
• Panel Discussion on Troubleshooting Distributed Agile Team Projects. Wow, it’s going to be a tough call, but will likely take this one for the morning session. DA is *the* main topic for me right now.
• Overcoming Resistance to Change by Dave Nicolette, Lasse Koskela. I’m an ideas guy passionate about process improvement, but not great at motivating others for change. Only drawback is this is a full morning session.

Before Lunch

• Coaching Agile Teams by Rachel Davies, Liz Sedley. I need to learn more about facilitating and mentoring. Will be helpful to understand a variety of coaching styles and techniques.
• 10 Ways To Screw Up With Scrum and XP by Henrik Kniberg.
• Crafting User Stories - Four Experts and the Audience Weigh In by Joshua Kerievsky.

After Lunch

• Typical Pitfalls in Agile Software Development by Jutta Eckstein
• Coaches are Producers by David Hussman
• Narrative Testing: Tools for Story Test Driven Development by Michael Phoenix, Rand Huso
• Becoming a Fearless Leader of Change (To Agile or Any New Idea) In Your Organization by Linda Rising, MaryLynn Manns. Linda is another of those don’t-miss presenters. I’ll most likely go to this one, God knows I can use it. Full afternoon session.
• Updating “Patterns for Distributed” by Keith Braithwaite. Full afternoon session

Late Afternoon

• Release Planning: (The Small Card Game) Discover What Works by Ron Jeffries, Chet Hendrickson. Release planning is one of those things I’ve done a little of, would like to ramp up the learning curve.

Following Mark’s lead, I am posting sessions I would like to attend at the Agile 2008 conference. There are so many good ones to choose from, it’s hard to decide! If you are planning to go to any of these sessions, post a comment and let’s get in touch. Also check out the Agile 2008 Friendfeed room for others attending.

Tuesday

Morning

• Expanding Agile Horizons: The Five Dimensions of Systems by Mary Poppendick. I’ve read from a few people she is an amazing speaker worth listening to, regardless of topic. I’m interested in learning where Agile may be heading next.
• Agile Distributed Teams by Douglas Shimp. At ifPeople, all developers work for partner companies in South America, mostly Argentina. I’m based in Canada and the rest are in Atlanta. So yeah, distributed is a big topic for us.
• Leadership Success Recipes for Agile in the 21st Century by Jean Tabaka, Chris Louvion. Jean is another amazing speaker. I’m particularly interested in leadership as a project manager trying to become a scrum master. Only down side is talk seems focused on large organizational issues, though not 100% sure about that.

After Lunch

• Introduction to Lean Software Development by Allan Shalloway. I know little about Lean, so interested in knowing more about this agile approach and how our company might benefit from Lean principles.
• Adventures in Agile Contracting: Evolving From Time and Materials to Fixed Price, Fixed Scope, Fixed Schedule contracts by Teresa Franklin. We have some clients who really struggle with the Agile approach to contracts, and we don’t always succeed at helping them understand. Teresa is presenting how her company evolved their approach.
• What Makes Distributed Agile Projects Succeed (or Fail) by Chris Sims. More distributed best practices, learned in the trenches from a guy who has worked with a lot of distributed teams.
• Agile and Paper Prototyping by Todd Zaki Warfel. Won’t likely get to this because it covers both afternoon sessions. Always interested in better ways to communicate requirements efficiently.

Late Afternoon

• Agile Contracting by Rachel Weston, Chris Spagnuolo. I’ve read some of Chris’ experiences with Agile contracting in the Rally Agile Commons.
• Business Value - Soup to Nuts by Andy Pols, Chris Matts. Outline looks great - how to ensure projects focus on value that matters to client, and helping them to realize the value they are receiving.
• Money for Nothing and Your Change For Free: Agile Contracts by Jeff Sutherland. Another top notch speaker on a topic I need more insight on.

Data centres consume vast amounts of energy, and the situation is only getting worse. Luiz Andre Barraso of Google stated in a published paper last year that every gain in performance has been accompanied by a proportional increase in overall platform power consumption. ZDNet UK reports that the average energy costs of running a data centre in the UK will double over the next five years. The European Commission is now considering a voluntary code of conduct on energy efficiency for data centre operators to help address this issue.

No wonder consumers are looking for greener hosting choices. A potential client of mine is interested in hosting his site with a provider that uses green energy. This interests me as well, in my pursuit of leaving a smaller footprint on our planet.

The one he found uses 100% renewable energy (wind and solar), plants a new tree for each client, and believes in social responsibility through how they work, including telecommuting and a mostly paperless office. Unfortunately, their offerings aren’t suitable for Plone, and that is the same story with every other hosting provider I found, including ones listed at TreeHugger.com. If there is a “green” option out there for Plone, I haven’t found it.

So, is there an option for environmentally conscious organizations / individuals who want their Plone site consuming less of our natural resources? Let me know by posting your comments.

Technorati Tags: environment

I am helping the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie switch to Google Apps, primarily for better a email system. The current email server, a RedHat Enterprise 3 box is getting antiquated and the SpamAssassin software isn’t stemming much of the spam flow, based on the number of not-so-happy emails and calls we receive from parishes on the topic.

Setting up Google Apps is pretty straightforward. Just register, configure the DNS for email, and upload a CSV file of the accounts you need.

Now for the hard part.

The real challenge to this migration is getting all of the parishes set up properly. The last time we tried to get all parishes set up with @diocesessm.org accounts, we sent out letters, emails and faxes. How many set up the accounts on their own? Close to none, so we spent a lot of time on the phone, walking not so technical people through the myriad of clicks and inputs - not my idea of a fun afternoon. This time around, I was determined to make this a better experience for everyone involved by making the process as simple as possible.

Almost all of the parishes use Outlook Express, so I looked for ways to automate the setup of a new account. I experimented with:

1. Using some kind of batch installer program, but couldn’t find anything that would just run on its own that didn’t require some kind of install of its own first (and thus not adhering to the simple protocol).
2. Emailing a registry file containing all of the account information. Outlook Express stores all of its account info in the registry, so opening a .reg file would be a simple and accurate process. The catch? OE blocks .reg files by default, so they can’t be opened. A reasonable default, but a pain in the butt for me.
3. Emailing a link to download a registry file. This time, I got bit by IE, which ignores the file type described in the download header. Argh! When I finally got a workaround for the file type issue, I discovered the default IE blocks registry files also. Gee, what’s an honest system admin to do?
4. The chosen solution was #2 with specific steps on how to turn off the security feature so that the file could be opened.  The email and attached files were created using a simple python script, an email template and a csv file with the account-specific data. I was a little worried that non-techie parish secretaries might still be confused, but a few test parishes worked out fine, so at last, a working solution!

Chance of email lost or disrupted close to zero

The nice part is the chances of losing any email or having any disruption in email service is close to nil. The parishes will have their old and new accounts active at the same time, even after the switch is made, so any email that arrives in the old account just before the switch will still get downloaded. This happens because Google has its own mail server name different from the Diocese’s current one, and we’re keeping the DNS records for both mail servers. The actual switch will involve changing the MX record priority, so that the new server becomes the first choice for incoming mail.

The odds are only good, of course, if parishes actually install their account in time. The actual switch is happening at the end of this week, on Friday March 30. Fortunately the Google control panel shows me which accounts have been accessed (and hence activated) so I’ll know who to *remind* in the coming days.

Check back next week to see what proverbial bits hit the fan!

Technorati Tags: email, google+apps, diocese, migration, outlook+express

Another article about how churches are adopting online communications: blogs, podcasts, chat rooms.
You never know what forms of online communication might work, but the key is to get out there, try and experiment. Given the cost of these tools are so low now, and so many people are on the web, churches can’t afford to miss out.
Just ask the Rev. Rick Chandler of New Light Methodist Church whose web site gets 10,000 downloads a month of their audio sermons. Guess who took the plunge and made it happen? His wife.
Perhaps we need a new twist on the WWJD - What Would Jesus Do? movement. WWJB - What Would Jesus Blog?
Churches spread Word on Web

Technorati Tags: outreach

I just installed the latest Firefox browser, having heard that it is a lot faster than the older 1.5. I had pretty much abandoned 1.5 on my Mac because it ate up all my memory and chugged so much I saw the busy spinning wheel more often than not.
With 2.0, I have to say: wow. It’s faster than Safari and Flock (a browser based on Firefox), and the new inline spell checking is a fantastic feature. We get requests from some people using DeoWeb for a spell checker so I’ve recommended the Google toolbar up to now, but inline checking takes the cake. Now there’s no excuse for those embarrassing typos when posting online.
There is also phishing protection and a bunch of other goodies.

Haven’t tried Firefox? Get it now - it’s more secure than Internet Explorer and has tons of great extensions to plug in.

Churches and other non-profits have important, critical data that should be backed up on a scheduled basis, stored at a reliable source off-site. I suspect, tho that most churches backup process is like this:

1. Backups happen sporadically
2. Not all important files are backed up
3. Backup files are stored on the same computer as the original, or on a disk or something semi-reliable.
4. Backup files are kept in the office.

Apple’s statistics show that only 4% of Mac users have an automatic backup strategy. I doubt churches are any better.
To be fair, my own backup strategy is full of holes. I’ve tried setting up an automated backup using rsync to copy changed files to an external hard drive, but that means turning on the external drive in time for the backup, and for some reason rsync seems to copy everything, not just the changed stuff so it takes forever.
If doing backups were as simple as typing out a Word document, more organizations would be doing it, including myself!
Amazon’s new Simple Storage Service (S3) offers a partial way there. S3 is an Internet “web service” that permits you to store unlimited data on their very robust, highly secure system. This is the system they use, as well as corporations like Microsoft. Rates, currently, are 15 cents per GB stored a month and 20 cents per GB transferred.
A church with 10GB of data that adds 0.5GB of new data per month would pay approximately less than $10 for the whole year of secure, off-site storage. That’s cheap. No other online storage service compares right now.
Still, that doesn’t solve the problem entirely of getting files backed up regularly. S3 provides the storage, not the tool to backup the data.
In another post I’ll list some tools that make it easy to backup with S3. I haven’t looked yet, so Google don’t let me down.

Technorati Tags: backup, amazon s3